AFTER some agitation of thoughts, what most op­portunely I might this day entertaine your noble audi­ence withall, at length I fa­stened on this Text; which is that sacred Map, in which we have compendiated the [Page 2] summe of those choice favours from above, that now this gladsome anniversary of our Saviours 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 Seale of all our pardons in the blessed Sacrament: Now also hath the all-powerfull arising of our Head Christ Jesus, carrying a­way in triumph (asJud. 16.3. 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 completeRom. 4.25. justification be­fore his offended Father, yea, of their sure pos­session of eternall blisse) offered it selfe 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, asEpiphan. haer. 23. ad fi­nem. 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, [...],Luk. 24.25. slow of heart to beleeve, at least wise, through want of a [Page 3] more earnest taking-heed unto the things we heare; so sieve-like are our memories, that they doeHeb. 2.1. [...], as St. Pauls word is, let slip, and to run out as leaking vessels, what should better be retained. Wherefore as the Manna, on the Jewish Sabbath, beingExod. 16.24 laid up in a pot, was rendred sweet and fresh for use; so, that we may not, as ingrate­full Israel, so soonePsa. 106.13 forget the wonders of the Lord, so marvellous in our eyes, but ra­ther on the contrary; as Ophir, in the dayes 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 veine to furnish such an oc­casion: thence have I extracted a small mo­dell for my building, the two chiefe Pillars of which building, as1 Kin. 7.21. Jachin and Boaz in Solomons Temple, are the two maine 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, andMat. 3.3. prepares the way to solid [Page 4] comfort in them both, is, to eat the flesh, and to drinke the bloud of Christ; whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose bloud is drinke indeed, verse 55. [...] [indeed] because no food in shadow, or in type, but truely, and in sub­stance; [indeed] because not provant for the body, but spirituall nourishment of the soul; [indeed] because notCol. 2.22. perishing with the using, but an heavenly viond, a food1 Cor. 8.8 com­mending us to God, and nourishing up for ever unto life eternall: These four then, viz.

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

These foure, like the foure rivers in the garden ofGen. 2.10. Eden, doe all spring from the pure fountaine of this Scripture, and must now flow abroad into so many severall streames of discourse, which in their pre­sent spreading shall make glad, I hope, this [Page 5] City of God: The same hand that gave the opportunity, vouchsafe to give successe to this businesse.

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

I shall begin in thatSingula quae (que) locum teneant dicen­da decenter. Horat. de Arte Poetica. order which the Text presenteth the parts in, and in the for­mer generalls observe, 1. The guest invited to this heavenly Feast [ [...]] Whoso, or, as the Genevians render it, Whosoever, answering to that [ [...]] in Saint1 Cor. 11.27 Paul, the parallel Scripture unto this, 1 Cor. 11.27. 2. The provision made to entertaine these guests, the flesh and bloud of Christ, for meat and drink. 3. The two actions, with their relation to their se­verall object, [eating] the flesh, and [drin­king] the bloud of Christ. 4. And fourth­ly, the conjunction of both these together (for which cause I called it a compotation) not flesh onely without bloud, but bloud also as equally as the flesh; and both respe­ctively to the [ [...]] in the beginning. Of these in their order.

This [Whoso] is not either so universall,The first parti­cular. [Page 6] or indefinite, that pell mell promiscuously, by vertue of [it] all commers, or intruders were to be admitted to this sacred soules-re­past, (though it be true, that every worthy and accomplished guest may take [Isa. 55.1.2. freely] of the heavenly Supper, and without cost; Come, saith the Prophet, eat ye that which is good, and let your soule delight it selfe in fatnesse, and all without money, and without price, Isa. 55.1.2.) — Procul hinc, procul ite profani: For if he that thrust himselfe in without hisMat. 22.11.13. wedding garment to the Kings Feast, was shamefully bound hand and foot, and cast into outer darknesse, where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth; if there bee a Nolite sanctum canibus, Mat. 7.6. holy things, and pearles be interdicted unto dogges, and swine, unto persons of a currish, and swinish disposition, that still, as2 Pet. 2.22. Peter saith, are turning backe to their vomit, and to their wallowing in the mire of all impe­nitency:—Was a beast slain for touching theHeb. 12.20. mount? and shall not a person that is em­brutished, and sunke below his species in vile affections, bee punished for touching that [Page 7] Table, where the Lord is present? Loe! He that eates Christs flesh with a foule mouth, and receives him into an uncleansed and sin­full soule, doth (as one saith well) all one, as if he should sop the bread he eates in dirt, or lay up his richest treasures in a sinke: No such unworthy and undressed guests are to touch here; yea, if they should, all that they eat or drinke, is but sure1 Cor. 11.29 judgement, and damnation to themselves, by such a pre­sumptuous impreparation laying themselves open to the strokes of Gods displeasure; of which Nadab and Abihu, in a parallel case, are exampled out for our warning, being suddenly destroyed for offeringLev. 10.2. strange fire at Gods Altar: and no lesse are those endange­red, that present strange souls, and a false faith at Christs Table; for surely, as Moses said to Aa­ron, God wil beVer. 3. sanctified in them that come nigh him: Wherefore our Saviour, whose essence was Purity it self in abstracto, when he meant, though not to lay downe any thing w^ch he had before, to wit, his Divinity (save only, asPantolcon, tract. de lumin. sanct. pag. 587. in patrum [...]. Pantoleon hath it, [...], in the [Page 8] act, and time of his exinanition, he seemed awhiles to shadow the manifestation, and as it were to hide the glorious splendour 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 wombe of none but of a pure Virgin to be lodged in; for as no uncleane thing can enter into the kingdome of Hea­ven, no more would the King of Heaven enter into any uncleane thing: hee was a Lamb without1 Pet. 1.19. spot, or blemish, and could not therefore enter into a leprous soule; yea, his very body, and his flesh so pure, that those two noble Converts of his, Joseph of Arimathea, and his1 Joh. 7.50. night-Disciple Nicodemus thought it fittest, as Primasius noteth out of St. John, to be wound up onely in [linnen] cloaths, and with sweet spices and fragrant odours, to be interred in a [new] sepulchre, never soyled by a sinfull body, Joh. 19.40, 41. And when himselfe was now about to give [Page 9] 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 Passeover, which was the first and legall supper, which the word [ [...]] rising up, partly intimates: For the le­gall Passeover, 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 eate the sop, and had his traiterous hand with his Master in the dish: after which sop (no Sacramentall sop, as I be­leeve, with aD^r Kellet Canon Residen­tiary in his book entituled, Tri­coenium Chri­sti, not more full of soliditie, then curiosity of all great learning: now pregnant, and ready to be delivered from a well-furni­shed Librarie into publike. learned Professor of Divinity a member of this Church) immediately he went out, Ver. 30. to doe that work of dark­nesse, for to serve his truest Master the Prince of Darknesse, in betraying theMatth. 27.4. innocent bloud of the Prince of light, into the mur­therous hands of the Children of Darknesse: He went out, and it was Night, that is, saith [Page 10] Alcuinus, He, Judas himselfe, was so perso­nally, and in abstracto, he had a soule within so foule and blacke with this deed of dark­nesse: 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 sate downe again, upon the ablution of his Disciples feet, and after too, that Judas was gone out for to betray him; whichBeza ad Joh. 13.20. Beza noteth from the adverb [ [...]] ver. 30. [Immediately] hee went forth, that is, immediately after the sop, ta­ken from the dish in that common supper, (for where is the Sacramentall bread called a sop?Joh. 6.26. or at least, [...] 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 himselfe; 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 maine pas­sage in this Scripture that I mind for my pre­sent purpose, is the [washing of the Disciples [Page 11] feet]: and yet because we cannot baulk that Theological Maxime here, w^ch saith, that om­nis Christi actio nostra est instructio, Every action of Christ (onely those excepted which were ofNos non te­nemur Deum imitari in ope­ribus [potesta­tis] imò tene­mur velle non imitari ipsum, quia debemus ei velle soli omnipoten­tiam. Vide Alex. Hales par. 4. quaest. 33. mem. 1. Art. 1. p. 827. edit. 1622. miraculous and extraordinary dispensa­tion, which by vertue of the union hyposta­ticall 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, asAlex. Hales, par. 4 qu. 10. p. 298. edit. 1622. 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 dependingSolet [cir­cumstantia] Scripturae il­luminare sen­tentiam, cùm ea quae circa Scripturam sunt praesen­tem quaestio­nem contin­gentia, dili­genti discussi­one tractan­tur. August. qu. 69. l. de divers. quaest. —Confer Primasium in 1 Cor. c. 15. p. 229 in 8^o. 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 everlastingPsal. 24.7. doores stand open. [Page 12] 1. The first is a garment of strength, Psal. 93.1. The Lord raigneth, he is cloathed with Majesty, hee is cloathed with [strength] wherewith he hath girded himselfe. 2. The second is a garment of honour, and beauty, Psal. 104.1. Thou art cloathed with [ho­nour] and Majesty. 3. A third is the garment of light; Who coverest thy selfe with [light] as with a garment, Psal. 104.2. All these gar­ments our Saviour laid aside, when he rose up, and came downe from heaven, and put on ourPhil. 3.21. vile flesh upon him, (not indeed as ever losing his first glory, but under the vaile of our nature covering the manifestation thereof) by that meanes becomming, as E­say hath it, Deus absconditus, a God thatIsa. 45.15. hi­deth himselfe; for in stead of strength, of beauty, and of light, loe! the three contrary weeds of infirmity, of humility, of obscu­rity; He emptied, hePhil. 2.7, 8. humbled himself, saith the Apostle; he hath no forme, nor comeli­nesse, and when wee shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him, a man of sorrowes, and we hid, as it were, our fa­ces from him; He was despised, and wee [Page 13] 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 himselfe, being so found in the form of a servant, and inPhil. 2.8. fashion of a man, that came not to be ministred unto, but toMat. 20.28. minister. 3. After this, he poureth water into a bason; hereby signifying, partly, the cooling of the heat of concupiscence, by theEzek. 36.25. water of his grace in the hearts of his ser­vants, asPerer. disput. 15. ad cap. 13. Johan. Pererius; and partly shewing, asLudolph. de Saxon. part. 2. cap. 54. de vita Christi. Ludolphus out of St. Austin saith, how now shortly he would poure out his bloud, and shed it on the ground, for the abstersion and cleansing of their soules from the filthinesse of sin, 1 Joh. 1.7. 4. All this done, Then he began [to wash the Disciples feet;] by which action he first shewed the depth of his abjection, and likenesse even unto the vi­lest servant upon earth: therefore when humble and discreet Abigail would abase her self even unto the meanest offices, asPet. Martyr. loc. commun. class. 4. c. 11. sect. 15. p. 887. Pe­ter Martyr hath well noted, as thinking her selfe unworthy of any higher, in Davids [Page 14] 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; theMy Lord Jos. Hall the now peerlesse Bishop of Exon. Passion Serm. p. 505. edit. 1617. more honour, the more abasement: In the third verse, St. John saith of our Saviour, He came from God, and went to God; Loe! what a disparity is here; by Nature, God cloathed with Majesty, and eternall glory,Phil. 2.6. equall to God the Father, consubstantiall 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,Isa. 45.8. O drop downe righteousnesse ye Heavens, and let the earth be astonished at this? And in the use, thus must we apply it: When we addresse our selves to eat that supper, which now was, in this fashion, about to be instituted by Christ, we must lay by all thoughts of honour, of place, of all kind of selfe-worthinesse, if we minde to eat with profit.Sulpit. Sever. lib. 1. Sulpitius much magnifieth the humility of St. Martin, for that he some­times ministred unto his owne servant; o­thers, that Lewis King of France, who was [Page 15] wont to serve the poore with his owne hands; which thing likewiseNiceph. l. 8. c. 21. Nicephorus re­porteth of Helena the mother of Constantine the Great; andPlatin. in vi­ta Leonis noni p. 171. Platina noteth it as a high point of piety in Pope Leo the ninth, that see­ing a Leper lying before his doore, com­manded him to bee layed in his owne bed: But alas! as St. Andrew said of the five loaves, and two fishes, [...]; Alas!Joh. 6.9. what are these? when loe! the God of glory humbleth himselfe, as 'twere unto the very dust of scorne, 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 Saviour tells Peter, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his [feet,] for by this action of his was not meant onely, in the letter, his conforming of himselfe unto a Jewish custome, who in those hotter climates went discalceated, and without shooes, at leastSee the Ge­neva note, at Joh. 13.23. leaned so at their meales; but, in the mystery, because done at this [time] as the ancients observe, it deno­ted the abstersion, and washing away, that [Page 16] should be in us, by the waters of teares, and repentance, from the inward affections, which be as the feet of the soule, of that pre­dominant pollution, that as Shechems soule did in a luxurious love to Dinah, Jacobs daughter, doth [Gen. 34.3. cleave] too close unto them; so St.Bern. fol. 35. F. in serm. de Coena Dom. Bernard most expresly: sum­marily then thus, sith as that noble LordDu Plessis, cap. 30. de vera Relig. in fronte. Du Plessis tells us, that Christi tota vita salutis scho­la, Christs whole life was but the Schoole from whence we must take out the lessons of our practice, and our Saviour himselfe, after these things thus done, saith ver. 15. I have given you anJoh. 13.15. example, that ye should doe, as I have done unto you; by laying aside his garments, tutoureth us to put off theJam. 1.21. su­perfluities of naughtinesse, ourIsa. 64.6. menstruous ragges, ourJude 23. garments spotted of the flesh, and with Bartimeus, castMar. 10.50. away our sinfull garments, when we rise up, and come to Christ; by girding of himselfe with a tow­ell, which had a respective correspondency to the posture wherein the Jewish Passeover was eaten, to wit, with theirExod. 12.11. loynes girded, to1 Pet. 1.13. Luke 12.35. gird up the loynes of our mindes, by [Page 17] curbing of our luxury, and lascivious exor­bitancies; and by washing of the feet, to teach us to2 Cor. 7.1. rinse, and scoure our affections from all nasty defilements, that doe bespot and besweat the soule, rendring it loathsom to the eyes of theHab. 1.13. all-pure God: which was also typed in those2 Chron. 4.6. lavers set before the Temple, wherein the Priest was first to wash, before he entred: And to what end served all those Leviticall Purifications in the mystery, but to this same purpose? The super­ficies indeed of the ceremony lay in the out­ward washings, but the morall intelligence, as the Schoole calls it, eyed the inward rin­sing of the soule, andHeb. 9.14. conscience from sin­full impurity; and for this cause also some have thought that amongst other wood the Lord chose out unto himself for an offering,Exod. 25.5. Shittim wood, and thereof enjoyned theVers. 10. Ark to be made up; Ligna Sethim sunt Vide Pet. Lumbard. l 4. dist. 8 in sinc. im­putribilia, for that its thought to be a kind of Cedar, that admits not easily of a rotting; no more must any soule allow himselfe in any sinne, that in the issue sokes, and rotteth out the soule: Christ owneth no such moul­dring [Page 18] guests, nor bids them well-come at his Table.

