The Worthy Communicant Rewarded

THE WORTHY COMMUNICANT REWARDED.

A FTER some agitation of thoughts, what most opportunely I might this day entertain your noble audience withal, at length I fastened on this Text; which is that sacred Map, in which we have compendiated the sum of those choice favors from above, that now this gladsome anniversary of our Savior's all-glorious Resurrection hath occasioned to his Church: For now we have more solemnly, and more generally renewed our Covenant with our God, and received the Seal of all our pardons in the blessed Sacrament: Now also hath the all-powerful arising of our Head Christ Jesus, carrying away in triumph (as Samson did the gates of Azzah on his shoulders) the bars of Death, Hell, and the Grave (and all this to [assure] his members of their complete justification before his offended Father, yea, of their sure possession of eternal bliss) offered it self unto our meditations. We are (too many of us) as Christ said unto the two Disciples, (whereof the one was named Cleophas, and the other one Ammaon, as St. Ambrose; or Nathanael, as Epiphanius; or else S. Luke himself, the Writer of the story, as Haymo, Lyranus, and Theophylact opine) to these two (what ever was the others name) going to Emmaus; we are, I say, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , slow of heart to believe, at least wise, through want of a more earnest taking-heed unto the things we hear; so sieve-like are our memories, that they do 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as St. Paul's word is, let slip, and to run out as leaking vessels, what should better be retained. Wherefore as the Manna, on the Jewish Sabbath, being laid up in a pot, was rendered sweet and fresh for use; so, that we may not, as ungrateful Israel, so soon forget the wonders of the Lord, so marvelous in our eyes, but rather on the contrary; as Ophir, in the days of Solomon, was the place for gold, because the most and best was there; so went I for a seasonable Text herefore, to this golden and beaten chapter (as well travelled in this kind, as Ophir was for gold) because here was the richest vein to furnish such an occasion: thence have I extracted a small model for my building, the two chief Pillars of which building, as Jachin and Boaz in Solomon's Temple, are the two main Articles of our Christian faith, viz. the resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting: And that which, as John Baptist did to Christ, fore-runneth, and prepares the way to solid comfort in them both, is, to eat the flesh, and to drink the blood of Christ; whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed, verse 55. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [indeed] because no food in shadow, or in type, but truly, and in substance; [indeed] because not provant for the body, but spiritual nourishment of the soul; [indeed] because not perishing with the using, but an heavenly viond, a food commending us to God, and nourishing up forever unto life eternal: These four then, viz.

• 1. The manducation of the flesh of Christ.
• 2. The compotation of the blood of Christ.
• 3. The resurrection of the body: And lastly,
• 4. The possession of eternal life; the certain issue of the other three.

These four, like the four rivers in the garden of Eden, do all spring from the pure fountain of this Scripture, and must now flow abroad into so many several streams of discourse, which in their present spreading shall make glad, I hope, this City of God: The same hand that gave the opportunity, vouchsafe to give success to this business.

Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

I shall begin in that order which the Text presenteth the parts in, and in the former generals observe, 1. The guest invited to this heavenly Feast [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] Whoso, or, as the Genevians render it, Whosoever, answering to that [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] in Saint Paul, the parallel Scripture unto this, 1 Cor. 11.27. 2. The provision made to entertain these guests, the flesh and blood of Christ, for meat and drink. 3. The two actions, with their relation to their several object, [eating] the flesh, and [drinking] the blood of Christ. 4. And fourthly, the conjunction of both these together (for which cause I called it a compotation) not flesh only without blood, but blood also as equally as the flesh; and both respectively to the [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] in the beginning. Of these in their order.

