more; no commemoration of them by legal sacrifices, but instead thereof a continual commemoration of Christ's sacrifice for the "remission of sins," in the Christian Sacraments. There must indeed be confession of sins, and forsaking them also under the Gospel dispensation: but then it is without the burden of ritual expiations and ceremonial atonements: for the many and grievous sacrifices are all converted into one easy (and to every good man delightful) commemoration of the all-sufficient sacrifice in the holy Communion. But I return. Hitherto I have been considering the Eucharistical commemoration as a memorial before God, which is the highest view of it but I must not omit to take notice, that it is a memorial also before men, in the same sense as the paschal service was. Of the Passover it is said; "This day "shall be unto you for a memorial, and you shall keep it "a feast to the Lordd." It is here called a feast to the Lord, and a memorial to the people: not but that it was a memorial also to the Lord, in the large sense of memorial before mentioned, (as every pious and grateful acknowledgment to God for mercies received is.) But in the stricter sense of memorial, it was such only to the people. It is farther said in the same chapter, of the paschal service; "Ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever.-And when your children shall What mean you by say unto you, "this service? ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the "Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the "children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyp"tians, and delivered our houses." And in the next chapterf; "It shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, "and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord's "law may be in thy mouth," &c. In such a sense as this, the service of the Eucharist is a memorial left to the Church of Christ, to perpetuate the memory of that great deliverance from the bondage of sin and Satan (of which the former deliverance from Egyptian bondage was but a type) to all succeeding generations. By this solemn service, besides other uses, God has admirably provided for the bulk of mankind, that they may be constantly and visibly reminded of what it so much concerns them both to know and attend to. It is to the illiterate instead of books, and answers the purpose better than a thousand monitors without it might do. Jesus Christ is hereby "set forth crucifieds," as it were, before their eyes, in order to make the stronger impression. I may further observe, that as all the Passovers, after the first, were a kind of representations and commemorations of that original1, so all our Eucharistical Passovers are a sort of commemorations of the original Eucharist. Which I the rather take notice of, because I find an ancient Father, (if we may depend upon a Fragment,) Hippolytus, who was a disciple of Irenæus, representing the thing in that view: for commenting on Prov. ix. 2. "Wisdom hath furnished her table," he writes thus: "Namely, the promised knowledge of the Holy Trinity; " and also his precious and undefiled body and blood, which "are daily administered at the mystical and sacred table, "sacrificed for a memorial of that ever memorable and ori ginal table of the mystical Divine Supperi." Upon which words I may remark, by the way, that here is mention made of the body and blood as sacrificed in the Eucharist twenty or thirty years before Cyprian, if the Fragment be certainly Hippolytus's, and then it is the earliest in its kind, though not higher than the third century. As to his making all succeeding Eucharists memorials of the first, the notion interferes not with their being 5 Gal. iii. 1. h See Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, part ii. p. 44. * Καὶ ἡτοιμάσατο τὴν ἑαυτῆς τράπεζαν· τὴν ἐπίγνωσιν τῆς ἁγίας τριάδος κατε παγγελλομένην. Καὶ τὸ τίμιον καὶ ἄχραντον αὐτὸ σῶμα καὶ αἷμα, ἅπερ ἐν τῇ μυσικῇ καὶ θείᾳ τραπέζῃ καθ ̓ ἑκάςην ἐπιτελοῦνται, θυόμενα εἰς ἀνάμνησιν τῆς ἀειμνήσου καὶ πρώτης εκείνης τοῦ μυστικοῦ θείου δείπνου. Hippolyt. vol. i. p. 282. ed. Fabric. memorials also of our Lord and his passion, as before explained, but all the several views will hang well together. Thus far I have been considering the Christian Eucharist as a remembrance, and a commemoration, and a memorial of Christ our Lord. I could not avoid intermixing something here and there of our Lord's death and passion, which have so close an affinity with the subject of this chapter: nevertheless that article may require a more distinct consideration, and therefore it may be proper to have a separate chapter for it. CHAP, IV. Of the Commemoration of the Death of our Lord made in the Holy Communion. IT is not sufficient to commemorate the death of Christ, without considering what his death means, what were the moving reasons for it, and what its ends and uses. The