Wherefore this [ [...]] or, Whoso, or, Who­soever, do here stand as Abraham in his Tent, in theGen. 18.1. doore of this Text, seeming to invite all passengers, and to call in all commers to this heavenly repast upon the flesh and bloud of Christ; yet this must be restrained onely unto such as be foundMat. 22.8. worthy, and, as the five wise virgins, have their lampes allMat. 25.7.10. ready-trimmed, and prepared for admissi­on: I could here take occasion to reckon up those fifteene kinds of persons, which (du­ring their ill-disposed state) are excluded by theVide Rayne­rium de Pisis, tom. 1. Pantheo­log. cap. 17. in Eucharistia. Schoole-Divines; but I would gladly keep my selfe unto the rubrick of my houre.

Its true, whatGranatensis, tom. 2. concio de Temp. concio 4. in coena Dom. Granatensis here observes, that the worthinesse notwithstanding of these guests of Christ, is not to be measured by the nobility of descent, nor ignobility of condition, neither by pompe, nor poverty from without: Our King Christ Jesus hath a Kingdome indeed, but its not of thisJoh. 18.36. world; therefore the dignity of his guests is to be measured, as the Kings daughter in [Page 19] the Psalme, by what nobility they have [Psal 45.13. within,] by what lustre of graces their soules are adorned with [there:] if they haveMat. 6.22. single eyes, that is, mindes clearly in­formed with knowledge, enough to1 Cor. 11.29 di­scern the Lords body from ordinary refecti­ons; else, asMar. 10.46. Bartimeus, they are deformed in their sight: if they have cleansed affecti­ons; else, they are as Mephibosheth, 2 Sam. 4.4. lame in their feet: if they haveEph. 4.29. edifying discourse; else, as that Stutterer in the Gospel, they have anMar. 7.32.35. impediment in their speech, and the strings must first be loosed: if they be ready toRom. 12.13. distribute; else, as Jeroboam, they bee1 Kin. 13.4. shrunke up in their hands: if free from all sinnes mortall, wounding and wasting the conscience; else, as those Lamesters at the poole ofJoh. 5.3. Bethesda, they are too ulcerous, and full of sores, to be entertained by this King: Go, saith the Lord by Malachi, Mal. 1.8, 13, 14. offer the lame, and the sicke, and the torne, offer these unto thy Governour, will he be plea­sed with thee, or accept thy person? Loe! thus it is, when wee come with maimed soules, we pollute theVer. 1 [...]. Table of the Lord, [Page 20] we cannot be accepted at his sacred boord. Wherefore, to close up this point, let me ex­hort you all, as S. Paul doth his1 Cor. 11.28 Corinthians, [...], let every particular man examine himselfe, and, as the word imports, put himself upon the tryall. Examination is the eye of the soul, by which reflexively it seeth it selfe, and knoweth what it hath done: Other meates, saith St. Chrysostome, 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 goe prove [thy selfe:] Judge1 Cor. 11.31 your selves therefore, Brethren, that ye be not jud­ged of the Lord: let us be impartiall in the scrutiny of our hollow, andJer. 17.9. deceitfull 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 soulesLuk. 15.8. unswept, till we have found out that sin of our soules, that doth, as Paul speaks, soHeb. 12.1. easily beset us, and, as that Jebusite in Cana­an, that will not out of our coasts; and when we have discovered it, toCol. 3.5. mortifie it, and toGal. 5.24. crucifie it, with the affections, and lusts [Page 21] thereof: And as the speciall sacrifice that was offered upon the Altar in Jerusalem, was wont diligently to bee looked into by the high Priest, and his Ministers, to spy out the blemishes, or otherwise, of it, before the actuall oblation, so let us. S.S. Clement. epist. ad Cor. pag. 53, 54. Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians (a late, andSee M^r Mede Serm. of the re­verence of Gods house, p. 14. ge­nuine monument of antiquity set forth) hath expressed it to the life thus, [...] which word is interpreted byPhilo Judaeus [...]. Philo Judaeus thus, [...] it implyeth such a disquisition, so exact, as if Momus himselfe with a Lince­an eye, were to come after, hee should not finde a thing to carpe at, in the very entrails of our sacrifices of our soules: The same word is used by St.Chrys. Hom. 20. in Rom. Chrysostome, upon this occasion of pre-examination, [...], &c. Thus we [should] doe from the bottome of our soules: whereforeJam. 4 8. cleanse your hands you sinners, and purifie your hearts ye double-minded. Thus if we doe, at least [Page 22] inTota vita boni Christia­ni est sanctum desiderium. desire, and endevour, we then come un­der this same [ὁ] Whoso, in my Text, and are the men, whosoever we be for externall condition in state or place, that be all invi­ted hither to eat, and to drinke, and that of no meaner cheare then the very flesh and bloud of Christ Jesus himselfe.

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

The second par­ticular. [...], Flesh and bloud! these are strange cates to make a banquet of. We read in the Scripture, that1 Cor. 15.50 flesh and bloud cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven, (but that's meant of flesh corruption, not of flesh the substance, as the words ensuing shew; for as there is Iron, so the rust of Iron) how much lesse shall he that [feeds] upon it for his food? Satia te sanguine, quem sitisti, saith Tamyris, as I remember, inJustin. hist. lib. 1. Justins hi­story, to Cyrus, when his head was off, and cast into a vessell full of bloud, Now surfet on that bloud which thou so much thir­stedst after. It was a law of Gods owne en­acting, [Page 23] He that shedsGen. 9.6. mans bloud, by man also shall his bloud be shed. My flesh, and my Bloud! Surely what the Israelites said of Manna, when first they saw, and tasted it, crying out in admiration,Exod. 16.15 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 knowes not how to discerne the Lords Body: such an one is apt to thinke, with that monster Cacus in the Poet, who from his wickednesse in abstracto, had his name [ [...],] saith—Foribus (que) affixa superbis ora [virûm] tristi pende­bant pallida tabo. Virg. Ae­neid. 8. Servius, that nought butServius ib. fol. 505. mans flesh must be drawn in­to his den; and as some savage Cannibal professing anthropophagie, as some [...], man-hating Miso, some Minotaure, or bloudySen. Tragaed. in Thyeste. Atreus, or the like prodigies of nature, that man was made to be2 Pet. 2.12. taken, as St. Peter saith of brute beasts, and to be de­stroyed, and as theJudg. 19. Levites concubine, to be chopt 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, [Page 24] ver. 60. many, even of Christs owne Disci­ples, when they heard this, said, Durus est hic senno, this is a hard saying, who can beare 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,Mat. 22.12. speechlesse.