This [Whoso] is not either so universal, or indefinite, that pell mell promiscuously, by virtue of [it] all comers, or intruders were to be admitted to this sacred souls-repast, (though it be true, that every worthy and accomplished guest may take [ freely] of the heavenly Supper, and without cost; Come, saith the Prophet, eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight it self in fatness, and all without money, and without price, Isa. 55.1.2.) — Procul hinc, procul ite profani: For if he that thrust himself in without his wedding garment to the Kings Feast, was shamefully bound hand and foot, and cast into outer darkness, where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth; if there be a Nolite sanctum canibus, holy things, and pearls be interdicted unto dogs, and swine, unto persons of a currish, and swinish disposition, that still, as Peter saith, are turning back to their vomit, and to their wallowing in the mire of all impenitency:—Was a beast slain for touching the mount? and shall not a person that is embrutished, and sunk below his species in vile affections, be punished for touching that Table, where the Lord is present? Loe! He that eats Christ's flesh with a foul mouth, and receives him into an uncleansed and sinful soul, doth (as one saith well) all one, as if he should sop the bread he eats in dirt, or lay up his richest treasures in a sink: No such unworthy and undressed guests are to touch here; yea, if they should, all that they eat or drink, is but sure judgment, and damnation to themselves, by such a presumptuous impreparation laying themselves open to the strokes of God's displeasure; of which Nadab and Abihu, in a parallel case, are exampled out for our warning, being suddenly destroyed for offering strange fire at God's Altar: and no less are those endangered, that present strange souls, and a false faith at Christ's Table; for surely, as Moses said to Aaron, God will be sanctified in them that come nigh him: Wherefore our Savior, whose essence was Purity itself in abstracto, when he meant, though not to lay down anything w ^ch he had before, to wit, his Divinity (save only, as Pantoleon hath it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in the act, and time of his exinanition, he seemed awhiles to shadow the manifestation, and as it were to hide the glorious splendor of the same) yet to assume unto his divine Person another Nature, and that not of Angels, for [some] of them stood, but of Man, whose [whole] species was quite lost, as say the School-men, in the fall of Adam: In this his incarnation, or assumption of his humanity, he chose the womb of none but of a pure Virgin to be lodged in; for as no unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of Heaven, no more would the King of Heaven enter into any unclean thing: he was a Lamb without spot, or blemish, and could not therefore enter into a leprous soul; yea, his very body, and his flesh so pure, that those two noble Converts of his, Joseph of Arimathea, and his night-Disciple Nicodemus thought it fittest, as Primasius noteth out of St. John, to be wound up only in [linen] clothes, and with sweet spices and fragrant odors, to be interred in a [new] sepulcher, never soyled by a sinful body, Joh. 19.40, 41. And when himself was now about to give this same body of his in Sacrament, at the first institution of his last blessed Supper, unto his Disciples, its noted by the same Evangelist, chap. 13.4, 5. that he riseth from supper, that is, if I misconceive not, from the second and common supper (now begun) next to the eating of the Passover, which was the first and legal supper, which the word [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] rising up, partly intimates: For the legal Passover, as we may gather from Exod. 12.11. was to be eaten [standing] with staves in their hands; and at which [common] supper it was, before it was wholly ended, that Judas eat the sop, and had his traitorous hand with his Master in the dish: after which sop (no Sacramental sop, as I believe, with a learned Professor of Divinity a member of this Church) immediately he went out, Ver. 30. to do that work of darkness, for to serve his truest Master the Prince of Darkness, in betraying the innocent blood of the Prince of light, into the murderous hands of the Children of Darkness: He went out, and it was Night, that is, saith Alcuinus, He, Judas himself, was so personally, and in abstracto, he had a soul within so foul and black with this deed of darkness: I say, from this second and common supper (thus begun) and before the institution of the third, and last holy supper, which was not till after he sat down again, upon the ablution of his Disciples feet, and after too, that Judas was gone out for to betray him; which Beza noteth from the adverb [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] ver. 30. [Immediately] he went forth, that is, immediately after the sop, taken from the dish in that common supper, (for where is the Sacramental bread called a sop? or at least, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a [dipped] sop, as this is said to be, ver. 26?) I say, once more, from this second, and this common supper Jesus riseth, and laid aside his garments, and took a towell, and girded himself; after that, he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the Disciples feet, and to wipe them with the towell wherewith he was girded. The main passage in this Scripture that I mind for my present purpose, is the [washing of the Disciples feet]: and yet because we cannot baulk that Theological Maxim here, w ^ch saith, that omnis Christi actio nostra est instructio, Every action of Christ (only those excepted which were of miraculous and extraordinary dispensation, which by virtue of the union hypostatical were done alone by him, in which we cannot, nor ought to strive to resemble) is our instruction, and calls for our observation and imitation, at least, quantum ad substantiam actus, though not to be hoped, or attained by us, quantum ad agendi modum, as Alexander Hales distinguisheth: that is, for the substance, though not the full manner, or measure of exact performance of the action; (for what comparison?) Therefore I will first a little touch upon the depending circumstances: First then, he rising from the second supper [laid aside his garments.] For the better understanding of the mystery hereof, we may remember, that the Scripture mentions a threefold glorious garment, that the Lord puts on, as the King of glory, to whom the everlasting doors stand open. 1. The first is a garment of strength, Psal. 93.1. The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with Majesty, he is clothed with [strength] wherewith he hath girded himself. 2. The second is a garment of honor, and beauty, Psal. 104.1. Thou art clothed with [honor] and Majesty. 3. A third is the garment of light; Who coverest thyself with [light] as with a garment, Psal. 104.2. All these garments our Savior laid aside, when he rose up, and came down from heaven, and put on our vile flesh upon him, (not indeed as ever losing his first glory, but under the veil of our nature covering the manifestation thereof) by that means becoming, as Isaiah hath it, Deus absconditus, a God that hideth himself; for instead of strength, of beauty, and of light, loe! the three contrary weeds of infirmity, of humility, of obscurity; He emptied, he humbled himself, saith the Apostle; he hath no form, nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him, a man of sorrows, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; He was despised, and we esteemed him not, Isa. 53.2, 3. So were all his [glorious] garments laid by, represented now by his laying aside of these. 2. Having laid aside his garments, he next took a towel, and girded himself, being so found in the form of a servant, and in fashion of a man, that came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. 3. After this, he poureth water into a bason; hereby signifying, partly, the cooling of the heat of concupiscence, by the water of his grace in the hearts of his servants, as Pererius; and partly showing, as Ludolphus out of St. Austin saith, how now shortly he would pour out his blood, and shed it on the ground, for the abstersion and cleansing of their souls from the filthiness of sin, 1 Joh. 1.7. 4. All this done, Then he began [to wash the Disciples feet;] by which action he first shown the depth of his abjection, and likeness even unto the vilest servant upon earth: therefore when humble and discreet Abigail would abase herself even unto the meanest offices, as Peter Martyr hath well noted, as thinking her self unworthy of any higher, in David's Court, she saith, Let thine handmaid be a servant to [wash the feet] of the servants of my Lord, 1 Sam. 25.41. Set these two together, The King of glory, the shame of men; the more honor, the more abasement: In the third verse, St. John saith of our Savior, He came from God, and went to God; Loe! what a disparity is here; by Nature, God clothed with Majesty, and eternal glory, equal to God the Father, consubstantial with the holy Ghost, now a servant, and employed in the lowest offices of the vilest servant: Who must not here cry out with the Prophet, O drop down righteousness ye Heavens, and let the earth be astonished at this? And in the use, thus must we apply it: When we address ourselves to eat that supper, which now was, in this fashion, about to be instituted by Christ, we must lay by all thoughts of honor, of place, of all kind of self-worthiness, if we mind to eat with profit. Sulpitius much magnifieth the humility of St. Martin, for that he sometimes ministered unto his own servant; others, that Lewis King of France, who was wont to serve the poor with his own hands; which thing likewise Nicephorus reporteth of Helena the mother of Constantine the Great; and Platina noteth it as a high point of piety in Pope Leo the ninth, that seeing a Leper lying before his door, commanded him to be laid in his own bed: But alas! as St. Andrew said of the five loaves, and two fishes, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; Alas! what are these? when loe! the God of glory humbleth himself, as 'twere unto the very dust of scorn, of contempt, of shame; He refuseth not to wash even the very feet of his Disciples: But yet there is a farther mystery in this, which I gather from Joh. 13.10. where our Savior tells Peter, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his [feet,] for by this action of his was not meant only, in the letter, his conforming of himself unto a Jewish custom, who in those hotter climates went discalceated, and without shoes, at least leaned so at their meals; but, in the mystery, because done at this [time] as the ancients observe, it denoted the abstersion, and washing away, that should be in us, by the waters of tears, and repentance, from the inward affections, which be as the feet of the soul, of that predominant pollution, that as Shechems soul did in a luxurious love to Dinah, Jacob's daughter, doth [ cleave] too close unto them; so St. Bernard most expressly: summarily then thus, since as that noble Lord Du Plessis tells us, that Christi tota vita salutis schola, Christ's whole life was but the School from whence we must take out the lessons of our practice, and our Savior himself, after these things thus done, saith ver. 15. I have given you an example, that ye should do, as I have done unto you; by laying aside his garments, tutoureth us to put off the superfluities of naughtiness, our menstruous rags, our garments spotted of the flesh, and with Bartimaeus, cast away our sinful garments, when we rise up, and come to Christ; by girding of himself with a towell, which had a respective correspondency to the posture wherein the Jewish Passover was eaten, to wit, with their loins girded, to gird up the loins of our minds, by curbing of our luxury, and lascivious exorbitancies; and by washing of the feet, to teach us to rinse, and scour our affections from all nasty defilements, that do bespot and besweat the soul, rendering it loathsome to the eyes of the all-pure God: which was also typed in those lavers set before the Temple, wherein the Priest was first to wash, before he entered: And to what end served all those Levitical Purifications in the mystery, but to this same purpose? The superficies indeed of the ceremony lay in the outward washings, but the moral intelligence, as the School calls it, eyed the inward rinsing of the soul, and conscience from sinful impurity; and for this cause also some have thought that amongst other wood the Lord chose out unto himself for an offering, Shittim wood, and thereof enjoined the Ark to be made up; Ligna Sethim sunt imputribilia, for that its thought to be a kind of Cedar, that admits not easily of a rotting; no more must any soul allow himself in any sin, that in the issue sokes, and rotteth out the soul: Christ owneth no such mouldering guests, nor bids them well-come at his Table.

Wherefore this [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] or, Whoso, or, Whosoever, do here stand as Abraham in his Tent, in the door of this Text, seeming to invite all passengers, and to call in all comers to this heavenly repast upon the flesh and blood of Christ; yet this must be restrained only unto such as be found worthy, and, as the five wise virgins, have their lamps all ready-trimmed, and prepared for admission: I could here take occasion to reckon up those fifteen kinds of persons, which (during their ill-disposed state) are excluded by the School-Divines; but I would gladly keep myself unto the rubrick of my hour.

Its true, what Granatensis here observes, that the worthiness notwithstanding of these guests of Christ, is not to be measured by the nobility of descent, nor ignobility of condition, neither by pomp, nor poverty from without: Our King Christ Jesus hath a Kingdom indeed, but its not of this world; therefore the dignity of his guests is to be measured, as the Kings daughter in the Psalm, by what nobility they have [ within,] by what luster of graces their souls are adorned with [there:] if they have single eyes, that is, minds clearly informed with knowledge, enough to discern the Lord's body from ordinary refections; else, as Bartimaeus, they are deformed in their sight: if they have cleansed affections; else, they are as Mephibosheth, lame in their feet: if they have edifying discourse; else, as that Stutterer in the Gospel, they have an impediment in their speech, and the strings must first be loosed: if they be ready to distribute; else, as Jeroboam, they be shrunk up in their hands: if free from all sins mortal, wounding and wasting the conscience; else, as those Lamesters at the pool of Bethesda, they are too ulcerous, and full of sores, to be entertained by this King: Go, saith the Lord by Malachi, offer the lame, and the sick, and the torn, offer these unto thy Governor, will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? Loe! thus it is, when we come with maimed souls, we pollute the Table of the Lord, we cannot be accepted at his sacred board. Wherefore, to close up this point, let me exhort you all, as S. Paul doth his Corinthians, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , let every particular man examine himself, and, as the word imports, put himself upon the trial. Examination is the eye of the soul, by which reflexively it seeth it self, and knoweth what it hath done: Other meats, saith St. Chrysostom, are, e're they be taken, to be first proved, lest they hurt us; but here, lest this heavenly meat prove noxious to thee, thou must first go prove [thyself:] Judge yourselves therefore, Brethren, that ye be not judged of the Lord: let us be impartial in the scrutiny of our hollow, and deceitful hearts; and, like the woman that sought her groat, in the Gospel, light up the candle of our best faculties, and leave no corner of our souls unswept, till we have found out that sin of our souls, that doth, as Paul speaks, so easily beset us, and, as that Jebusite in Canaan, that will not out of our coasts; and when we have discovered it, to mortify it, and to crucify it, with the affections, and lusts thereof: And as the special sacrifice that was offered upon the Altar in Jerusalem, was wont diligently to be looked into by the high Priest, and his Ministers, to spy out the blemishes, or otherwise, of it, before the actual oblation, so let us. S. Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians (a late, and genuine monument of antiquity set forth) hath expressed it to the life thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which word is interpreted by Philo Judaeus thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 it implieth such a disquisition, so exact, as if Momus himself with a Lincean eye, were to come after, he should not find a thing to carpe at, in the very entrails of our sacrifices of our souls: The same word is used by St. Chrysostom, upon this occasion of pre-examination, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. Thus we [should] do from the bottom of our souls: wherefore cleanse your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts ye double-minded. Thus if we do, at least in desire, and endeavor, we then come under this same [ὁ] Whoso, in my Text, and are the men, whosoever we be for external condition in state or place, that be all invited hither to eat, and to drink, and that of no meaner cheare then the very flesh and blood of Christ Jesus himself.

