from heaven: since we eat him here and shall eat him there, our eating both here and there is spiritual: only the word of teaching shall be changed into the word of glorification, and our faith into charity, and, all the way, our souls live a new life by Christ, of which eating and drinking is the symbol and the sacrament. And this is not done to make this mystery obscure, but intelligible and easy. For so the pains of hell are expressed by fire, which to our flesh is most painful, and the joys of God, by that which brings us greatest pleasure, by meat and drink,-and the growth in grace, by the natural instruments of nutrition, and the work of the soul, by the ministries of the body,-and the graces of God, by the blessings of nature: for these we know, and we know nothing else; and but by phantasms and ideas of what we see and feel, we understand nothing at all.

Now this is so far from being a diminution of the glorious mystery of our communion, that the changing all into spirituality is the greatest increase of blessing in the world: and when he gives us his body and his blood, he does not fill our stomachs with good things: for of whatsoever goes in thither, it is affirmed by the apostle, that "God will destroy both it and them;" but our hearts are to be replenished, and by receiving his Spirit we receive the best thing that God gives: not his lifeless body, but his flesh with life in it; that is, his doctrine and his Spirit to imprint it, so to beget a living faith, and a lively hope, that we may live, and live for ever.

4. St. John, having thus explicated this mystery in general, of our eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, added nothing in particular concerning any sacraments, these being but particular instances of the general mystery and communion with Christ. But what is the advantage we receive by the sacraments, besides that which we get by the other and distinct ministries of faith, I thus account in general.

The word and the Spirit are the flesh and the blood of Christ, that is the ground of all. Now, because there are two great sermons of the Gospel, which are the sum total and abbreviature of the whole word of God, the great

k John, vi.

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messages of the Word incarnate, Christ was pleased to invest these two words with two sacraments, and assist those two sacraments, as he did the whole word of God, with the presence of his Spirit, that in them we might do more signally and solemnly what was in the ordinary ministrations done plainly and without extraordinary regards.

"Believe and repent," is the word in baptism, and there solemnly consigned and here it is that by faith we feed on Christ for faith as it is opposed to works, that is, the new covenant of faith as it is opposed to the old covenant of works, is the covenant of repentance: repentance is expressly included in the new covenant, but was not in the old but by faith in Christ we are admitted to the pardon of our sins, if we repent and forsake them utterly. Now this is the word of faith; and this is that which is called the flesh or body of Christ, for this is that which the soul feeds on, this is that by which the just do live: and when, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, the waters are reformed to a Divine nature or efficacy, the baptized are made clean, they are sanctified and presented pure and spotless unto God. This mystery' St. Austin rightly understood when he affirmed, that "we are made partakers of the body and blood of Christ, when we are in baptism incorporated into his body;" "we are baptized in the passion of our Lord;" so Tertullian," to the same sense with that of St. Paul, we are buried with him by baptism into his death:" that is, by baptism are conveyed to us all the effects of Christ's death: the flesh and blood of Christ crucified are, in baptism, reached to us by the hand of God, by his Holy Spirit, and received by the hand of man, the ministry of a holy faith. So that it can, without difficulty, be understood that as in receiving the word, and the Spirit illuminating us in our first conversion, we do truly feed on the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, who is the bread that came down from heaven; so we do it also, and do it much more in baptism, because in this, besides all that was before, there was superadded a rite of God's appointment. The difference is only this, that out of

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1 Ad infantes apud Bedam.

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Tingimur in passione Domini.-Tertul. lib. de Bapt. 'AvTITUT TŴY TOU Xgiorou xanμárov, S. Cyril. vocat baptismum, Catech. xi.

the sacrament, the Spirit operates with the word in the ministry of man; in baptism, the Spirit operates with the word in the ministry of God. For here God is the preacher, the sacrament is God's sign, and by it he ministers life to us by the flesh and blood of his Son, that is, by the death of Christ into which we are baptized.

And in the same Divine method the word and the Spirit are ministered to us in the sacrament of the Lord's supper. For as in baptism, so here also there is a word proper to the ministry. "So often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye declare the Lord's death till he come." This, indeed, is a word of comfort. Christ died for our sins;' that is, our repentance which was consigned in baptism, shall be to purpose; we shall be washed white and clean in the blood of the sacrificed Lamb." This is verbum visibile;' the same word read to the eye and to the ear. Here the word of God is made our food, in a manner so near to our understanding, that our tongues and palates feel the metaphor and the sacramental signification: here faith is in triumph and exaltation: but as in all the other ministries evangelical, we eat Christ by faith, here we have faith also by eating Christ thus eating and drinking is faith, it is faith in mystery, and faith in ceremony: it is faith in act, and faith in habit it is exercised, and it is advanced: and, therefore, it is certain that here we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, with much eminence and advantage.

The sum is this. Christ's body, his flesh and his blood, are, therefore, called our meat and our drink, because by his incarnation and manifestation in the flesh he became life. unto us so that it is mysterious, indeed, in the expression, but very proper and intelligible in the event, to say that we eat his flesh and drink his blood, since by these it is that we have and preserve life. But because what Christ began in his incarnation, he finished in his body on the cross, and all the whole progression of mysteries in his body was still an operatory of life and spiritual being to us,-the sacrament of the Lord's supper being a commemoration and exhibition of this death, which was the consummation of our redemption

n St. Aug. tom. vi. cont. Faustum, lib. xix. c. 19; et tom. ix. in Evang. Johan. tract. 80.

by his body and blood, does contain in it a visible word, the word in symbol and visibility, and special manifestation. Consonant to which doctrine, the fathers, by an elegant expression, called the blessed sacrament, the extension of the incarnation.'

So that here are two things highly to be remarked:

1. That by whatsoever way Christ is taken out of the sacrament, by the same he is taken in the sacrament: and by some ways here more than there.

2. That the eating and drinking the consecrated symbols is but the body and lesser part of the sacrament: the life and the spirit is believing greatly, and doing all the actions of that believing, direct and consequent. So that there are in this, two manducations, the sacramental and the spiritual: that does but declare and exercise this; and of the sacramental manducation,-as it is alone, as it is a ceremony, as it does only consign or express the internal,—it is true to affirm that it is only an act of obedience: but all the blessings and conjugations of joy, which come to a worthy communicant, proceed from that spiritual eating of Christ, which, as it is done out of the sacrament very well, so in it and with it much better. For here being, as in baptism, a double significatory of the Spirit, a word and a sign of his own appointment, it is certain he will join in this ministration. Here we have bread and drink, flesh and blood, the word and the Spirit, Christ in all his effects and most gracious communications.

This is the general account of the nature and purpose of this great mystery. Christians are spiritual men, faith is their mouth, and wisdom is their food, and believing is manducation, and Christ is their life, and truth is the air they breathe, and their bread is the word of God, and God's Spirit is their drink, and righteousness is their robe, and God's laws are their light, and the apostles are their salt, and Christ is to them all in all, for we must put on Christ, and we must eat Christ, and we must drink Christ: we must have him within us, and we must be in him he is our vine, and we are his branches: he is a door, and by him we must enter he is our shepherd, and we his sheep: Deus meus et omnia,—he is our God, and he is all things to us :' that is, plainly, he is our Redeemer, and he is our Lord: he is our Saviour and our

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.

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 conjecture 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