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out at large by Dr. Cudworth in a distinct chapter', and still more largely by other learned and judicious writers; and I need not repeat. Only because some exceptions are made to the evidence, brought to prove that covenants were anciently struck and ratified by feasting together, I may briefly consider those exceptions. To the instance of Isaac so covenanting with Abimelech, it is objected, that the covenant was subsequent to the feast, and therefore there was not a feast upon, or after a covenant, as Dr. Cudworth's notion supposes. But then it must be observed, that Isaac and Abimelech met together in order to treat, and they settled the terms either at the feast or before it; and what was done after, was no more than executing in form the things before concluded: besides that the whole may be considered as but one continued act of covenanting along with a feast. The next instance is that of Laban's covenanting with Jacob by a feast which is permitted to pass without any objection. A third is that of the Israelites victualling, and thereby covenanting with the Gibeonites1: to which it is objected, as in the first instance, that the covenant was subsequentTM. But the truth is, the feast and the covenant were one entire transaction, one federal feasting, or festial covenanting. There are other the like slight exceptions made to other evidences"; which might be as easily replied to, were it needful but I forbear, lest I should be tedious to the reader.

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The Socinians, in general, are adversaries to this federal doctrine, as not consistent with their principles. Yet some of them unawares (such is the force of truth) have been observed to come into it, or to drop such expressions as appear tantamount. Crellius in particular (who was a great refiner of the Socinian system) scruples not to allow, that as in Circumcision formerly, so likewise in Baptism and in the Eucharist now, men bind themselves to the observance of the Divine law, as by a pledge of their obedience. Which, if admitted, does of course imply a

f Cudworth, chap. vi.

g Pelling on the Sacrament, chap. iii. iv. Compare Abp. Potter on Church Government, p. 266. Vitringa, Observ. Sacr. tom. iii. p. 113. Dodwell, One Altar, cap. vii. p. 165. Mede's Christian Sacrifice, p. 370. Bp. Patrick's Christian Sacrifice, p. 31, &c.

h Gen. xxvi. 28-31.

1 Moshem. in Notis, p. 34. k Gen. xxxi. 43-55.

1 Josh. ix. 14, 15.

m Moshem. ibid. p. 34.
n Moshem. p. 35, &c.

o Adde quod Circumcisio sit signum quoddam et tessera totius religionis Judaicæ in lege præscriptæ, ita ut ea suscepta, veluti pignore se homines legi obstringant, non aliter quam Baptismus in Christi nomine susceptus, vel etiam cœnæ Dominicæ usus tessera quædam est et symbolum Christianismi. Crellius in Gal. v. 3.

reciprocal engagement, on God's part, to confer spiritual blessings and privileges: so that this concession does in plain consequence amount to declaring both Sacraments to be federal rites. Socinus, being aware that the ancient sacrifices were federal rites, and that they were as seals and pledges of a covenant between God and the people; and being aware also, that our Lord, in the institution of the Eucharist, had called the wine the blood of the covenant; was distressed for a reason, why the Eucharist should not be esteemed a federal rite, as well as those sacrifices. At length he thought to account for it by saying, that to the blood of the sacrifices answers the real blood of Christ shed upon the cross, and not the wine in the Lord's Supper. The force of his reasoning stands only in the equivocal meaning of the word answers: for, if he meant it of the antitype answering to the type, it is true what he says, that our Lord's real blood answers, in that sense, to the blood of the sacrifices; and it answers also to the wine, the symbol of it; but if he meant it (as he ought to have meant it) of symbol answering to symbol, or of one typical service answering to another typical service, by way of analogy; then it is plain, that the wine in the Eucharist so answers to the blood of the sacrifices, being that they are representations of the same thing, and are federal by the same virtue, and under the like views, and therefore fitly answer to each other, as analogous rites.