And thus I pass from the guests, unto the provision made ready for them, the flesh and the blood of Christ: [Whoso] eateth my [flesh] and drinketh my [blood.]

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Flesh and blood! these are strange cates to make a banquet of. We read in the Scripture, that flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven, (but that's meant of flesh corruption, not of flesh the substance, as the words ensuing show; for as there is Iron, so the rust of Iron) how much less shall he that [feeds] upon it for his food? Satia te sanguine, quem sitisti, saith Tamyris, as I remember, in Justins history, to Cyrus, when his head was off, and cast into a vessel full of blood, Now surfeit on that blood which thou so much thirstedst after. It was a law of God's own enacting, He that sheds man's blood, by man also shall his blood be shed. My flesh, and my Blood! Surely what the Israelites said of Manna, when first they saw, and tasted it, crying out in admiration, Man-hu, What is this portion, or meat prepared for us? for they wist not, saith Moses, what it was; so may many a man that knows not how to discern the Lord's Body: such an one is apt to think, with that monster Cacus in the Poet, who from his wickedness in abstracto, had his name [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ,] saith Servius, that naught but man's flesh must be drawn into his den; and as some savage Cannibal professing anthropophagie, as some 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , man-hating Miso, some Minotaur, or bloody Atreus, or the like prodigies of nature, that man was made to be taken, as St. Peter saith of brute beasts, and to be destroyed, and as the Levites concubine, to be chopped in pieces. Thus surely may your dull Capernaites, and unilluminated men imagine; for so they strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? John 6.52. yea more then so, ver. 60. many, even of Christ's own Disciples, when they heard this, said, Durus est hic senno, this is a hard saying, who can bear it? And the very truth is this, its that which poseth nature utterly, and makes her stand, as he without his wedding garment, in the Gospel, upon conviction, speechless.

But though the words, as they are in the shell, be hard to pierce into, yet when as our Savior hath to our hands broken it for us, we may easily take out the kernel of them.

The mind of our Savior in this Text, which is but repeated from the former verses, is, to show us the sweet effect of the spiritual eating of his body, and drinking of his blood by faith, above that other oral eating, and drinking of the bread and wine, which are but the Sacraments thereof, and may be taken as well by Hypocrites, as by True believers. This mystical partaking instrumentally procureth eternal life, after the resurrection, whereas the other, which is merely outward, and no more, may yet engage to judgment, and damnation; the reason is, because the one partakes of the Lord himself, who is the Bread of life, Joh. 6.35. whom to know, and with whom to have communion aright, is life eternal, Joh. 17.3. The other, only of the bread [of] the Lord, which hath no virtue, without faith, at all, to procure such endless bliss: yea more, Dum Sacramenta possunt obesse, as St. Austin truly: when those elements of Bread and Wine once consecrated by the lawful minister, and changed by that act of his, (duly, and as it ought, performed) though not from their nature, yet in their use, which is now become no longer ordinary, but holy, and Sacramental; when, I say, they be thus changed in their use, then to partake them without faith, endangereth that worthless receiver, as those lusted after quail did the faithless, and unruly Israelites, unto a speedy and a sudden overthrow, even whiles betwixt their teeth: And yet all this too, not through the least defect in Sacraments themselves, for they have ap •• tude and fitness, in their designation natural, not only to represent, to declare, and show as signs, and to confirm as Seals, but even as sacred Instruments to Save, and as effectual means, though not by virtue of any opus operatum, or [ intention] of the administrer, (both which, as Bel-shazzar in the balance, may be found too light) yet of God's own ordinance, to exhibit, and convey the very body and blood of Christ unto the right receiver: for they be not empty pageants, or naked shows; not theorical, but practical signs, though our gross Romanists would fain persuade the world that we teach otherwise: But all the ill issue is in the defect of the good motion of the User: The better the meat, the worse the nourishment, yea the more dangerous the humors, and the dropsy more deadly, if the liver fail in making of good blood, occasioning the body, like some marish grounds in the midst of a waterish bog, to swell, and the spleen to puff, and not dispersing proper spirits into the veins, which may, as 'twere embroyder the whole body in native, and in azure beauty: Sincerum est nisi vas, quodcunque infundis acescit, saith the Poet, the best wines may sour, and become unsavory, if the But be not rinsed; and the purest streams be corrupted through the muddinesse of the channel. Take a seal, apply it to a stone, it makes no more impression of its own image, then those afflictions did on Pharaohs heart, which was in judgment hardened; but stamp it on the wax, the yielding, melting, faithful heart, loe! this seal of the Sacrament leaves there a Character as proper to the Elect of Christ, as was to Caesars coin the image of Caesar. Whence is this difference? not from the Scale, that's still the same, but from the several hearts so severally disposed, that there is no more agreement 'twixt them, then there is 'twixt faith and infidelity, then was between an Egyptian and a Shepherd, between Christ and Belial; the one, saith Moses, is an abomination to the other, and between the other two, saith Paul, there is no Communion: certainly its true, Sacramenta non prosunt sine bono motu utentis.

And that this is the genuine purpose of our Savior, namely, under this expression of flesh and blood, to acquaint us, that the provision he intends is Cibus mentis, and not Cibus ventris, is clear, first in the general, as the Magdeburgenses have observed, from that reply of Christ to his Disciples, to whom this saying was so hard, ver. 63. It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life; not to be taken, as Capernaites apprehended it, in a gross and carnal meaning; as likewise by those many equipollent phrases, tending all of them to express the same thing, in the former verses: for that which he, in my Text, calleth [flesh and blood] in the 51. verse, he calleth the living [bread] which came down from heaven; and, if any man eat of this [bread] he shall live forever, and, the [bread] that I will give, is my [flesh,] that is, my flesh shall be [as] bread, to nourish the soul unto life eternal, even as the Common bread doth serve to feed the body unto this life corporal: and that the [eating and drinking] is also spiritual, and of faith, is evident out of ver. 40. where the same effect that is here ascribed to eating, and drinking, viz. eternal life, is given unto [believing:] so that these tropical speeches, rightly takē, are convertible; for in this variety of expression, Christ doth but transpose the proposition, as P. Martyr notes; for as before, he said, that the bread that I will give is my flesh; so in the text, his flesh having [eating] adjoined to it, is instead of bread, and in equipollency the very same, ut{que} corpore editis panē, ita mente vescamini carne meâ. And to clear it yet a little more, consider we, in the business of the supper, two things, the outward & visible part, w ^ch the Schools call properly Sacramentum (in a more strict acception of the word) and that w ^ch is inward, & invisible, w ^ch they term rem Sacramenti, the principal thing exhibited in the Sacrament. Thus in the Lord's supper, the sacrament is bread and wine, & in the outward part of this mystical action, we receive this body and blood but sacramentally; the inward thing, w ^ch we apprehend by faith, is, the body and blood of Christ; and in the inward part of this mystical action, which contains rem, we receive them really, and consequently, the presence in the one is Relative and symbolical, in the other, Real & substantial; as that great light of the Church, the deeply-learned Primate of Armagh, hath shown us.