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

The main scope of the Text.The mind of our Saviour in this Text, which is but repeated from the former ver­ses, is, to shew us the sweet effect of the spi­rituall eating of his body, and drinking of his bloud by faith, above that other orall 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 mysticall partaking in­strumentally procureth eternall life, after the resurrection, whereas the other, which is meerly outward, and no more, may yet en­gage to1 Cor. 11.29 judgement, and damnation; the reason is, because the one partakes of the [Page 25] Lord himselfe, who is the Bread of life, Joh. 6.35. whom to know, and with whom to have communion aright, is life eternall, Joh. 17.3. The other, onely of the bread [of] the Lord, which hath no vertue, without faith, at all, to procure such endlesse blisse: yea more, Dum Sacramenta possunt obesse, as St. Austin truly: when those elements of Bread and Wine once consecrated by the lawfull minister, and changed by that act of his, (duely, and as it ought, performed) though not from theirNe (que) enim id Christus e­git, ut panis friticeus abji­ceret [natu­ram] suam, ac novam quan­dam divinita­tem indueret, sed ut nos po­tius immuta­rer, ut (que) The­ophylactus lo­quitur (in Joh. 6.) [transe le­mentaret] in corpus suum. Juel. Apol. p. 41 vol. 16. nature, yet in their use, which is now become no longer [...]. Just. Mart. Apol. 2. ordina­ry, but holy, and Sacramentall; when, I say, they be thus changed in their use, then to partake them without faith, endangereth that worthlesse receiver, as those lusted after quailes did the faithlesse, and unruly Israe­lites, unto a speedy and a sudden overthrow, even whiles betwixt theirNum. 11.33 teeth: And yet all this too, not through the least defect in Sacraments themselves, for they have ap [...] tude and fitnesse, in their designation naturall, not onely to represent, to declare, and shew as signes, and to confirme asRom. 4.11. Seales, [Page 26] but even as sacred Instruments to1 Pet. 3.21. Save, and as effectuall meanes, though not by vertue of any opus operatum, or [See my Lo. Grace, sect. 33. p. 271, 272, 273, &c. & p. 307. & sect. 38. p. 327. num. 3. intention] of the ad­ministrer, (both which, as Bel-shazzar in the ballance, may bee found tooDan. 5.27. light) yet of Gods owne ordinance, to exhibite, and con­vey the very body and bloud of Christ unto the right receiver: for they be not empty pa­geants, or naked shewes; not theoricall, but practicall signes, though our grosse Roma­nists would faine perswade the world that we teach otherwise: But all the ill issue is in the defect of the goodTale cujus (que) sacrificium, qualis est is qui accedit ut sumat; omnia munda mun­dis. Aug l. 2. cap. 52. cont. Petilian. motion of the User: The better the meat, the worse the nourish­ment, yea the more dangerous the humours, and the dropsie more deadly, if the liver faile in making of good bloud, occasioning the body, like some marish grounds in the midst of a waterish bogge, to swell, and the spleene to puffe, and not dispersing proper spirits into the veines, which may, as 'twere embroyder the whole body in native, and in azure beauty:Horat. lib. 1. ep. 2 Sincerum est nisi vas, quod­cunque infundis acescit, saith the Poet, the best wines may sowre, and become unsavoury, [Page 27] if the But bee not rinsed; and the purest streames be corrupted through the muddi­nesse of the channell. Take a seale, apply it to a stone, it makes no more impression of its owne image, then those afflictions did on Pharaohs heart, which was in judgmentExod. 9.35. har­dened; but stamp it on the wax, the yeelding, melting, faithfull heart, loe! this seale of the Sacrament leaves there a Character as pro­per to the Elect of Christ, as was to Cesars coyne theMat. 22.20, 21. image of Cesar. Whence is this difference? not from the Scale, that's still the same, but from the severall 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 Shepheard, betweene Christ and Belial; the one, saith Moses, is anGen. 46.34. abomination to the other, and betweene the other two, saith2 Cor. 6.15, 16. Paul, there is no Communion: certainly its true, Sacramenta non prosunt sine bono motu utentis.

And that this is the genuine purpose of our Saviour, namely, under this expression of flesh and bloud, to acquaint us, that the [Page 28] provision he intends is Cibus mentis, and not Cibus ventris, is cleare, first in the generall, as theCentur. 1. l. 1 c. 4. p. 125. edit. 1624. 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 speake unto you, they are spirit, and they are life; not to be ta­ken, as Capernaites apprehended it, in a grosse and carnall meaning; as likewise by those many equipollent phrases, tending all of them to expresse the same thing, in the for­mer verses: for that which he, in my Text, calleth [flesh and bloud] in the 51. verse, he calleth the living [bread] which came downe from heaven; and, if any man eat of this [bread] he shall live for ever, and, the [bread] that I will give, is my [flesh,] that is, my flesh shall be [as] bread, to nourish the soule unto life eternall, even as the Com­mon bread doth serve to feed the body unto this life corporall: and that the [eating and drinking] is also spirituall, and of faith, is evident out of ver. 40. where the same effect that is here ascribed to eating, and drinking, [Page 29] viz. eternal life, is given unto [beleeving:] so that these tropical speeches, rightly takē, are converti­ble; for in this variety of expression, Christ doth but transpose the proposition, asPet. Martyr. loc. com. class. 4. c. 10. sect. 34. p. 856. P. Martyr notes; for asVers. 51. before, he said, that the bread that I will give is my flesh; so in the text, his flesh having [eating] adjoyned to it, is in stead of bread, and in equi­pollency the very same, ut (que) corpore editis panē, ita mente vescamini carne meâ. And to clear it yet a litle 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 Lords supper, the sacrament is bread and wine, & in the outward part of this mysti­call action, we receive this body and bloud but sacramentally; the inward thing, w^ch we appre­hend by faith, is, the body and bloud of Christ; and in the inward part of this mysticall action, which contains rem, we receive them really, and consequently, the presence in the one is Relative and symbolical, in the other, Reall & substanti­all; as that great light of the Church, the deeply-learned [Page 30] My Lord Archbishop Ussher Serm. on 1 Cor. 10.17. pag. 13. vol. 4. Primate of Armagh, hath shewen us.

And now, would all good moderate Christians, baulking your wrangling Isma­elites, being more shye of all that baggage which the School-men soile Divinity with­all, out of the Philosophers puddles, and their own, (asD^r Ray­nolds, p. 652. conclus. 5. added to the confe­rence with Hart. D^r Raynolds truly speaketh;) would they poyse their judgements at this ballance of the Sanctuary, and pray for the illumination of that Spirit, whose grace in the operation, is compared toMat. 3.11. fire, by John Baptist, the nature of which fire is, both con­gregare homogenea, & segregare heterogenea, (as in Philosophy we use to speak) both to con­joyne those things that be of the same, and to dis-joyne such as be of a differing kinde, and disposition; would they set faith to feed spiritually upon the very flesh and bloud of Christ, whose physicall, and naturall body is personally in the eternall word, locally inAct. 3.21. Heaven onely (the first that taught other­wise, and brought in the locall presence, even still on earth, was Scotus, whom Occam fol­lowed, and both but of yesterday, as our [Page 31] worthyD^r Field cap. 16. in append. Field hath shewen us) Sacramen­tally in the Eucharist, andMat. 28.20. alwayes with the Elect spiritually in the soule: and on the other side, set their bodily mouths to feed upon the outward visible bread, but yet as cloathed too with a Sacramentall relation to the flesh of Christ, symbolically signed thereby: And secondly, if they would fol­low learnedHooker lib. 5. Eccles. pol. p. 357. Hookers counsell, a worthy in­strument in our Church, who wished that men would more give themselves to medi­tate with silence [what] wee have by the Sacrament, and lesse to dispute of the [man­ner] (how,) at least considering that suc­cesse which Truth hath hitherto had by so bitter conflicts with errour in this point: Thus if we could be perswaded, oh what honey might we sucke asJud. 14.9. Samson from his Lyon, from this blessed Sacrament, for our peace and comfort, which now those bitter waters of Meribah, and strife, running downe so violently in a floud, doe, in a sort, wash off from many a seduced and unbal­lanced soule! But woe, and alas! how may our mother the Church, well typed in the [Page 32] Arke of Noah, (she is so tossed on the wor­king billowes of windy, yet boysterous spirits) speake out with Rebekkah, when shee felt her Twinnes to struggle toge­ther within her, If it bee so, that I have conceived,Gen. 25.22. Why am I thus? what meanes this strange, and this unnaturall elbow­ing, and shouldring, and justling together in the same womb betweene Brethren? Its a lamentable thing to behold, how this holy Sacrament, which was ordained by Christ to bee a bond, by which wee should bee knit together in unity, as be­ing all members of the same one Catho­like body the Church, of which none but Christ alone is the mysticallEph. 1.22. head; (and therefore it is called by Saint Paul, 1 Cor. 10.16 [...], a Communion) should yet from the incon­siderate confounding of those things, which in their owne nature are as different as may be, become as 'twere the Samson to teare in pieces the strongestJud. 16.9. Wyths of union in the Church: and, which is yet the deafnesse of the aspe upon the eares of misse-lead Christi­ans in this divided party, men will not heare [Page 33] the wisest charmings of the best charmer, at least, like those at Babel, they will not, though theyPro. 8.9. may,Gen. 11.7. 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 storme-driven ship upon the rockes, the ribs of the common mother the Church be dashed al­most in sunder by the waves of implacable contention.