Dr. Pelling refutes the same objection thus: "Though we "grant what Socinus affirms, that it is not the wine, but the "blood of Christ, which answers to the ancient sacrifices; yet "since the wine is the representation and communication of Christ's "blood, we must conclude that it communicates those benefits "for which that blood was shed; and consequently that it seals "that covenant to every faithful communicant in particular, "which the blood of Christ sealed to all mankind in general.

P The sense of the primitive Church, with regard to the Eucharist as a covenanting rite, may be learned from the famous passage of Pliny quoted above, chap. i. p. 481. To which agrees that passage of St. Austin: Voventur omnia quæ offeruntur Deo, maxime sancti altaris oblatio, quo sacramento prædicatur nostrum illud votum maximum, quo nos vovimus in Christo esse mansuros, utique in compage corporis Christi cujus rei sacramentum est, quod unus panis, unum corpus multi sumus. Augustin.

Epist. cxlix. p. 509. edit. Bened. It was binding themselves by solemn vow or oath to abstain from all iniquity, and to adhere to godly living. Which amounted to a renewal of their Baptismal covenant. Such a way of covenanting with God by solemn vow, or oath, is not without precedent under the Old Testament. Deut. xxix. 12. 2 Chron. xv. 14. Ezra x. 5. Nehem. x. 29. And so God also covenanted by oath with men. Isa. xvi. 8.

Socin. de Usu et Fine Cœnæ, p. 46. alias 761.

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"And as it is true that our Saviour's passion did answer those sacrifices which were offered up of old; so it is true also, that "this holy banquet doth answer those sacrificial feasts which were "used of old ." The sum of all is this: the legal sacrifices were federal rites, binding legal stipulations directly, and indirectly evangelical stipulations also, shadowed out by the other: the Gospel Sacraments, which by St. Paul's account (in 1 Cor. x.) bear an analogy to those legal sacrifices, do likewise bind in a way proper to them, and as suits with the Gospel state: therefore they do directly fix and ratify evangelical stipulations. These are properly federal rites of the Gospel state, as the other were properly federal rites of the legal economy.

It may be asked, why verbal professions, or repeated acknowledgments, may not amount to a renewal of a covenant, as much as a Sacrament? The reason is plain: verbal professions are not the federal form prescribed; and besides, at the most, they amount only to verbal engagements, and that but on one side, and therefore express no mutual contract. They amount not to a communion of Christ's body, or a participation of his sacrifice: they are not the new covenant in Christ's blood: they are not drinking into one spirit, nor pledges of our union in one body, like as the partaking of one loaf and of one cup is. In short, Sacraments are transactions of two parties, wherein God bears a share as well as man, and where the visible signs have an inseparable conjunction with the invisible graces signified, when duly administered to persons worthy. Verbal professions, singly considered, come far short of what has been mentioned, and therefore cannot be presumed to amount to a renewal of a covenant, like the other.

It may be pleaded perhaps, that repentance is the best renewal of our covenant, and is more properly so, than any Sacrament can be. But, on the other hand, it is certain, that repentance is rather a qualification, on our part, for renewing, than a form or rite of renewal; and it expresses only what man does, not what God does at the same time; and therefore it amounts not to mutual contract. The terms of a covenant ought to be distinguished from acts of covenanting, and the things stipulated from the stipulation itself, or from the federal forms. To be short, repentance is properly the renewal of the man; but the renewal of a covenant is quite another thing, and must include the reciprocal acts of both parties. It is very wrong to argue, that any act or performance of one party only can be federal, like Pelling on the Lord's Supper, p. 106.

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a Sacrament which takes in both, and includes both part and counterpart. But the aim seems to be, to throw God's part out of the Sacraments, and then indeed they would not be federal rites, no, nor Sacraments, in any just sense.

I know of no material objection further, so far as concerns the present article, and so I proceed to a new chapter.

CHAP. XII.