And now, would all good moderate Christians, baulking your wrangling Ishmaelites, being more shye of all that baggage which the School-men soil Divinity withal, out of the Philosophers puddles, and their own, (as D ^r Reynolds truly speaketh;) would they poise their judgments at this balance of the Sanctuary, and pray for the illumination of that Spirit, whose grace in the operation, is compared to fire, by John Baptist, the nature of which fire is, both congregare homogenea, & segregare heterogenea, (as in Philosophy we use to speak) both to conjoin those things that be of the same, and to dis-join such as be of a differing kind, and disposition; would they set faith to feed spiritually upon the very flesh and blood of Christ, whose physical, and natural body is personally in the eternal word, locally in Heaven only (the first that taught otherwise, and brought in the local presence, even still on earth, was Scotus, whom Occam followed, and both but of yesterday, as our worthy Field hath shown us) Sacramentally in the Eucharist, and always with the Elect spiritually in the soul: and on the other side, set their bodily mouths to feed upon the outward visible bread, but yet as clothed too with a Sacramental relation to the flesh of Christ, symbolically signed thereby: And secondly, if they would follow learned Hookers counsel, a worthy instrument in our Church, who wished that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence [what] we have by the Sacrament, and less to dispute of the [manner] (how,) at least considering that success which Truth hath hitherto had by so bitter conflicts with error in this point: Thus if we could be persuaded, oh what honey might we suck as Samson from his Lyon, from this blessed Sacrament, for our peace and comfort, which now those bitter waters of Meribah, and strife, running down so violently in a flood, do, in a sort, wash off from many a seduced and unballanced soul! But woe, and alas! how may our mother the Church, well typed in the Ark of Noah, (she is so tossed on the working billows of windy, yet boisterous spirits) speak out with Rebekah, when she felt her Twins to struggle together within her, If it be so, that I have conceived, Why am I thus? what means this strange, and this unnatural elbowing, and shouldring, and justling together in the same womb between Brethren? Its a lamentable thing to behold, how this holy Sacrament, which was ordained by Christ to be a bond, by which we should be knit together in unity, as being all members of the same one Catholic body the Church, of which none but Christ alone is the mystical head; (and therefore it is called by Saint Paul, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Communion) should yet from the inconsiderate confounding of those things, which in their own nature are as different as may be, become as 'twere the Samson to tear in pieces the strongest Wyths of union in the Church: and, which is yet the deafness of the asp upon the ears of miss-lead Christians in this divided party, men will not hear the wisest charmings of the best charmer, at least, like those at Babel, they will not, though they may, understand each other, and all by reason of the confusion of tongues and pens, and those pens dipped often so low in vinegar and gall, that as a storm-driven ship upon the rocks, the ribs of the common mother the Church be dashed almost in sunder by the waves of implacable contention.

Behold, and wonder; here Manasseh is against Ephraim, there Ephraim is against Manasseh, yonder both against Judah: the Papists against the Lutherans, the Lutherans against them, and both against the Calvinists; as if Christ were to be divided, or the truth were more then one.

The Lutheran, in as much as Christ's bumane Nature subsisteth not but in and with the infiniteness of the second Person in the Trinity, by virtue of the ineffable union hypostatical, hath given unto the same human Nature of Christ a participated Ubiquity with the Divinity, which is every where, at all times, and as Philosophers say of the soul informing the body, its tota in toto, & tota in qualibet parte, wholly everywhere, and so with the Sacrament; by means whereof Christ is corporally, by a kind of Consubstantiation (as their word is) [in] or [under] the Sacramental elements: But this opinion first seemeth to be injurious to the Divinity, as if it were confounded together with it, contrary to the received Creed of Athanasius; and withal, it doth indeed overthrow the truth of his humanity: for first, though Christ's human nature was for production extraordinary, for the communication of glory from the Godhead on it admirable; yet the Godhead glorifies that his human Nature only to be the head, that is, to be the most excellent, and first-borne of every Creature, but not to make it share in the essential properties of the Divine Nature it self, such as are Ubiquity or omnipresency, immensity, infiniteness, &c. for if so, then the human Nature were not only glorified, and exalted, but the very same with the Divinity it self; for that Essence, or being to which the intrinsical, and originally essential attributes of anything do belong, in the same degree, that they are in it self, that thing must needs be of the same nature with that from which it doth receive those attributes. Now God's infinite Being everywhere, wholly, and always at the same time (for he is that intellectual sphere whose center is everywhere, and circumference nowhere) is an essential property incommunicable from the infinite divine Nature, to the human Nature, because the human Nature is incapable of such an attribute, in so infinite a degree; it being all out (in its own kind) as essential to its self to be finite, to be circumscribed in a place, &c. as it is to the Godhead to be most infinitely everywhere; and so according to that Philosophical Maxim, Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis, there is too infinite a disproportion between the finite human Nature, and the Divine, that it is not capable of that infinite attribute of Ubiquity: therefore though Totus Christus, whole Christ be everywhere, by means of the union hypostatical, yet not Totum Christi, the whole of Christ, by reason of the confinednesse of his finite human Nature to one place now in Heaven. In short, Christ's Nature by the Union received an extraordinary exaltation, but yet no destruction of its own essential properties, for so the Nature it self were utterly overthrown: yea more, by this God's own omnipotency is impaired; for howbeit God can do all things Possible, yet they be such all things, quae posse, perfectae potentiae est, say your greatest School-men, and such as imply neither any contradiction to his own Nature in himself, no nor to the nature of any Creature, as Zanchi saith, [so] as it was created. If therefore it be the essential property, as it is, of the human Nature to be finite, and so to be confined to heaven as one place, it were a contradiction to God's all-mightiness (according to the ordinary economy and dispensation of his providence) to make it, being circumscribed already, to be infinitely elsewhere at the same instant. Christ's presence in the Sacrament then being intended of that Nature, wherein he was our Redeemer, which was his human, and not his divine only; by this that I have said its clear, that this Consubstantiation of the Lutherans is unsolid.

Next comes in the Papist, and with him brings in his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 too, his sleevelesse tale of Transubstantiation, (as a profound Prelate calls it;) by others, its named commentum, a mere fictitious, and feigned thing, so the Centuriatours; by others, somnium, so he who was no more in name then nature the Jewel of his time, in his divine Apology: at the best, we may all style the tales they have about it, as Amphilochius doth those that the Poets tell of their gods,

yea, I had almost said, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . And this was likewise brought both into the world, and upon the stage by that other fable of the multi-presence of Christ's body: and it sounds the better like a tale, because indeed they so much vary among themselves in telling of it: firebrands they have in their tales to burn down the ripe corn-fields of Truth, but yet as Samsons foxes they are divided in the heads. Once for all, Alphonsus à Castro (an ingenuous Romanist, in my opinion) down right confesseth, that the mention of Transubstantiation of the bread into the body of Christ is rare in ancient Writers; and yet Antiquity, when True, is an admirable settler of Truth: so is the word in Tertullian, Quod primum, verum; the nigher the Primitive, still the purer, and less corrupt: And who knows not the old word, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; and the Prophet Jeremiah's exhortation, Stand, and ask for the old way, that's the sure way to find rest to your souls: And yet who such 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and Thrasonicall ostentatours of antiquity as these? But surely this their pleading for the New-oldness (as a worthy Prelate calls it) of it, is, as were the Gibeonites pretences of [ torn] shoes, and [mouldy] bread, by which they feigned themselves to have come from [far.] This dream of Transubstantiation was broached, or hammered out at first by one, who was, some say, a Magician, and 'twas withstood by Irenaeus, and Epiphanius; after urged again by Pope Leo the ninth, but withstood by Berengarius a Deacon, for which he was condemned as an Heretic in Concilio Vercellensi: and this was between the years 1049. and 1055. if Platina, in the life of Leo the ninth, fail not in his Chronology: Here he was condemned; after, urged by Nicholas the second, and one Albericus a Deacon, to a gross and shameful recantation, as the same author reporteth, out of Lanfrancus. Between this time, and the Council of Lateran, which was under Innocentius the third ( Anno 1215.) that great learned Physician and Philosopher Averroes lived, and took scandal at the whole body of Christian religion for this, as Espencaeus saith: in the year 1215. it was decreed first, in the first Canon of the Council of Lateran; at what time the Greek Church had severed themselves from them, and was withstood by Bertram, the Waldenses, Albigenses in multitudes; till at last it was foisted in among the twenty new Articles, or above, of the Creed of the conventicle at Trent, and forced with an Anathema, as of absolute necessity to salvation to be believed by the people. But yet this Doctrine was shortly after by Chemnitz, and since by many other of our own Worthies, discovered to be a piece of another Gospel from S. Paul's; and therefore as the serpent of Aaron devoured the serpents of the Magicians of Egypt, even so that one Anathema of S. Paul, must needs condemn all the Anathema's, which they from that Ebal of theirs denounce in the defense of that, which is not the faith [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] once delivered to the Saints, and but once for all, in the days of the Apostles.