Behold, and wonder; here Manasses is against Ephraim, there Ephraim is against Manasses, yonder both against Judah: the Papists against the Lutherans, the Lutherans against them, and both against the Calvinists; as if Christ were to bee1 Cor. 1.13. divided, or the truth were more thenEph. 4.5. one.

The Lutheran,The Luth [...]ran consubstantia­tion. in as much as Christs bu­mane Nature subsisteth not but in and with the infinitenesse of the second Person in the Trinity, by vertue of the ineffable union hy­postaticall, hath given unto the same hu­mane Nature of Christ a participated Ubi­quity with the Divinity, which is every [Page 34] where, at all times, and as Philosophers say of the soule informing the body, its tota in to­to, & tota in qualibet parte, wholly every where, and so with the Sacrament; by meanes whereof Christ is corporally, by a kinde of Consubstantiation (as their word is) [in] or [under] the Sacramentall 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 ofOne Christ, not by [confusi­on] of substance, but by unitie of Person. Athanasius; and withall, it doth indeed overthrow the truth of his humanity: for first, though Christs humane nature was forSee the wor­thy M^r Edw. Reynolds cap. 13. meditation on the Lo. last Supper. production extraordinary, for the communication of glory from the God­head on it admirable; yet the Godhead glo­rifies that his humane 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 essentiall properties of the Divine Nature it selfe, such as are Ubi­quity or omnipresency, immensity, infinite­nesse, &c. for if so, then the humane Nature were not onely glorified, and exalted, but the very same with the Divinity it selfe; for [Page 35] that Essence, or being to which the intrinse­call, and originally essentiall attributes of any thing doe belong, in the same degree, that they are in it selfe, that thing must needs be of the same nature with that from which it doth receive those attributes. Now Gods infinite Being every where, wholly, and al­wayes at the same time (for he is that intel­lectuall sphere whose center is every where, and circumference no where) is an essentiall property incommunicable from the infinite divine Nature, to the humane Nature, be­cause the humane Nature is incapable of such an attribute, in so infinite a degree; it being all out (in its owne kinde) as essentiall to its selfe to be finite, to be circumscribed in a place, &c. as it is to the Godhead to be most infinitely every where; and so accor­ding to that Philosophicall Maxime, Quic­quid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis, there is too infinite a disproportion betweene the finite humane Nature, and the Divine, that it is not capable of that infinite attribute of Ubiquity: therefore though Totus Christus, whole Christ be every where, by meanes of [Page 36] the union hypostaticall, yet not Totum Christi, the whole of Christ, by reason of the confi­nednesse of his finite humane Nature to one place now in Heaven. In short, Christs Na­ture by the Union received an extraordinary exaltation, but yet no destruction of its own essentiall properties, for so the Nature it selfe were utterly overthrowne: yea more, by this Gods owne omnipotency is impaired; for howbeit God can do all things Possible, yet they be such all things, quae posse, perfectae potentiae est, say your greatestVid. Halens. par. 1. quaest. 21. mem. 1. art. 1. p. 101. edit. 1622. item P. Lumb. l. 1. dist. 42. E. School-men, and such as imply neither any contradiction to his owne Nature in himselfe, no nor to the nature of any Creature, asZanch. lib. 3. de nat. Dei cap. 1. &c. Zanchy saith, [so] as it was created. If therefore it be the essentiall property, as it is, of the humane Nature to be finite, and so to be confined to heaven as one place, it were a contradiction to Gods all-mightinesse (according to the ordinary oeconomy and dispensation of his providence) to make it, being circumscri­bed already, to be infinitely elsewhere at the same instant. Christs presence in the Sacra­ment then being intended of that Nature, [Page 37] wherein he was our Redeemer, which was his humane, and not his divine onely; by this that I have said its cleare, that this Con­substantiation of the Lutherans is unsolid.

Next comes in the Papist,The Papisticall Transubstanti­ation. and with him brings in his [...] too, his sleeve­lesse tale of Transubstantiation, (as aMy L. Bish. of Exon. sect. 18. No peace with Rome. pro­found Prelate calls it;) by others, its named commentum, a meere fictitious, and faigned thing, so theCentur. 2. c. 4 p. 37. edit. 1624. Centuriatours; by others, som­nium, so he who was no more in name then nature theJuel. Apol. p. 40. vol. 16. Juel of his time, in his divine A­pology: at the best, we may all stile the tales they have about it, as Amphilochius doth those that the Poets tell of their gods,

yea, I had almost said, [...]. And this was likewise brought both into the world, and upon the stage by that other fable of the multi-presence of Christs 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 theirJud. 15.4. tayles to burne [Page 38] downe the ripe corn-fields of Truth, but yet as Samsons foxes they are divided in the heads. Once for all,Alphonsus à Castro, l. 8 ad­ver. haer. p. 578 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 yetSee Hooker, l. 5. p. 195. 196. Antiquity, whenBene [iun­data] antiqui­tas, Vincent. Lyrin. cap 6. advers. haeres. Confe [...] cum ib. cap. 9.25, 26, 27, 29, 41, 42, 43. True, is an admirable set­tler of Truth: so is the word in Tertullian, Quod primum, verum; the nigher the Primitive, still theThe more an­cient things, the more uncorrupt. Bishop Bilson, preface to the perpet. govern­ment of the Church, pag. 10. vol. 4. and in that booke often these two are coupled together, viz. The ancient and incorrupt Church and witnesses. purer, and lesse corrupt: And who knowes not the old word, [...]; and the ProphetJer. 6.16. Jeremies exhorta­tion, Stand, and aske for the old way, that's the sure way to finde rest to your soules: And yet who such [...], and Thrasoni­call ostentatours of antiquity as these? But surely this their pleading for theMy Lord Bishop Morton, now of Duresme, Epist. Dedicat. to King Charles before the Grand Impost. New-old­nesse (as a worthy Prelate calls it) of it, is, as were the Gibeonites pretences of [Josh 9. torne] shooes, and [mouldy] bread, by which they fained themselves to have come from [far.] This dreame of Transubstantiation was [Page 39] broached, or hammered out at first by one, who was, some say, a Magitian, and 'twas withstood byIren. l. 1. cap. 9. Irenaeus, andEpiphan. haer. 34. Epiphanius; af­ter urged againe by Pope Leo the ninth, but withstood by Berengarius a Deacon, for which he was condemned as an Hereticke in Concilio Vercellensi: and this was betweene the yeares 1049. and 1055. ifPlatin. in vita Leon. noni. Platina, in the life of Leo the ninth, faile not in his Chro­nology: Here he was condemned; after, ur­ged by Nicholas the second, and one Albericus a Deacon, to a grosse and shamefull recan­tation, as the sameIdem in vita Nicolai secund. authour reporteth, out of Lanfrancus. Betweene this time, and the Councell of Lateran, which was under Inno­centius the third (Anno 1215.) that great learned Physician and Philosopher Averroes lived, and tooke scandall at the whole body of Christian religion for this, asEspencaeus, l. 4. c. 3. de Eu­charist. adorat. Espencaeus saith: in the yeere 1215. it was decreed first, in the first Canon of the Councell ofCarranza, p. 420 sum. Con­cil. vol. 16. Lateran; at what time the Greeke Church had severed themselves from them, and was withstood by Bertram, the Waldenses, See my Lord Bish. Morton, cap. 15. sect. 19. thes. 6. pag. 398. edit. 2. Grand Impostare. Albigenses in mul­titudes; [Page 40] till at last it was foysted in among the twenty new Articles, or above, of the Creed of the conventicle atCo [...]. Trident. sess. 13. cap. 4. Trent, and for­ced with an Anathema, as of absolute neces­sity to salvation to be beleeved by the people. But yet this Doctrine was shortly after byChemnit. ex­am. part. 2. pag. 136, 137, &c. vol. 4. Chemnitius, and since by many other of our own Worthies, discovered to be a piece ofGal. 1.8. a­nother Gospel from S. Pauls; and therefore as the serpent ofExod. 7.12. Aaron devoured the serpents of the Magitians of Egypt, even so that oneGal. 1.8, 9. Anathema of S. Paul, must needs condemn all the Anathema's, which they from thatDeut. 27.13. Ebal of theirs denounce in the defence of that, which is not the faith [Jud. ver. 3. [...]] once delivered to the Saints, and but once for all, in the dayes of the Apostles.