The Service of the EUCHARIST considered in a Sacrificial View. THAT the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in whole or in part, in a sense proper or improper, is a sacrifice of the Christian Church, is a point agreed upon among all knowing and sober divines, Popish, Lutheran, or Reformed. But the Romanists have so often and so grievously abused the once innocent names of oblation, sacrifice, propitiation, &c. perverting them to an ill sense, and grafting false doctrine and false worship upon them, that the Protestants have been justly jealous of admitting those names, or scrupulously wary and reserved in the use of them.

The general way, among both Lutheran and Reformed, has been to reject any proper propitiation, or proper sacrifice in the Eucharist; admitting however of some kind of propitiation in a qualified sense, and of sacrifice also, but of a spiritual kind, and therefore styled improper, or metaphorical. Nevertheless Mr. Mede, a very learned and judicious Divine and Protestant, scrupled not to assert a proper sacrifice in the Eucharist, (as he termed it,) a material sacrifice, the sacrifice of bread and wine, analogous to the mincha of the old Laws. This doctrine he delivered in the college chapel, A. D. 1635, which was afterwards published with improvements, under the title of The Christian Sacrifice. In the year 1642, the no less learned Dr. Cudworth printed his well known treatise on the same subject; wherein he as plainly denies any proper, or any material sacrifice in the Eucharist; but admits of a symbolical feast upon a sacrifice ", that is to say, upon the grand sacrifice itself commemorated under certain symbols. This appears to have been the prevailing doctrine of our Divines, both before and since. There can be no doubt of the current doctrine down to Mr. Mede and as to what has most prevailed since, I need only refer to three very eminent Divines, who wrote in the years 1685, 1686, 1688 x.

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In the year 1702, the very pious and learned Dr. Grabe published his Irenæus, and in his notes upon the author fell in with the sentiments of Mr. Mede, so far as concerns a proper and material sacrifice in the Eucharist y: and after him, our incomparably learned and judicious Bishop Bull, in an English treatise, gave great countenance to the same z.

Dr. Grabe's declaring for a proper sacrifice in the Eucharist, and at the same time censuring both Luther and Calvin, by name, for rejecting it, gave great alarm to the learned Protestants abroad, and excited several of them to reexamine the question about the eucharistical sacrifice.

The first who appeared was the excellent Buddæus a, (A.D. 1705.) a Lutheran Divine of established character for learning, temper, and judgment; though he happened to betray some precipitancy in this matter: he appeared much concerned at what Dr. Grabe had written on this argument, but misapprehended him all the time, as was natural for him to do: for, imagining that Dr. Grabe had maintained a real presence in the Lutheran sense, and a proper sacrifice besides, the consequence was self-evident, that such a presence and sacrifice together could resolve into nothing else but the sacrifice of the mass. Therefore he treats Dr. Grabe all the way, as one that had asserted the popish sacrifice and what confirmed him in the injurious suspicion was, that some of the Jesuits b (whether ignorantly or artfully) had boasted of Dr. Grabe as a declared man on their side, against both Luther and Calvin. However, Buddæus's dissertation on the subject is a well penned performance, and may be of good service to every careful reader, for the light it gives into the main question.

In the year 1706, a very learned Calvinist occasionally engaged in the same question about the sacrifice: not with any view to Dr. Grabe, (so far as appears,) but in opposition only to the Romanists. However, I thought it proper just to make mention of him here, as falling within the same time, and being a great master of ecclesiastical antiquity.

Some time after, (A.D. 1709.) Ittigius, a learned Lutheran, took occasion to pass some strictures upon Dr. Grabe in that

y Grabe in Iren. lib. iv. cap. 32. p. 323. edit. Oxon.

2

Bishop Bull's Answer to the Bishop of Meaux, p. 18, 19.

a Buddæus de Origine Missæ Pon

tificia, Miscell. Sacr. tom. i. p. 3—63. b Mémoires pour l'Histoire des Sciences, &c. A.D. 1703.

Sam. Basnage, Annal. tom. i. p. 370-374.

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