Now they snarl much among themselves for the best bone of their expressions herein. The Master of the Sentences confesseth in so great variety his insufficiency to define the right: Bellarmine; their great Champion, will not have by the pronouncing of these four words [This is my body.] any productive, or conservative conversion of the bread into the body of Christ, but by a new langled device, an adductive; His reason is, because the body of Christ [was] before this conversion, but not under the species of bread; which is mere Translocation, nor Transubstantiation for if so, there must be a change of one substance into another, and that Christ's real and true body is made of the bread, and the bread changed into it, which is properly Transubstantiation, as our most reverend Metropolitan hath shown us: and if it be a Translocation, then not abique, and if as a substance under the accidents of the color of bread and wine, then being a [bodily] substance, it must be in loco, and circumscribed, either way its contradiction.

Another of their graver Divines, is Cornelius a Lapide, the Jesuit, who faith, that by the words of consecration, Truly and really as the bread is transubstantiated, so Christ is produced, and as it were generated upon the Altar in such a powerful and effectual manner, ut si Christus • ecdion esset incarnatus, per haec verba [Hoc est corpus meum] incarnaretur, corpus{que} humanum assumeret, That if Christ had not yet been incarnate, by these four words [This is my body] he should be incarnate, and take an human body. What is to be mad, if this be to be sober? yea, how doth this grate upon the foundation of the faith of the incarnation?

And surely much of this proceedeth from their not allowing any Tropes, or Figures, (which yet is contrary to the ancient Fathers, of whom notwithstanding they brag so much) in Sacramental speeches, though the Scripture abounds this way: so Circumcision is called the Covenant, because it was the token of the Covenant, and the Seal of the same; and in this very business of the Supper its most apparent, besides others, in that one place of S. Paul, 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?] In this passage, [The cup of blessing which we bless] there are three Tropes: 1. First, the cup, metonymically put for the wine in the cup. 2. The wine, by a metonymy of the subject, is put for the drinking of the wine. 3. Its called the cup of blessing, by a metonymy of the adjunct, because it hath blessing adjoined to it; and that blessing is put for thanksgiving, Prayer, declaration of Institution: as if he had said, The drinking of the wine consecrated, which we bless, sanctify, and over which we give thanks, Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? This interrogation affirmeth with more strength, Yes, it is the communion, that is, say some, the sign; say others, the seal and obsignation; say a third sort, the declaration; and some, the instrumental means of the communion which the true Believer hath with Christ in his blood: so that the sense amounts to this, The drinking of the wine consecrated, is a sign of our communion with Christ; all which is couched under these Tropicall expressions. Besides, our Savior, even [after] consecration calleth it the fruit of the vine; and Saint Paul [after] too, bread and cup. Moreover, if we mark it well, the subject of that Sacramental proposition, that is, the demonstrative particle [This] can have reference to no other substance, but that which our Savior held in his sacred hands, viz. panem materialem, to the material bread and wine, which are of so different a nature from the body, and blood of Christ, that the one cannot possibly, in proper sense, or but common reason, be said to be the other: and again, in the predicate, or the latter part of the same propositions, there is not mention made only of Christ's body and blood, but of his body [broken,] and his blood [shed,] to show, that his body is to be considered here apart, not as it was borne of the Virgin, or now is in Heaven, but as it was [broken] and [crucified] for us; and his blood likewise apart, not as running in his veins, but as [shed] out of his body; which the Rhemists have told us to be conditions of his person, as he was in sacrifice, and oblation. Besides, they are bid to do this, in [remembrance] of him: Now [ remembrance] is of things [absent] at least; and if in remembrance, then (which I note by the way) we may see whether the Roman Church did ever err, or not, when for 600. years together it allowed (though since indeed it be rejected) the sentence of Innocentius the first, who enjoined the Eucharist to be administered even unto Infants, who through want of discretion cannot possibly [Remember] what they are not yet capable to Know. To conclude this point, to show that all this is to be meant only in a [ spiritual] way, and that this is a sublime, and mystical banquet, as even a Jewish Rabbi 600. years ago acknowledged, it is to be noted, that Christ saith first, [Take, eat,] and then, This is my body, to intimate unto us, as learned, Hooker observeth, that the Sacrament, however changed by consecration from common use, yet is never properly to be called the body of Christ, till [taken, and eaten,] by means of which actions, (if they be actions of faith) that holy bread and wine do as really (as means and instruments) convey whole Christ, with the vital influences that proceed from him into the soul, as the hand doth them unto the mouth, or the mouth unto the stomach. Wherefore is then this so great ado? Surely Chemnitz showeth plainly to be, because the Sacrifice of the Mass may be supported, asservation, circumgestation may be upheld, that the Romish Moloch, Christ's substance corporally under the color, and species of bread and wine may be adored, and that Christ by this dream, being corporally present, might, though only as a sacrifice unbloody, be continually offered up upon their superstitious, I had almost said Idol-Altars: when yet, the Scripture tells us plainly, that as men die but once for all, no more is Christ offered up, (save only Eucharistically, and commemoratively, and by way of Representation) but once for all, hylastically and in propitiation; the iteration, and repeating of the sacrifice implying imperfection, and insufficiency under the old law, Christ's own oblation of himself upon the Cross, most complete perfection, because but once for all, Heb. 9.27, 28.

And as they are thus grossly out in this provision it self, viz. the flesh and blood of Christ; so do they become injurious also to it in the usage of it, They by oblation, asservation, circumgestation, and carrying about, adoration, and the like, profane it; Whereas the actions enjoined to us herein, are Sacramental only, expressed in the Text, by [eating and by drinking;] which is the next particular, though but in a little mouthfull of words only, to be discoursed of: Whoso [eateth] my flesh, and [drinketh] my blood.

These actions of [Eating, and of Drinkking] are both of Sacramental Institution, and signification, symbolically representing the inward application of, and as it were the mystical mastication, or feeding upon Christ's flesh and blood by faith, which is the mouth of the soul, and her exercise, and acts about this mystery, as 'twere, the very eating and the drinking of Christ's flesh, and blood. Now this eating is, as Christ's body, to which it doth relate, twofold. 1. Sacramental. 2. Spiritual: both are required, but chiefly the spiritual, because the wicked may equally share with us in the first; and if we have the second, though necessity perchance bar us of the first, yet we are safe: (still remembering the Rule, that Nuda carentia non damnat, but contemptus; because that Christ doth not universally, and always tie, without any exception, his saving graces to the outward means:) Hence is that of Lombard, Some, saith he, take both the Sacrament, and the thing signified with it, so the Elect and faithful, in their health, or well-disposed; some the Sacrament only, and no more, so the Hypocrite; a third sort, the thing only, without the sign, which is indeed the principal eating: hence is that known word of S. Austin, Ut quid paras ventrem, & dentem? creed & manducasti: Why preparest thou thy teeth, and belly? believe only, and thou hast eaten Christ.

Now though I might here take occasion justly to exhort myself, and you, to a frequent partaking of Christ, even Sacramentally too; and so redeem the time of our freedom herein, because the days are evil, so that we may either be taken from the Sacrament, or it from us: we find that the Primitive Church was [ daily] in it; which made Saint Cyprian to interpret the [daily Bread,] in the Lord's prayer, of the Sacramental bread: And in Saint Chrysostom's days there was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] a [daily] sacrifice in use, and he in wonder cried out on the slack coming unto the holy Altar, and blamed it as an ill custom: But though I urge not such a frequency, lest the commonness might abate somewhat of the reverence to it; yet at least, let not the moon pace over the Zodiac oftener (since the spouse of Christ is likened to the moon) then we perform, if possible, our course this way. St. Paul is at his [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] his [ oftennesse,] of which Thomas gives a reason (though Baptism be but once for all administered) because though man be but once borne, yet because he stands in need of often feeding, and nourishment; therefore though the Sacrament of Initiation, Baptism, be but once given, yet the Sacrament of farther confirmation, and strengthening, the Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist, is often administered. In Concilio Agathensi, as I find in Isidores Councils, he was sentenced for an unsound Christian, who did not at the three great Festivals of the year at least communicate: Our own Church hath pressed her children to Three times a year at the least, whereof one to be now at Easter: But as for our [spiritual] eating, that must be every day, for else the soul would starve and die, which liveth not but by the life of faith.