Now they snarle much among them­selves for the best bone of their expressions herein. The Master of the Sentences confes­seth in so great variety hisP. Lumbard, l. 4. dist: 11. A. Si quaeritur, qualis sit illa conversio, de­finite non suf­ficio. insufficiency to define the right:Bellarm. l. 3. c. 18. de Eucha­rist. Bellarmine; their great Champion, will not have by the pronoun­cing of these foure words [This is my bo­dy.] any productive, or conservative con­version [Page 41] 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 meere Trans­location, nor Transubstantiation for if so,What Transub­stantiation is. there must be a change of one substance into another, and that Christs reall and true bo­dy is made of the bread, and the bread chan­ged into it, which is properly Transubstan­tiation, as our most reverendMy L. Grace against A.C. sect. 38. num. 4. p. 327, 328. Metropoli­tane hath shewen us: and if it be a Translo­cation, then not abique, and if as a substance under the accidents of the colour 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, isCornelius à Lapide, com­ment. in Isa. 7.14. Cor­nelius a Lapide, the Jesuite, who faith, that by the words of consecration, Truely and real­ly as the bread is transubstantiated, so Christ is produced, and as it were generated upon the Altar in such a powerfull and effectuall manner, ut si Christus [...]ecdion esset incarnatus, per haec verba [Hoc est corpus meum] incarnare­tur, [Page 42] corpus (que) humanum assumeret, That if Christ had not yet beene incarnate, by these foure words [This is my body] he should be in­carnate, and take an humane 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 bragge so much) in Sacramentall speeches, though the Scripture abounds this way: so Circumcision is called the Covenant, because it was theGen. 17.10, 11. token of the Covenant, and theRom. 4.11. Seal of the same; and in this very businesse 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 blesse,Sacramentall speeches are tropicall. is it not the communion of the bloud of Christ? The bread which wee breake, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?] In this passage, [The cup of blessing which wee blesse] there are three Tropes: 1. First, the cup, metonymically put for the wine in the [Page 43] cup. 2. The wine, by a metonymie of the subject, is put for the drinking of the wine. 3. Its called the cup of blessing, by a meto­nymie of the adjunct, because it hath bles­sing adjoyned 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 blesse, san­ctifie, and over which we give thanks, Is it not the communion of the bloud of Christ? This interrogation affirmeth with more strength, Yes, it is the communion, that is, say some, the signe; say others, the seale and obsignation; say a third sort, the declaration; and some, the instrumentall meanes of the communion which the true Beleever hath with Christ in his bloud: so that the sense amounts to this, The drinking of the wine consecrated, is a signe of our communion with Christ; all which is couched under these Tropicall expressions. Besides, our Sa­viour, even [after] consecration calleth it theMat. 26.29. fruit of the vine; and Saint1 Cor. 11.26 Paul [after] too,See my Lord Bish. of Du [...] f [...] c. 15. sect. 24. thes. 2 p. 403, 404. Grand Impost. bread and cup. Moreover, if we mark it well, the subject of that Sacramentall pro­position, [Page 44] that is, the demonstrative par­ticle [This] can have reference to no other substance, but that which our Saviour held in his sacred hands, viz. Pronomen [hoc] demon­stravit panem materialem. Franciscus Ma­son noster, l. 5. de minister. An­glic. cap. 6. p. 604. panem materialem, to the materiall bread and wine, which are of so different a nature from the body, and bloud of Christ, that the one cannot possi­bly, in proper sense, or but common reason, be said to be the other: and againe, in the predicate, or the latter part of the same pro­positions, there is not mention made onely of Christs body and bloud, but of his body [broken,] and his bloud [shed,] to shew, that his body is to be considered hereMy Lo. Pri­mate of Ar­magh, cap. 4. of the Irish Relig. 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 bloud likewise apart, not as running in his veines, 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 doe this, in [remembrance] of him: Now [Luk. 22.19. & 1 Cor. 11.24, 25. remembrance] is of things [absent] at least; and if in remembrance, then (which I note by the way) we may see [Page 45] whether the Romane Church did ever erre, or not, when for 600. yeares together it al­lowed (though since indeed it be rejected) the sentence of Innocentius the first, who en­joyned the Eucharist to be administred even untoMaldonat. Jesuit. in Joh. 6.53. & Espencae­us de adorat. eu­charist. l. 2. c. 12. Idem probat Binius ex re­script. Innoc. Pap. tom 1. con­cil. p. 585. edit. 1606. Infants, who through want of discre­tion cannot possibly [Remember] what they are not yet capable to Know. To con­clude this point, to shew that all this is to be meant onely in a [Joh. 6.63. spirituall] way, and that this is aConvivium tam [sublime] & tam [spiri­tuale.] Rabbi Samuel Israe­lita, ociundus de civitate re­gis Morochi­ani, ad Rabbi Isaac, Magistr. Synagogae, cap. 20. p. 646. in Parr. [...]. sublime, and mysticall banquet, as even a Jewish Rabbi 600. yeares agoe 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 lib. 5. 359. 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 bee actions of faith) that holy bread and wine doe as real­ly (as meanes and instruments) convey whole Christ, with the vitall influences that proceed from him into the soule, as the hand doth them unto the mouth, or the mouth [Page 46] unto the stomacke. Wherefore is then this so great adoe? SurelyChemnit. quâ supra. Chemnitius sheweth plainly to be, because the Sacrifice of the Masse may be supported, asservation, cir­cumgestation may be upheld, that the Ro­mishMy Lo. of Pu­resm, quae supra p. 403, 404. Moloch, Christs substance corporal­ly under the colour, and species of bread and wine may be adored, and that Christ by this dreame, being corporally present, might, though onely as a sacrifice unbloudy, be con­tinually offered up upon their superstitious, I had almost said Idoll-Altars: when yet, the Scripture tells us plainly, that as men dye but once for all, no more is Christ offered up, (save onely Eucharistically, and [...] Chrys. hom. 17 in Heb. comme­moratively, and by way of[Reprae­sentatio] ve­ri sacrifi­cii. P. Lumb. l. 4, dist. 12 G. confer Du Mou­lin, Art. 9. ver­sus fin. defence of K. James. Representation) but once for all, hylastically and in propitia­tion; the iteration, and repeating of the sa­crifice implying imperfection, and insuffici­ency under the old law, Christs owne ob­lation of himselfe upon the Crosse, most complete perfection, because but once for all, Heb. 9.27, 28.

And as they are thus grossely out in this provision it selfe, viz. the flesh and bloud of [Page 47] Christ; so doe they become injurious also to it in the usage of it, They by oblation, as­servation, circumgestation, and carrying a­bout, adoration, and the like, prophane it; Whereas the actions enjoyned to us herein, are Sacramentall only, expressed in the Text, by [eating and by drinking;] which is the next particular, though but in a little mouth­full of words onely, to bee discoursed of: Whoso [eateth] my flesh, and [drinketh] my bloud.

These actions of [Eating,The third par­ticular. and of Drink­king] are both of Sacramentall Institution, and signification, symbolically representing the inward application of, and as it were the mysticall mastication, or feeding upon Christs flesh and bloud by faith, which is the mouth of the soule, and her exercise, and acts about this mystery, as 'twere, the very eating and the drinking of Christs flesh, and bloud. Now this eating is, as Christs body, to which it doth relate, twofold. 1. Sacra­mentall. 2. Spirituall: both are required, but chiefly the spirituall, because the wicked may equally share with us in the first; and if we have the second, though necessity per­chance [Page 48] barre us of the first, yet we are safe: (still remembring the Rule, that Nuda carentia non damnat, but contemptus; because that Christ doth not universally, and alwayesDeus grati­am Sacramen­tis non alliga­vit, quasi abs (que) illis neque possit, neque velit ullos ser­vare. Pet. Mar­tyr. loc. com. class. 4. c. 5. sect. 16. p. 826. tye, with­out any exception, his saving graces to the outward means:) Hence is that ofP. Lumb. l. 4. dist. 4. & 9. Lumbard, Some, saith he, take both the Sacrament, and the thing signified with it, so the Elect and faithfull, in their health, or well-disposed; some the Sacrament onely, and no more, so the Hypocrite; a third sort, the thing onely, without the signe, which is indeed the prin­cipall eating: hence is that knowne word of S.Aug. Tract. 25. in Joh. Austin, Ut quid paras ventrem, & dentem? crede & manducasti: Why preparest thou thy teeth, and belly? beleeve only, and thou hast eaten Christ.

Now though I might here take occa­sion justly to exhort my selfe, and you, to a frequent partaking of Christ, even Sacra­mentally too; and soEph. 5.16. redeem the time of our freedome herein, because the dayes are evill, so that we may either be taken from the Sa­crament, or it from us: we finde that the Primitive Church was [ [...] Act. 2.46. daily] in it; which [Page 49] made SaintS. Cyprian. in orat. Dom. sect. 13. Cyprian to interpret the [daily Bread,] in the Lords prayer, of the Sacramen­tall bread: And in Saint Chrysostomes dayes there was [...] [Chrys. hom. 3. ad Ephes. [...], &c. [...]] a [daily] sa­crifice in use, and he in wonder cryed out on the slacke comming unto the holy Altar, and blamed it as an ill custome: But though I urge not such a frequency, lest the common­nesse might abate somewhat of the reve­rence to it; yet at least, let not the moone pace over the Zodiack oftner (sith the spouse of Christ is likened to theCant. 6.10. moone) then we performe, if possible, our course this way. St. Paul is at his [ [...]] his [1 Cor. 11.26 oftennesse,] of whichThom. 3 qu. 66 art. 9. ad 5^um in fine. Quia homo se­mel nascitur, multoties au­tem cibatur; semel tantum datur baptis­mus, multoti­ens autem Eu­charistia. Thomas gives a reason (though Baptisme be but once for all administred) because though man be but once borne, yet because he stands in need of often feeding, and nourishment; therefore though the Sa­crament of Initiation, Baptisme, be but once given, yet the Sacrament of farther confir­mation, and strengthening, the Lords Sup­per, or the Eucharist, is often administred. In Concilio Agathensi, as I find in Isidores Coun­cels, he was sentenced for an unsound Chri­stian, [Page 50] who did not at the three great Festivals of the yeere at least communicate: Our own Church hath pressed her children toCanon. Angl. 21. Three times a yeare at the least, whereof one to be now atCertum ha­bemus quia Christus re­surgens ex mortuis, jam non moritur, &c. tamen ne obliviscamur, quod semel factum est, in memoria no­stra omni anno fit, sc. quotiens [Pascha] cele­bratur. August. praef. in 2. ex­pos. Psal. 21. de cons. dist. 2. apud Lumb. l 4. dist. 12. G. Easter: But as for our [spirituall] eating, that must be every day, for else the soule would starve and dye, which liveth not but by theHab. 2.4. & Gal. 3.11. The fourth par­ticular. life of faith.