subtilties of Socinus and his followers have made this in quiry necessary for it is to very little purpose" to show "the Lord's death till he come," by the service of the Eucharist, if we acknowledge not that Lord which the Scriptures set forth, nor that death which the New Testament teaches. As to Lord, who and what he is, I have said what I conceived sufficient, in the preceding chapter: and now I am to say something of that death which he suffered, as a willing sacrifice to Divine Justice for the sins of mankind. It is impossible that a man should come worthily to the holy Communion, while he perverts the prime ends and uses of the sacrifice there commemorated, and sets up a righteousness of his own, independent of it, frustrating the grace of God in Christ, and making him to have "died in vain i." i Quidam vero, quomodo aliquando Judæi, et Christianos se dici volunt, et adhuc ignorantes Dei justitiam, suam volunt constituere, etiam temporibus nostris, temporibus apertæ gratiæ, &c.—Quod ait Apostolus de lege, The death of Christ, by the Scripture account, was properly a vicarious punishment of sin, a true and proper expiatory sacrifice for the sins of mankind: and therefore it ought to be remembered as such, in the memorial we make of it at the Lord's table. I shall cite some texts, just to give the reader a competent notion of the Scripture doctrine in this article; though indeed the thing is so plain, and so frequently inculcated, from one end of the Scriptures to the other, that no man (one would think) who is not previously disposed to deceive himself, or has imbibed strong prejudices, could either reject it or misconceive it. I. That the sufferings of Christ had the nature of punishments, rather than of mere calamities, is proved from what is said by the Prophet Isaiah, as follows: "He "hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was "wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon “him, and with his stripes we are healed.-The Lord ❝ hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.-For the transgression of my people was he stricken.-When thou "shalt make his soul an offering for sin, &c. He was "numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sin of 66 66 many k." What can all these words mean, if they amount not to punishment for the sins of mankind? Evasions have been invented, and they have been often refuted. To the same purpose we read in the New Testament, that "he was delivered for our offences 1," that he " died "for all," was "made sin for us," when he "knew no "sin m;"" was made a curse for us "," "died for our hoc nos istis dicimus de natura; si per naturam justitia, ergo Christus gratis mortuus est. Augustin. Serm. xiii. in Johan. vi. Opp. tom. v. p. 645, 646. edit. Bened. Isa. liii. 4-12. conf. Outram. de Sacrific. p. 319, &c.-328. 1 Pet. ii. 24, and Outram, p. 329, &c. 1 Rom. iv. 25. n Gal. iii. 13. m 2 Cor. v. 14, 15, 21. John xi. 51, 52. "sins," "gave himself for our sins P," "tasted death for "every man 9," and the like. To interpret these and other such texts of dying for our advantage, without relation to sin and the penalty due to it, is altogether forced and unnatural, contrary to the custom of language, and to the obvious import of very plain words. gave "his 2. That our blessed Lord was in his death a proper expiatory sacrifice, (if ever there was any,) is as plain from the New Testament as words can make it. He "life a ransom for many," was "the Lamb of God" which was to" take away the sins of the worlds," "died "for the ungodly t," " gave himself a ransom for all "," once "suffered for sins, the just for the unjust "," gave "himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a "sweet smelling savoury." "Christ our Passover was "sacrificed for us z," "offered up himself a," "to bear "the sins of many b," has " put away sin by the sacrifice "of himself"." We have been "redeemed with the pre"cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and "without spotd." These are not mere allusions to the sacrifices of the Old Testament, but they are interpretative of them, declaring their typical nature, as prefiguring the grand sacrifice, and centering in it: which, besides other considerations, appears very evidently from the whole design and tenour of the Epistle to the Hebrews; signifying, that the legal sacrifices were allusions to, and prefigurations of the grand sacrifice. 3. That from this sacrifice, and by virtue of it, we receive the benefit of atonement, redemption, propitiation, justification, reconciliation, remission, &c. is no less evident from abundance of places in the New Testament. • 1 Cor. xv. 3. r Matt. xx. 28. " 1 Tim. ii. 6, 8. y Ephes. v. 2. b Heb. ix. 28. d1 Pet. i. 19. P Gal. i. 4. x 1 Pet. iii. 18. z 1 Cor. v. 7. c Heb. ix. 26. ↑ Heb. ii. 9. t Rom. v. 6. compare ii. 21. iv. 1. a Heb. vii. 27. x. 12. ix. 14. compare x. 12. |