And as Christ's flesh must thus be [eaten] by us, so must every good Christian [drink] his blood too; for w ^ch cause we find a Conjunction coupling them both together in the Text: And both bread and wine too were prefigured in Melchizedek his oblation of both bread and wine to Abraham, Gen. 14.18. as St. Cyprian, Rabbi Samuel, Aquinas, Hales, and many others have well observed. See yet if herein our Romanists be not directly Antichristian, and both ways run themselves upon the rocks; the dangerous Scylla of adding, on the one side, and the engulphing Charybdis of taking away, on the other side; both pernicious. In the Council of Florence (for loe! a deep silence of this, till that time, in all Antiquity) which was but in the year 1200. some 30. years after that Hugo de S. Victore, and P. Lombard had vented their conceits herein, (and they were the first that made any noise about it) (as D ^r Whitaker, sometimes Oracle of the chair in Cambridge, hath shown us) Then and There they decree for seven Sacraments, whereas our Savior appoints but two: They might as well have settled 70. times 7. in the larger acception of the word Sacrament, as it signifies the sign of an holy thing in general. And now here, they mangle the use of these that our Savior appointed, allowing the cup only unto the Clergy, pretending that Christ meant that only to the Apostles, then present with him at the institution; but as well they may say the same likewise for the bread. But besides the express institution of our Savior himself, under both kinds, and not of the bread only in the main, the wine being by concomitancy alone consecrated, as some of them do tell us; not only the Primitive, but even the whole Catholic Church of Christ, yea, even the purer Roman too, for a thousand years continuance (which, had there been no [express] appointment, was notwithstanding of a very binding observation) did observe it so, as Cassander, (one of the chiefest Divines of his time) confesseth: Nor indeed can they themselves show us when certainly the Communion only under [one] kind first began; yea, till within these last 400. years, which is a very new-antiquity, it had no spreading entertainment: for Aquinas confesseth that [under both kinds] was in use even to his times, and he was both borne, and dead, during the reign of Henry the third of England; and the [one kind] was decreed but in the thirteenth Session of the Council of Constance, which is very moderne, at least far downwards from the Primitive and purest Church; so that I have no other hopes to keep up your attention, with any further discourse herein, then to tell you only as Demosthenes was wont to say to his Athenian auditors, when they grew remiss under his Orations, Here is news for you; which word [News] though it may spur your attention in the listening to it, yet it should withal increase your abhorrence of that religion, which is thus patched together with the fragments of Novelty: for there is no faith, or religion True, but only That which is Catholic Truly, and properly, which is, and was believed everywhere, always, and by all; which hath, as Vincentius Lirinensis saith, both Universality, Antiquity, and unanime Consent of the whole Church of Christ, which these late upstart devices and doctrines of men, undoing, by consequence, the ancient and pure worship of God, have not.

Since then, my dear Brethren, these Romanists, the only [Catholics] as they cry themselves up, (by which one word, as by a Gorgon 's, or a Medusa 's head, painted in a shield, they think at first sight to terrify and delude poor ignorant Protestants, as they count most of them, and if they could) since I say, these be such Hanuns, to shame us by cutting off at [halfs] the best of our spiritual ornaments, as he did of David's servants in a mock; and since they dare to be so bold, as to take from you the cup of salvation, pray you for their conversion, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the knowledging of the truth, and then leave them and their infallible Head (if so they will not return) unto God's cup of Trembling, which shall make them reel, and stagger more with Terror, then excess: And for yourselves, listen to your dearly-loving Savior's invitation, who saith, Come unto me: If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink, Joh. 7.37. What is this thirst, but a thirst of faith? for so verse 38. and what is this drink, but the precious liquor of his own blood? for as he saith, Joh. 6.55. in the next verse to my Text, My flesh is [meat] indeed, so also, My blood is [drink] indeed; whereof this Sacramental cup, (tendered unto every of you by us, dear Christians, that be members by faith of Christ, according to his own appointment and institution) is the sure sign, and seal, and pledge unto your souls. For this cause, ye see clearly, in the Text, that by a copulative, both Eating and Drinking are conjoined together: what therefore God hath thus joined together, let no man (much less the man of sin, shortly to be consumed by the spirit of Christ's mouth) dare to put asunder: and since both are so placed in the Text, that as the Cherubims on the mercy seat, though they look each to other, yet still turning with their faces to the mercy seat, so both these to the universal particle, that is set in the door of my Text, to call in all worthy comers; Loe! everyone, all ye that hunger and thirst aright by faith, come in, and eat, and drink your fill, saith Christ; Behold, my own flesh and blood stand ready fitted for your best provision: and to set an edge upon your spiritual appetites, see, here is after Supper, eternal life to abide with you, and you with it forever, and this most fully to be given at the last act; for so we read, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. Whoso, Whosoever eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood [hath eternal life.]

Hath eternal life.] See here, and note it, No man ever yet lost by his obedience to Christ; he is not unrighteous to forget it: he alone is worthy to lose, who when Christ inviteth him, he puts him off with fond excuses, and will not come: loe! here is [life] given, the sweetest monosyllable in the world, and not so alone, but life [eternal:] Had he said length of days, he had made good the first promise made to the obedience of the moral law, Eph. 6.3. but in that he names eternal life, see here the complement of all bliss. But I pray note the expression, 'tis in the present tense, [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] not he [shall] have, but he [hath] it: and how so? because a believer thus feeding upon Christ by faith, hath Christ himself, who is styled eternal life, Joh. 17.3. for Christ by faith dwelleth in such an one, and he in him, Joh. 6.56. yea Christ himself saith as much, Joh. 11.25. I am the life, and he that believeth in me shall never die, for he hath in him life eternal.

Again, if eternal life be here set, as I think it is, as the Reward of faith, then how hath the believer it already? Ans. In Spe, though not in Re; In hope and expectation he hath it, though not in actually complete fruition; and by this hope they are saved: Or else they have it, in arrhabone, in the earnest, & in sigillo, in the seal, and mark of the spirit, which mark is forever indelible; it's as a foundation, sure, not to be shaken, no not by all the machinations, or policies of Hell it self.

But how so, since they that believe die? Ans. What of that? since he that believeth in Christ, though he were dead, yet shall he live: Dye he must, because of the statute, Heb. 9.27. But let not this trouble the believer; for as Christ is the life, so is he also the resurrection too: and therefore, in the Text, it's added, by way of assurance, that I will raise him up at the last day: and I like Beza his guess well, that [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] here stands for [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ,] that the [and] here is a causal note, serving by way of prolepsis, or of preoccupation to remove that objection, likely to be raised by a weakling, though a Believer, Thus: You promise life eternal, and loe! I die, where then is your promise? Ans. Why? I will raise thee up again, at the last day: and if ye note it, at your leisure, you shall find this speech of the Resurrection no less then four times, in this one Chapter, repeated, to double the observation, and comfort.