And as Christs flesh must thus be [eaten] by us, so must every good Christian [drink] his bloud 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 Melchisedech his oblation of both bread and wine to Abraham, Gen. 14.18. as St.S. Cyprian. sect. 2. de Coen. Dom. Cyprian, Rabbi Samu­el, quâ supra cap. 19. p. 645. Rabbi Samuel, Thom. 3. qu. 61. Act. 3. ad 3^um. Aquinas, Hales, par 4. qu. 10. mem. 1. Art. 2. p. 223. edit. 1622. Hales, and many others have well observed. See yet if herein our Romanists be not directly Antichristian, and both wayes run them­selves upon the rockes; the dangerous Scyl­la ofApoc. 22.18, 19. adding, on the one side, and the en­gulphing Charybdis of taking away, on the other side; both pernicious. In the Coun­cell of Florence (for loe! a deepe silence of this, till that time, in all Antiquity) which [Page 51] was but in the yeere 1200. some 30. yeares after that Hugo de S. Victore, and P. Lumbard had vented their conceits herein, (and they were the first that made any noise about it) (asD^r Whitaker l. 8. sect. 59. de paradox. cont. Duraeum. D^r Whitaker, sometimes Oracle of the chaire in Cambridge, hath shewed us) Then and There they decree for seven Sacraments, whereas our Saviour appoints but two: They might as well have settled 70. times 7. in the larger acception of the word Sacra­ment, as it signifies the signe of an holy thing in generall. And now here, they man­gle the use of these that our Saviour appoin­ted, allowing the cup only unto the Clergy, pretending that Christ meant that onely 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 ex­presse institution of our Saviour himselfe, under both kindes, and not of the bread onely in the maine, the wine being byPet. Martyr. loc. com. clas. 4. c 10 sect. 18. p. 849. con­comitancy alone consecrated, as some of them doe tell us; not onely the Primitive, but even the wholeCassander consult. Art. 22. initiō. Catholicke Church of Christ, yea, even the purer Romane too, for [Page 52] a thousand yeares continuance (which, had there bin no [expresse] appointment, was notwithstanding of a veryThe appro­ved practice of the Saints of God, is equiva­lent to a precept. D^r Sclater, my father, s rm. on 1 Cor. 9.13, 14. p 34. stiled The Ministers portion, edit. Oxon 1612. —Illa quae ubi (que) obser­vantur, mul­tum procul­dubio valent; ubique, id est, toto terrarum orbe semper observata, &c. D^r Whitak. l. 1. cont. Duraeum sect. 16. binding obser­vation) did observe it so, as Cassander, (one of the chiefest Divines of his time) confes­seth: Nor indeed can they themselves shew usQuando primùm vige­re coepit in a­liquibus Ec­clesiis minimè constat. Va­lent. Jes. de Eu­charist. c. 10. p. 499. sect. Haec igitur. when certainly the Communion onely under [one] kinde first began; yea, till with­in these last 400. yeares, which is a very new-antiquity, it had no spreading enter­tainment: for Aquinas confesseth that [un­der both kindes] was in use even to his times, and he was bothMy L. Grace against A.C. sect. 33. p. 275, 276. num. 13. borne, and dead, during the reign of Henry the third of Eng­land; and the [one kinde] was decreed but in the thirteenth Session of the Councell of Constance, which is veryId. ib. sect. 38 p. 340. moderne, at least farre downewards from the Primitive and purest Church; so that I have no other hopes to keepe up your attention, with any fur­ther discourse herein, then to tell you onely as Demosthenes was wont to say to his Athenian auditors, when they grew remisse under his Orations, Here is newes for you; which word [Newes] though it may spur [Page 53] your attention in the listening to it, yet it should withall encrease your abhorrence of that religion, which is thus patched together with the fragments ofI will sin­cerely promise, that when ever any point of the Religion I pro­fesse shall be proved to be [new,] and not ancient, Catho­like, and Apo­stolike, I meane for matter of faith, I will re­nounce it, &c. See K. James confess. of faith, Art. 23 in fine, exactly. Novelty: for there is no faith, or religion True, but onely That which is Catholike Truely, and properly, which is, and was beleeved every where, alwayes, and by all; which hath, as Vincen­tius Vincent. Li­rin. cap. 3. cont. haeres. — Con­fer my Lo. Pri­mate of Ar­magh, ser. on Eph. 4.13. p. 27, 28, 29. edit. 1631. Lirinensis saith, both Universality, An­tiquity, and unanime Consent of theSee Aug. epist. 18. c. 5. & l. 4. de Bapt. cont. Donatist. c. 24. —Confer my L. Grace, against A.C. sect. 21. p. 137, 138. num. 4.—& sect. 38. p. 352. num. 17. initio.—& sect. 39. p. 378. num. 4. ib. whole Church of Christ, which these late upstart devices andMat. 15.9. doctrines of men, undoing, by consequence, the ancient and pure worship of God, have not.

Sith then, my deare Brethren, these Ro­manists, the onely [Catholikes] as they cry themselves up, (by which oneMy L. of Durh. quâ supra c. 15. sect. 1. initio. word, as by a Gorgon's, or a Medusa's head, painted in a shield, they thinke at first sight to terrifie and delude poore ignorant Protestants, as they count most of them, and if they could) sith I say, these be such2 Sam. 10.4. Hanuns, to shame us by cutting off at [halfes] the best of our spiri­tuall ornaments, as he did of Davids servants [Page 54] in a mock; and fith they dare to be so bold, as to take from you thePsal. 116.13. Calix saluta­ris, sanguis est Salvatoris. Bern. tract. de lib. arbit. & gratia, fol. 289 G. & Illyr p. 126. in verbo Calix. cup of salvation, pray you for their conversion, if God2 Tim. 2.25. peradven­ture wil give them repentance to the know­ledging of the truth, and then leave them and theirThis with­out all doubt is all the infallibi­lity the Pope hath, to be sure to be infallible in whatsoever he [would] have determined: chiefly remem­bring the Coun­cells of Con­stance, and Basil. See my L. Grace; qua supra, sect. 29. num. 2. p. 219 & sect. 33 ib. p. 262, 263, &c. infallible Head (if so they will not re­turne) unto Gods cup of Trembling, which shall make them reel, and stagger more with Terrour, then excesse: And for your selves, listen to your dearly-loving Saviours in­vitation, who saith,Luc. 14.17. Come unto me: If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drinke, Joh. 7.37. What is this thirst, but a thirst of faith? for so verse 38. and what is this drinke, but the precious liquour of his owne bloud? for as hee saith, Joh. 6.55. in the next verse to my Text, My flesh is [meat] indeed, so also, My bloud is [drinke] indeed; whereof this Sacramentall cup, (tendred unto every of you by us, deare Christians, that be mem­bers by faith of Christ, according to his owne appointment and institution) is the sure signe, and seale, and pledge unto your soules. For this cause, yee see clearely, in the Text, that by a copulative, both Eating and [Page 55] Drinking are conjoyned together: what therefore God hath thus joyned together, let no man (much lesse the2 Thes. 2.3. man of sinne, short­ly to be consumed by theVers. 8. ib. spirit of Christs mouth) dare to putMat. 19.6. asunder: and sith both are so placed in the Text, that as theExod. 25.20 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 uni­versall particle, that is set in the doore of my Text, to call in all worthy commers; Loe! every one, all ye that hunger and thirst aright by faith, come in, and eat, and drinke your fill, saith Christ; Behold, my owne flesh and bloud stand ready fitted for your best provision: and to set an edge upon your spi­rituall appetites, see, here is after Supper, eter­nall life to abide with you, and you with it for ever, and this most fully to bee given at the last act; for so we read, [...], &c. Whoso, Whosoever eateth my flesh, and drinketh my bloud [hath eternall life.]

Hath eternall life.] See here, and note it,The third par­ticular. No man ever yet lost by his obedience to [Page 56] Christ; he is notHeb. 6.10. unrighteous to forget it: hee alone is worthy to lose, who when Christ inviteth him, he puts him off with fondLuk. 14.18. excuses, and will not come: loe! here is [life] given, the sweetest monosylla­ble in the world, and not so alone, but life [eternall:] Had he said length of daies, he had made good the first promise made to the obedience of the morall law, Eph. 6.3. but in that he names eternall life, see here the complement of all blisse. But I pray note the expression, 'tis in the present tense, [ [...]] not he [shall] have, but he [hath] it: and how so? because a beleever thus feeding upon Christ by faith, hath Christ himselfe, who is stiled eternall life, Joh. 17.3. for Christ by faithEph. 3.17. dwelleth in such an one, and he in him, Joh. 6.56. yea Christ himselfe saith as much, Joh. 11.25. I am the life, and hee that beleeveth in me shall never dye, for he hath in him life eternall.

Again, if eternall life be here set, as I think it is, as the Reward of faith, then how hath the beleever it already? Ans. In Spe, though not in Re; In hope and expectation he hath [Page 57] it, though not in actually complete fruition; and by this hope they areRom. 8.24. saved: Or else they have it, in arrhabone, in theEph. 1.14. earnest, & in si­gillo, in theEph. 4.30. seale, and marke of the spirit, which marke is for ever indeleble; it's as a foundation,2 Tim. 2.19 sure, not to be shaken, no not by all the machinations, orMat. 16.18. policies of Hell it selfe.

But how so, sith they that beleeve dye? Ans. What of that? sith he that beleeveth in Christ, though he wereJoh. 11.25. dead, yet shall hee live: Dye hee must, because of the statute, Heb. 9.27. But let not this trouble the belee­ver; 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 likeBeza ad lo­cum. Beza his guesse well, that [ [...]] here stands for [ [...],] that the [and] here is a causall note, ser­ving by way of prolepsis, or of preoccupati­on to remove that objection, likely to bee raised by a weakling, though a Beleever, Thus: You promise life eternall, and loe! I die, where then is your promise? Ans. Why? I will raise thee up againe, at the last day: [Page 58] and if yee note it, at your leisure, you shall finde this speech of the Resurrection no lesse thenJohn 6, 39, 40, 44, 54. foure times, in this one Chapter, re­peated, to double the observation, and com­fort.

The fourth ge­nerall part.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 beare it? Surely no unbeleeving, meerely naturall man on earth: yea, more then so, the very Apo­stles themselves wereLuke 24.25. slow of heart at the first to beleeve it; and the reports of those good soules, the women that having seene Christ after his Resurrection, told it to the Disciples, seemed to them asLuke 24.11. idle tales, saith S. Luke, cap. 24.11. yea, S. Thomas expresly pro­tested, that for his part hee wouldJohn 20.25. not be­leeve it, till he felt him, John 20.25. The Phi­losophers at Athens derided the doctrine, and made a mock of S. Paul, when hee deli­vered it to them, Act. 17.32. At other times, he was not onely called inAct. 23.6. question, but in danger almost to be torne inVer. 10. ib. pieces for the same: theVer. 8. ib. Sadducees, a certaine sect in the A­postles [Page 59] dayes, yea rise also in ourMath. 22.23. Saviours owne time, flatly denied that there was any Resurrection, or Angel, or Spirit; for alas! the poring eye ofTo conceive of Divine things by Philosophy, is no other then to take out a red­hot Iron with our fingers, and not with tongs. My L. of Exon, Sect. 18. No peace with Rome Nature was too dimme to discerne so high a mystery as this was, so farre remote from her best-disposed Organs: The wisest Ethnick was no better at this then S. Peters 2 Pet. 1.9. [...], one that was pur-blind, like to a Bat or Owle, or like S. Austins man betweene sleeping and waking. That Com­mon Principle of, à privatione ad habitum non datur regressus, that from a totall privation of life from the Body, there was no possibility of a returne, was so fastened in them, that like to a first Principle, or a Mathematicall 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 aAct. 17.18. Babler, or as a Naturall Ignaro; the ground of all is, because this is a businesse meerely of Faith, to which all CarnallThom. 1^a qu. 1^a Art. 8. ad 2^um Oportet quòd naturalis ratio subserviat fi­dei. Reasonings must give way: in the Naturall man, both the medium, which is Faith, is wanting, or unprepared, and the object, Christ risen, stood at too great a distance to bee kenned, [Page 60] no not so much as Moses did from mountDeut. 34.1. Nebo the land of promise [a farre off] by him; It's the proper work of Gods spirit only, as he did those Dead bones inEzek. 37.14. Ezekiel, (which were a figure of the Resurrection) to quicken and enliven his first apprehensi­on, and faith for this purpose. Some Here­tiques there were, after the Apostles dayes, inTertul. de prae­script. adv. Haer. c. 46, 48, 49, 51 Saturn. Basili­des, Carpocrates, Cerdon, &c. Tertullians time, that were against the Bodily Resurrection: the Anabaptists, and Libertines of late, were all for the Spirituall Resurrection of the soule from sinne unto the life of grace in this life; though that good Martyr Polycarpus, S. Johns Disciple, stileth such, whether Epicures, or others,Polycarpus Epist. ad Philip. Primo­genitos Satanae, the first-begotten of Satan; yea, evenTertul. lib. de Monogam. Tertullian himselfe, that ancient Father of the Church, after his infection by the he­resie of Montanus, whom hee stiled his Para­clete, and his Prophet;Lactant. lib. 7. instit. Div. c. 21, 24, 26. Lactantius also, and divers other Doctors of the Church, having a tang of the errour of the Millenaries, these, though they granted a Resurrection to bee, yet were out in the understanding of it: for, mis-understanding that Prophecy Rev. 20.5. [Page 61] where there is mention of a [first] Resurre­ction, imagined that there should be a [first] Resurrection of the Just, that should raigne here a thousand yeares even upon [earth;] and after that, a second Resurrection of the Wicked, at the day of the generall judgment: Whereas we know, there shall bee butJohn. 11.24. one [generall] Resurrection of the Bodies of the just, and unjust at the last day; that first Re­surrection in S. John being to be understood onely of the inward, and spirituall Resurre­ction of the soule out of the grave of sinne, which, as a body in the grave, lies too much rotting, and corrupting of the soule; for which cause S. Paul hath called it thePhil. 3.10. see Rom. 6. Pow­er of Christs Resurrection. These some then, and divers more that might happely 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 thanke our good God, who hath so blessed us, withEphes. 1.3. spi­rituall blessings in Christ Jesus, that he hath given us better eyes, by means of the vaile of naturall blindnesse removed, to see into this [Page 62] great mystery of godlinesse, and hath let this part of the2 Cor. 4.4. 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: onely Two things I note, as Principally here intended. First, the Author of the Beleevers Resurrection, Christ himselfe, [ [...]] [...], I, Emphati­cally I, will raise him up, What stronger ar­gument of the Divine Nature of our Savi­our? Noe [man] (meerely) such, hath ever quickened his2 Cor. 3.5, 6. owne soule, but Christ doth this Potestative, by vertue of his own innate Power, for so he saith, I haveJohn 10.18. power to lay downe my life, and I have power to take it up againe; and therefore saithBern. ser. 10. de Pasch. Bernard, dif­ferencing Christs from all others Resurrecti­on, Reliqui suscitantur, solus Christus Resurrexit: Well may others be [raised,] Christ onely [rose,] hee onely by [himselfe] could con­quer death: Wherefore, though the originall word, in Mar. 16.6. [ [...]] be passive, yet must it bee understood actively, as a Reve­rend [Page 63] Bp. Lake, on 1 Cor. 15.20. p. 157. Prelate hath observed: This power manifested in Christs Resurrection was pre­figured, sayAlbinus quaest. in Gen. Albinus, Julianus Po­merius, lib. 1. contr. Judaeos p. 556. in Patr. [...]. Julianus Pomerius, and others greatly learned, in that prophecy of old Jacob, Gen. 49.9. where Juda is said to stoupe down, and to couch as an old Lyon, and yet, saith the same great Patriarch, as a Lyons whelp from the prey, my sonne, thou art gone up: this is a cleare Type of our Lord and Saviour, who by S. John is called theApoc. 5.5. 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 downe in his grave, as an old and weaken­ed Lyon; but as a Lyon that is young, in much strength, hee rouzeth up himselfe a­gaine, having broken the bonds ofAct. 2.24, 31. Death, and Hell in his victorious Resurrection: so that this [taking up] of his life againe sheweth the Truth of his Divinity, and om­nipotent consubstantiality,Phil. 2.6. equall with his eternall Father, and the holy Ghost; that hee was not [...], onely [like] unto, but verily [...], of the [same] substance with his Father, against that damnable he­resie [Page 64] of Arrius, under which though theHaeresis Ar­rii prorupit, totum (que) [or­bem] invecto errore turba­verat. Sulpic. Severus l. 2. sacr. hist. p. 144. in 8^o. cum Drusio. world seemed in the dayes of Athanasius the Great, in a sort, to[Ingemuit] totus orbis, & Arrianum se esse miratus est. Hieron. cont. Luciferian.— Confer Hooker, l. 5. p. 266. ad p. 274. Et D^r Field, l. 1. c. 10. in medio. My L. of Du­resme, c. 15 sect. 5. p. 368. qua supra. Et M^r Wotton, serm. 2. in Joh. p. 77, 78, &c. groane, yet was it condemned in the first generall Councell at Nice, and himselfe at last voyded with hisRuffin. l. 1. c. 13. hist. Eccles. bowels, and entrals, as he was about to go to maintaine his blasphemy, his soule out of his body, being smitten by the immediate hand of Divine Justice for his obstinacie herein.

Now as this sheweth the Divinitie, so in that in the former part of the Text, he men­tioneth his flesh, and his bloud, it's cleare al­so that hee had likewise an humane nature too, even hee tooke part likewise, saith theHeb. 2.14. Apostle, of the same flesh and bloud with the rest of the children, and so becameEph. 5.30. flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, and all this too, not in [...]. Ignat. ad Philip. p. 5. opinion onely, and fan­cie, as the old explodedVide Estium ad cap. 2. in Philip. ver. 7. p. 79. Marcionites and Manichees conceited, [...], as Ignatius saith, but Really, and in Truth; for so the Scripture plainely, The word was [Joh. 1.14. made] flesh, Made, I say, and that not brought downe along with him [Page 65] out of heaven, as the Apollinarian Here­tickes imagined, but made out of the flesh of the Virgin Mary: so Saint Paul ex­presly, Gal. 4.4. Factus [ex] muliere, made [of] a woman; for that preposition [ex] or [of] noteth the materiall cause of his in­carnation, and that our Lord and Saviour was substantialiter factus, asTheophyl. ad 1. Mat. ver. 23. Theophylact notes, made of the very substance of the Virgin; which overthroweth also that Valentinian heresie, which taught that Christ passed onely as water through a conduit-pipe, through her wombe, but took nothing Re­ally of her substance; for St. Paul elsewhere Rom. 1.3. saith expresly, that he was made [ [...]] [...], [of] the seed of David ac­cording to the flesh; [Factum] propriâ significa­tione intellige, saithBeza ad Rom. 1. ver. 3. Beza, the word [made] is there properly to be understood, as shewing the very substance of Christs flesh to be made of the very substance of the Virgins: And in­deed, had it not been so, he could never have been capable ofHeb. 2.14. Death, or suffering, thereby to overcome him that had the power of Death, the Devill, as St. Paul disputes most [Page 66] strongly; the Godhead being, as not passio­nate (as the Vorstian blasphemie was) so neither passible, or subject unto death, or shedding of bloud,Heb. 9.22. without which yet there was no remission of sinnes possible: Sometimes indeed the Holy Ghost speaking in concreto of Christs 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 onely in abstracto, to the one nature. So we read Act. 20.28. [God] is said to have purchased the Church with his owne [bloud,] Now God himselfe is aJoh. 4.24. Spirit, saith the Scripture, and a Spirit, saith our Sa­viour, hath not flesh, and bones, as yee see me have, Luk. 24.39. and if there be no flesh, nor veines to hold and containe bloud, which for the remission of sinnesHeb. 9.22. must be shed, then surely there can be no purchase of the Church by bloud: 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. [Page 67] where Christ speaking of himselfe, 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 selfe, did, and was thus, or thus, as Gods Spirit in the Scrip­tures, is pleased to expresse so deep, and great a mystery.

Thus ye see, that if there were no other Texts to prove it, yet from this one the [...], and Two Natures of Christ hy­postatically united to his Divine Person, would bee sufficiently collected. But be­cause this point is hence but [...] on­ly to bee discoursed of, this being rather the hypothesis, then the thesis of the Text directly; I rather come to shew how, and by what sinewes the Resurrection of Beleevers is from hence deducible; and this is founded upon Two maine grounds: First, because Christ himselfe being theEph. 1.22. Head of his Church, and every Beleever a [Page 68] lively member of his body, by vertue of the mysticall, and effectuall Union that is be­tweene 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 Saint1 Cor. 15.20. Paul saith, wee as the rest of the whole lumpe; looke now, as the dedication of the first-fruits of their in­crease did unto the Jewes consecrate, and in a manner sanctifie the whole other en­crease, even so our Saviour by his Resur­rection, hath consecrated unto all his mem­bers theirs, Cùm eadem sit ratio primitiarum, & totius cumuli, asBeza ad 1 Cor. 15.20. Beza noteth, there being the same reason, by this consequence, of the whole lumpe, and of the first-fruits. The wicked shall indeed bee raysed up too, but unto everlasting shame, confusion, and con­tempt, asDan. 12.2. Daniel, and SaintJoh. 5.29. John say, by the [power] of God, but the beleever, and his True member onely by vertue of his ef­fectuall merit, and Communion: [I] will raise him up.

The other thing to be noted, is the Time mentioned for this raising up, [...] [Page 69] [...], at the last Day; he meanes, the day of our common2 Cor. 5.10. appearance before him, wherein the heavens being on fire, shall be2 Pet. 3.12. dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat: Saint Paul calleth it by an emphasis, [2 Tim. 1.18. [...]] [...], [that] day, that so remarkable, that soJud. ver. 6. great, and dreadfull day ofRom. 14.12. account: by Saint Peter it is called the day of the2 Pet. 3.10. Lord; Then it is that Christ will raise up the Beleever, 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 tillJoh. 2.10. last; and is indeed like to King Davids wine, that which makethPsal. 104.15. glad the heart of every righteous man, who if in this life onely he had hope, he were of all men else most1 Cor. 15.19. miserable: For as the life of an unbeleever is like a Trage­die, which is presented in with Musick, and all expressions of jollity, but it goes off usually in a dismall, and a sad catastrophe; so is the life of a Beleever to a Comedie, which though brought upon the stage in [Page 70] blackes, under sad lookes, soft paces, faint speeches, and such like emblemes of sor­row, yet stay a while, and ye shall see all goe off in mirth and musicke; the righte­ous, when the other calls for the rockes, and mountaines to fall upon him, and to shelter him from the wrath of the Lambe in vaine, shall at that [last] day, being rai­sed up by his head Christ Jesus, lift up his head with joy, because that his Redempti­onLuk. 21.28. draweth nigh.