And at this saying of a Resurrection at the last day, we may well resume that of the Disciples, John. 6.60. Durus est hic sermo, This is a hard saying, who can bear it? Surely no unbelieving, merely natural man on earth: yea, more then so, the very Apostles themselves were slow of heart at the first to believe it; and the reports of those good souls, the women that having seen Christ after his Resurrection, told it to the Disciples, seemed to them as idle tales, saith S. Luke, cap. 24.11. yea, S. Thomas expressly protested, that for his part he would not believe it, till he felt him, John 20.25. The Philosophers at Athens derided the doctrine, and made a mock of S. Paul, when he delivered it to them, Act. 17.32. At other times, he was not only called in question, but in danger almost to be torn in pieces for the same: the Sadducees, a certain sect in the Apostles days, yea rise also in our Savior's own time, flatly denied that there was any Resurrection, or Angel, or Spirit; for alas! the poring eye of Nature was too dim to discern so high a mystery as this was, so far remote from her best-disposed Organs: The wisest Ethnic was no better at this then S. Peters 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , one that was pur-blind, like to a Bat or Owl, or like S. Austin's man between sleeping and waking. That Common Principle of, à privatione ad habitum non datur regressus, that from a total privation of life from the Body, there was no possibility of a return, was so fastened in them, that like to a first Principle, or a Mathematical Rule, it must be taken True for granted, and he that should offer a disputation against it, he was, as S. Paul at Athens, to be esteemed a Babbler, or as a Natural Ignaro; the ground of all is, because this is a business merely of Faith, to which all Carnal Reasonings must give way: in the Natural man, both the medium, which is Faith, is wanting, or unprepared, and the object, Christ risen, stood at too great a distance to be kenned, no not so much as Moses did from mount Nebo the land of promise [a far off] by him; It's the proper work of God's spirit only, as he did those Dead bones in Ezekiel, (which were a figure of the Resurrection) to quicken and enliven his first apprehension, and faith for this purpose. Some Heretics there were, after the Apostles days, in Tertullian's time, that were against the Bodily Resurrection: the Anabaptists, and Libertines of late, were all for the Spiritual Resurrection of the soul from sin unto the life of grace in this life; though that good Martyr Polycarpus, S. Johns Disciple, styleth such, whether Epicures, or others, Primogenitos Satanae, the first-begotten of Satan; yea, even Tertullian himself, that ancient Father of the Church, after his infection by the heresy of Montanus, whom he styled his Paraclete, and his Prophet; Lactantius also, and divers other Doctors of the Church, having a tang of the error of the Millenaries, these, though they granted a Resurrection to be, yet were out in the understanding of it: for, mis-understanding that Prophecy Rev. 20.5. where there is mention of a [first] Resurrection, imagined that there should be a [first] Resurrection of the Just, that should reign here a thousand years even upon [earth;] and after that, a second Resurrection of the Wicked, at the day of the general judgment: Whereas we know, there shall be but one [general] Resurrection of the Bodies of the just, and unjust at the last day; that first Resurrection in S. John being to be understood only of the inward, and spiritual Resurrection of the soul out of the grave of sin, which, as a body in the grave, lies too much rotting, and corrupting of the soul; for which cause S. Paul hath called it the Power of Christ's Resurrection. These some then, and divers more that might happily be named, have either flatly denied, or else erroneously mistaken this doctrine of the Resurrection: the more are we all, my beloved, from this meditation bound to thank our good God, who hath so blessed us, with spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus, that he hath given us better eyes, by means of the veil of natural blindness removed, to see into this great mystery of godliness, and hath let this part of the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, in the knowledge of his Resurrection, to shine into our hearts.

My purpose was not, on this occasion, to dwell at large upon this Common place of the Resurrection now: only Two things I note, as Principally here intended. First, the Author of the Believers Resurrection, Christ himself, [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , I, Emphatically I, will raise him up, What stronger argument of the Divine Nature of our Savior? Noah [man] (merely) such, hath ever quickened his own soul, but Christ doth this Potestative, by virtue of his own innate Power, for so he saith, I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again; and therefore saith Bernard, differencing Christ's from all others Resurrection, Reliqui suscitantur, solus Christus Resurrexit: Well may others be [raised,] Christ only [rose,] he only by [himself] could conquer death: Wherefore, though the original word, in Mar. 16.6. [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] be passive, yet must it be understood actively, as a Reverend Prelate hath observed: This power manifested in Christ's Resurrection was prefigured, say Albinus, Julianus Pomerius, and others greatly learned, in that prophecy of old Jacob, Gen. 49.9. where Judah is said to stoop down, and to couch as an old Lyon, and yet, saith the same great Patriarch, as a Lions whelp from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: this is a clear Type of our Lord and Savior, who by S. John is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, who, during the Time of his passion, and his humiliation, seemed to couch as it were, and to lie down in his grave, as an old and weakened Lyon; but as a Lyon that is young, in much strength, he rouzeth up himself again, having broken the bonds of Death, and Hell in his victorious Resurrection: so that this [taking up] of his life again showeth the Truth of his Divinity, and omnipotent consubstantiality, equal with his eternal Father, and the holy Ghost; that he was not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , only [like] unto, but verily 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of the [same] substance with his Father, against that damnable heresy of Arius, under which though the world seemed in the days of Athanasius the Great, in a sort, to groan, yet was it condemned in the first general Council at Nice, and himself at last voided with his bowels, and entrails, as he was about to go to maintain his blasphemy, his soul out of his body, being smitten by the immediate hand of Divine Justice for his obstinacy herein.

Now as this showeth the Divinity, so in that in the former part of the Text, he mentioneth his flesh, and his blood, it's clear also that he had likewise an human nature too, even he took part likewise, saith the Apostle, of the same flesh and blood with the rest of the children, and so became flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, and all this too, not in opinion only, and fancy, as the old exploded Marcionites and Manichees conceited, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Ignatius saith, but Really, and in Truth; for so the Scripture plainly, The word was [ made] flesh, Made, I say, and that not brought down along with him out of heaven, as the Apollinarian Heretics imagined, but made out of the flesh of the Virgin Mary: so Saint Paul expressly, Gal. 4.4. Factus [ex] muliere, made [of] a woman; for that preposition [ex] or [of] noteth the material cause of his incarnation, and that our Lord and Savior was substantialiter factus, as Theophylact notes, made of the very substance of the Virgin; which overthroweth also that Valentinian heresy, which taught that Christ passed only as water through a conduit-pipe, through her womb, but took nothing Really of her substance; for St. Paul elsewhere Rom. 1.3. saith expressly, that he was made [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , [of] the seed of David according to the flesh; [Factum] propriâ signification intellige, saith Beza, the word [made] is there properly to be understood, as showing the very substance of Christ's flesh to be made of the very substance of the Virgins: And indeed, had it not been so, he could never have been capable of Death, or suffering, thereby to overcome him that had the power of Death, the Devil, as St. Paul disputes most strongly; the Godhead being, as not passionate (as the Vorstian blasphemy was) so neither passable, or subject unto death, or shedding of blood, without which yet there was no remission of sins possible: Sometimes indeed the Holy Ghost speaking in concreto of Christ's Person, which had united to it a twofold Nature, by that which Divines call a Communication of properties, that is given to the whole person which is proper only in abstracto, to the one nature. So we read Act. 20.28. [God] is said to have purchased the Church with his own [blood,] Now God himself is a Spirit, saith the Scripture, and a Spirit, saith our Savior, hath not flesh, and bones, as ye see me have, Luk. 24.39. and if there be no flesh, nor veins to hold and contain blood, which for the remission of sins must be shed, then surely there can be no purchase of the Church by blood: therefore that speech and the like, in the language of the Scripture, is to be understood in Trope, or sacred Figure, not strictly, and abstractively; no more then that Text in St. John must be, Joh. 3.13. where Christ speaking of himself, as the Son of Man, saith that he [is] in Heaven, when yet he there spake upon the earth, as man, to Nicodemus: it must therefore be understood by Communication of properties, and in concreto, it being True, that that divine Person which by an admirable union had Two Natures united to its self, did, and was thus, or thus, as God's Spirit in the Scriptures, is pleased to express so deep, and great a mystery.

Thus ye see, that if there were no other Texts to prove it, yet from this one the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and Two Natures of Christ hypostatically united to his Divine Person, would be sufficiently collected. But because this point is hence but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 only to be discoursed of, this being rather the hypothesis, then the thesis of the Text directly; I rather come to show how, and by what sinews the Resurrection of Believers is from hence deducible; and this is founded upon Two main grounds: First, because Christ himself being the Head of his Church, and every Believer a lively member of his body, by virtue of the mystical, and effectual Union that is between the head and the members, as the head is raised, so shall the members likewise. Besides, Christ is as the Primitiae, the first-fruits, as Saint Paul saith, we as the rest of the whole lump; look now, as the dedication of the first-fruits of their increase did unto the Jews consecrate, and in a manner sanctify the whole other increase, even so our Savior by his Resurrection, hath consecrated unto all his members theirs, Cùm eadem sit ratio primitiarum, & totius cumuli, as Beza noteth, there being the same reason, by this consequence, of the whole lump, and of the first-fruits. The wicked shall indeed be raised up too, but unto everlasting shame, confusion, and contempt, as Daniel, and Saint John say, by the [power] of God, but the believer, and his True member only by virtue of his effectual merit, and Communion: [I] will raise him up.

The other thing to be noted, is the Time mentioned for this raising up, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , at the last Day; he means, the day of our common appearance before him, wherein the heavens being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat: Saint Paul calleth it by an emphasis, [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , [that] day, that so remarkable, that so great, and dreadful day of account: by Saint Peter it is called the day of the Lord; Then it is that Christ will raise up the Believer, even at the [last] day of the world, after which both day and time shall be no more.