I will raise him up at the last day: that is, asRupertus ad cap. 6. Joh. Rupertus glosseth, à congerie aeternâ morte mortuorum, ex nomine eum vocans, discernam, I will segregate him from the whole other masse, or drove, as it were, of wicked men, that shall dye eternally for their impeni­tencie in sinne, and call him forth by name, and will not beeMat. 10.32, 33. ashamed to owne him then at that last day, who was not asha­med of his reproach, in his warfare against the world, the flesh, and the Divell here below. So True is that of King David, that if we marke the perfect man, and be­hold the upright, wee shall finde that the [Page 71] [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. conferre 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 [Pro. 11.31. earth] saith Salomon, and no farther, the end of their dayes, is the day of the end of all their sorrow, and misery, for ever and ever.

To conclude, let theDeut. 32.29. thought then of our ends, bee still the end of our thoughts: and that our end may bee good, let us bee sure that wee have good ends in all our projects, and our Christian performances, orEcclus. 7.36. undertakings, before that last end of all comes, Then shall we indeed be raysed up with joy, and comfort most unspeaka­ble, at that last Day.

The meanes to accomplish this, is, To propound our Saviours Resurrection as a Patterne of ours, in our spirituallEphes. 5.14. awa­king out of the sleep of sinne, by our spi­rituall, [Page 72] and as S. John hath phrased it, OurRev. 20.6, 7. first Resurrection: Now before Christs, there was anMatth. 28.2. earthquake, so in our Regene­ration there is a conquassation usually, and a shaking of the soule, aAct. 24.25. & 16.29. trembling of the conscience, through a sight of sinne, and of our misery thereby; the day of our se­cond, must be like the day of our first birth, Dies lachrymosa, a Day ofIngressus slebilis, pro­gressus debi­lis, egressus horribilis. Ber. Teares, shed in contrition for our sinnes past; when wee must, as Moses did theExod. 17.6. 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 streames of sorrow for our loose conversations before calling: The continuall 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 wildernesse drives the pained Israelite to look up for remedy to theNum. 21.9. brasen Serpent, there set up: so when the Conscience is, as it were, stung with the bitings of theRev. 12.9. old Serpent the Devill, by the sight, and smart for sinne, Then flies [Page 73] the Penitent, and sobbing soule for ease, and remedy to the True brasenJohn 3.14. Serpent Christ Jesus, who hath broken the teeth, and plucked out that1 Cor. 15.55, 57. sting which so much pained the good soule. TheInitium sa­lutis, notitia peccati: qui peccare se ne­scit, corrigi non vult. Sen. —Frustra me­dicantis auxi­lium expectat, qui vulnus non detegit. Boctius. sight, and sense of misery by sinne is the sure prepa­ratory meanes to seek, and finde a remedy by mercy; as when the powers of the jay­lors soule were shaken, with as strong an earth-quake, as the Prison it selfe was, Then, but not till then, heeAct. 16.29. Non potest sci­re quo modo morbos curare conveniat, qui undè hi sunt, ignorat. Cornel. Cels. de Re Med. lib. 1. sprang in to Paul, and Silas, desiring both ease, and di­rection, from the guilt of sinne, unto the life of Christianity: The like to which wee read of S. Peters Converts, when they wereAct. 2.37. A man were better feele wrath then no­thing. D. Scla­ter, in sick souls salve. pricked in their hearts, then they cry out, What shall wee do to bee saved? 2. Secondly, Christs Resurrection wasThom. 3^a qu. 54^a Art. 2. 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, asPrimasius in 1. ad Corinth. c. 15. v. 20. Primasius speaks, in an absolute incorrup­tion, yea, and impossibility of returning back againe to Death, He being risen dieth [Page 74] Rom. 6.9. no more, death hath no more dominion over him; for he arose Immortalis Totaliter, asRaymund. à Sabunde, in Theolog. Na­tural. Raymundus à Sabunde saith, Totally Im­mortall. Now his Resurrection being an example of ours, from hence wee are in­structed to a Totall, Integrall, and Univer­sall abrenunciation of all sinne, unto the contrary reformation. A Christian must be [...], whole in regard of sincerity, universall in regard of the extent of his obe­dience, untoPsal. 119.128. all Gods Commandements; for hee that allowes himselfe in any one knowne sinne, cannot bee said Truly to hate any sinne; even as a loose adulterer that hath many curtisans, but some one a­bove the rest, on whom hee doates, on whom his luxurious affections are more intensively enamoured, though hee enter­taine the rest but onely in a generall salute, and so goes them all by, to glut himselfe with pleasure on that one: Though the manifestation of his carnall love be greater to this one, then to all the other, yet hee cannot properly be said to hate any of the rest: But a Christian must not onely, as [Page 75] Herod, be at his [Mar. 6.20. many] things, nor as A­grippa, at his [Act. 26.28. almost,] nor as Naaman, at his Rimmon, and his being pardoned in [2 King. 5.18.This] though but an onely minion: but he that is in Christ must bee a new Crea­ture throughout, andAct. 26.29. altogether;2 Cor. 5.17. all things must become New, in heart and affection, in life and conversation, in body, in soule, in spirit,1 Thes. 5.23. Wholly, Integrally, Universally; for so was Christs Resurrection. 3. Third­ly, Christ arose speedily, theLuke 24.46. Third day from his death; and that no sooner, nor no later: first, saithThom. 3^a qu. 53. Art. 2. in corp. Aquinas, to shew the Truth of both his Natures; it behoved him to rise quickly, least if his Resurrection had beene deferred till the end of the world, the Truth of his Divinity might, with his om­nipotency, have beene suspected, as if heeSee John 10.18. could not have raised up himselfe before; and it behoved him to lie till the third day before hee arose, least the Truth of his hu­manity, and his death might have beene questioned; now continuing in the grave untill the Third Day, (so that the grave to our Saviour was not onely Sheol, but also [Page 76] Bp. Lake, quà supra. p. 152. Shacath, not onely a greedy swallower, but a ravenous digester also) it's manifest, that his Death was True; No Apoplectick extasie being compatible with life, (under favour) above three dayes. Secondly, Hee rose the third day, that is, speedily, no long delay intervening betweene his Dissolution, and his Resurrection; to bee a Patterne to us herein of our speedy, andLuke 24.1. early arising out of the grave of sinne unto the life of grace; Ne differas de die in diem, saithEcclus. 5.7. Siraci­des, Make no tarrying to turne to the Lord, and put not off from day to day. I love them that love me, saith God, and they that seeke me early shall finde me, Prov. 8.17. God loves such as bee aurorantes ad se, that with the first peeping of the day give up themselves to God: Let us with Abel offer up theGen. 4.4. firstlings of our Time, in Sacrifice to God, we shall [so] be the first in his ac­ceptation: Let us die the wooll of our in­fancy and youth, into the graine colour of sanctity, that when our dayes are woven into more yeares, wee may never after change colour. Awake up my glory, saith [Page 77] King David, awake Psaltery, and Harpe, I my selfe will awake right early, Psal. 57.8. Or, as some render it, Excitabo auroram, I will stirre up the morning, non illam ut me à somno excitet praestolabor, sed illam ego morantem exci­tabo, saithGranatens. tom. 3. concion. de temp. conc. 1. in die S. Pasch. Granatensis. And surely, my Be­loved Christians, would wee, as now it'sRom. 13.11. high time, awake out of the sleepe of our carnall security and sin; and as Bildad advi­sed Job, seek unto God [Job 8.5, 6. betimes,] surely now he would awake for us, and make the habitation of our righteousnesse prospe­rous: Yea, if thus we would awake, and arise from the dead, in the first Resurrecti­on, Christ himselfe shall give usEph. 5.14. light; that is, himselfe: for so old Simeon calleth him, TheLuk. 2.32. & Joh. 1.9. Light to lighten the Gentiles; and, in thyPsal. 36.9. light, O blessed and sweet Saviour, we shall surely see light.

This was the way that aD^r Peterson, the reverend Dean of Exeter, in his learned and elegant ser­mon upon Eph. 5.14 preached in the Cathe­drall of Saint Peter there, upon Easter day 1639 bright starre pointed out unto me lately, as yee all know, and the readiest affections of mine heart, lending mee winde and sayles at will for present, would now put mee on to steare amayne in the same course: This was the [Page 78] Musick that so tooke our eares, and hearts, upon the solemne Festivall it selfe: Oh that as the voice and eccho in the woods, that most divine Sermon, and our true Pra­ctice, might make up one sound, and ter­mination!

I confesse, my meditations have, since that time, as Moses on the Mount,Exod. 32.1. stayed long upon it; and were it not that I justly feared my jarring notes would marre that taking harmony, I could yet winde up mine instrument a while longer; but so di­vine an Orpheus could not but draw even the stony heart to follow: Doe 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 enquire of me, and aske me what it is, I must needs tell you, that its that, which sooner swallowes up our thoughts in wonder, then it can become capable of but a competent expression by our speech: its better knowne indeed by True fruition, then discourse: Therefore leaving that, let us now rather all pray, so [Page 79] to bee enabled all to feed upon the flesh, and to drinke the bloud 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, obtaine infallibly the1 Pet. 1.9. end of all our faith, even the salvation of our soules; and this through the alone merits and me­diation of the same Jesus Christ the1 Joh. 2.1. righ­teous, who hath risen from the dead, isEph. 4.8, 9. as­cended up into Heaven, there toJoh. 14.3. prepare those eternall mansions of blisse, promised to all that cleave unto him by a true, effe­ctuall, and lively faith, even for ever and ever. Unto him, with thee, O righteous Fa­ther, and thy blessed incomprehensible Spi­rit, our God in Unity, our God in Trinity, be all honour, and praise, thanksgiving, im­mortality, dominion, salvation, and glory in theEph. 3.21. Church, through­out all ages, world with­out end. Amen.