This is a sentence, which like the miraculous wine in Cana of Galilee, is set down as the best till last; and is indeed like to King David's wine, that which maketh glad the heart of every righteous man, who if in this life only he had hope, he were of all men else most miserable: For as the life of an unbeliever is like a Tragedie, which is presented in with Music, and all expressions of jollity, but it goes off usually in a dismal, and a sad catastrophe; so is the life of a Believer to a Comedy, which though brought upon the stage in blacks, under sad looks, soft paces, faint speeches, and such like emblems of sorrow, yet stay a while, and ye shall see all go off in mirth and music; the righteous, when the other calls for the rocks, and mountains to fall upon him, and to shelter him from the wrath of the Lamb in vain, shall at that [last] day, being raised up by his head Christ Jesus, lift up his head with joy, because that his Redemption draweth nigh.

I will raise him up at the last day: that is, as Rupertus glosseth, à congerie aeternâ morte mortuorum, ex nomine eum vocans, discernam, I will segregate him from the whole other mass, or drove, as it were, of wicked men, that shall die eternally for their impenitence in sin, and call him forth by name, and will not be ashamed to own him then at that last day, who was not ashamed of his reproach, in his warfare against the world, the flesh, and the Devil here below. So True is that of King David, that if we mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, we shall find that the [end] of that man is peace; but the Transgressors shall be destroyed together, and the [end] of the wicked shall be cut off, Ps. 37. 37, 38. confer Eccl. 8.12, 13. Ps. 92.7. Mal. 3.17, 18. Wherefore, let us comfort one another with these words, as well knowing that howsoever the righteous shall be recompensed by afflictions, yet it is but on the [ earth] saith Solomon, and no farther, the end of their days, is the day of the end of all their sorrow, and misery, forever and ever.

To conclude, let the thought then of our ends, be still the end of our thoughts: and that our end may be good, let us be sure that we have good ends in all our projects, and our Christian performances, or undertakings, before that last end of all comes, Then shall we indeed be raised up with joy, and comfort most unspeakable, at that last Day.

The means to accomplish this, is, To propound our Savior's Resurrection as a Pattern of ours, in our spiritual awaking out of the sleep of sin, by our spiritual, and as S. John hath phrased it, Our first Resurrection: Now before Christ's, there was an earthquake, so in our Regeneration there is a conquassation usually, and a shaking of the soul, a trembling of the conscience, through a sight of sin, and of our misery thereby; the day of our second, must be like the day of our first birth, Dies lachrymosa, a Day of Tears, shed in contrition for our sins past; when we must, as Moses did the rock in Horeb, strike the rocks of our too too obdurate hearts with a rod of remorse, that from thence may flow out even rivers, and streams of sorrow for our loose conversations before calling: The continual dropping of this water hollowes the stone, mollifies and softens the heart, preparing it aright to receive the seeds of grace. One sting of the fiery Serpent in the wilderness drives the pained Israelite to look up for remedy to the brazen Serpent, there set up: so when the Conscience is, as it were, stung with the bitings of the old Serpent the Devil, by the sight, and smart for sin, Then flies the Penitent, and sobbing soul for ease, and remedy to the True brazen Serpent Christ Jesus, who hath broken the teeth, and plucked out that sting which so much pained the good soul. The sight, and sense of misery by sin is the sure preparatory means to seek, and find a remedy by mercy; as when the powers of the jaylors soul were shaken, with as strong an earth-quake, as the Prison it self was, Then, but not till then, he sprang in to Paul, and Silas, desiring both ease, and direction, from the guilt of sin, unto the life of Christianity: The like to which we read of S. Peters Converts, when they were pricked in their hearts, then they cry out, What shall we do to be saved? 2. Secondly, Christ's Resurrection was Integrall, whole in every part, a most complete, and perfect Resurrection; he had nothing wanting, or defective in his body, which now arose in incorruptibilitate, as Primasius speaks, in an absolute incorruption, yea, and impossibility of returning back again to Death, He being risen dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him; for he arose Immortalis Totaliter, as Raymundus à Sabunde saith, Totally Immortal. Now his Resurrection being an example of ours, from hence we are instructed to a Total, Integrall, and Universal abrenunciation of all sin, unto the contrary reformation. A Christian must be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , whole in regard of sincerity, universal in regard of the extent of his obedience, unto all God's Commandments; for he that allows himself in any one known sin, cannot be said Truly to hate any sin; even as a loose adulterer that hath many curtisans, but someone above the rest, on whom he doates, on whom his luxurious affections are more intensively enamored, though he entertain the rest but only in a general salute, and so goes them all by, to glut himself with pleasure on that one: Though the manifestation of his carnal love be greater to this one, then to all the other, yet he cannot properly be said to hate any of the rest: But a Christian must not only, as Herod, be at his [ many] things, nor as Agrippa, at his [ almost,] nor as Naaman, at his Rimmon, and his being pardoned in [ This] though but an only minion: but he that is in Christ must be a new Creature throughout, and altogether; all things must become New, in heart and affection, in life and conversation, in body, in soul, in spirit, Wholly, Integrally, Universally; for so was Christ's Resurrection. 3. Thirdly, Christ arose speedily, the Third day from his death; and that no sooner, nor no later: first, saith Aquinas, to show the Truth of both his Natures; it behooved him to rise quickly, least if his Resurrection had been deferred till the end of the world, the Truth of his Divinity might, with his omnipotency, have been suspected, as if he could not have raised up himself before; and it behooved him to lie till the third day before he arose, least the Truth of his humanity, and his death might have been questioned; now continuing in the grave until the Third Day, (so that the grave to our Savior was not only Sheol, but also Shacath, not only a greedy swallower, but a ravenous digester also) it's manifest, that his Death was True; No Apoplectick ecstacy being compatible with life, (under favor) above three days. Secondly, He rose the third day, that is, speedily, no long delay intervening between his Dissolution, and his Resurrection; to be a Pattern to us herein of our speedy, and early arising out of the grave of sin unto the life of grace; Ne differas de die in diem, saith Siracides, Make no tarrying to turn to the Lord, and put not off from day today. I love them that love me, saith God, and they that seek me early shall find me, Prov. 8.17. God loves such as be aurorantes ad se, that with the first peeping of the day give up themselves to God: Let us with Abel offer up the firstlings of our Time, in Sacrifice to God, we shall [so] be the first in his acceptation: Let us die the wool of our infancy and youth, into the grain color of sanctity, that when our days are woven into more years, we may never after change color. Awake up my glory, saith King David, awake Psaltery, and Harp, I myself will awake right early, Psal. 57.8. Or, as some render it, Excitabo auroram, I will stir up the morning, non illam ut me à somno excitet praestolabor, sed illam ego morantem excitabo, saith Granatensis. And surely, my Beloved Christians, would we, as now it's high time, awake out of the sleep of our carnal security and sin; and as Bildad advised Job, seek unto God [ betimes,] surely now he would awake for us, and make the habitation of our righteousness prosperous: Yea, if thus we would awake, and arise from the dead, in the first Resurrection, Christ himself shall give us light; that is, himself: for so old Simeon calleth him, The Light to lighten the Gentiles; and, in thy light, O blessed and sweet Savior, we shall surely see light.

This was the way that a bright star pointed out unto me lately, as ye all know, and the readiest affections of mine heart, lending me wind and sails at will for present, would now put me on to steare amayne in the same course: This was the Music that so took our ears, and hearts, upon the solemn Festival it self: Oh that as the voice and echo in the woods, that most divine Sermon, and our true Practice, might make up one sound, and termination!

I confess, my meditations have, since that time, as Moses on the Mount, stayed long upon it; and were it not that I justly feared my jarring notes would mar that taking harmony, I could yet wind up mine instrument a while longer; but so divine an Orpheus could not but draw even the stony heart to follow: Do then, what then you heard; I will assure you, it is that which leads the way directly to the life eternal, in this my Text: Concerning which, if ye would now inquire of me, and ask me what it is, I must needs tell you, that its that, which sooner swallows up our thoughts in wonder, then it can become capable of but a competent expression by our speech: its better known indeed by True fruition, then discourse: Therefore leaving that, let us now rather all pray, so to be enabled all to feed upon the flesh, and to drink the blood of Christ by faith, that in the issue, we may make sure of the full fruition of the same; and in the end of all things, obtain infallibly the end of all our faith, even the salvation of our souls; and this through the alone merits and mediation of the same Jesus Christ the righteous, who hath risen from the dead, is ascended up into Heaven, there to prepare those eternal mansions of bliss, promised to all that cleave unto him by a true, effectual, and lively faith, even forever and ever. Unto him, with thee, O righteous Father, and thy blessed incomprehensible Spirit, our God in Unity, our God in Trinity, be all honor, and praise, thanksgiving, immortality, dominion, salvation, and glory in the Church, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.