THE TRUE NOTION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. THE INTRODUCTION. ALL great errors have ever been intermingled with some truth. And indeed, if Falsehood should appear alone unto the world, in her own true shape and native deformity, she would be so black and horrid that no man would look upon her; and therefore she hath always had an art to wrap up herself in a garment of light, by which means she passed freely disguised and undiscerned. This was elegantly signified in the fable thus: Truth at first presented herself to the world, and went about to seek entertainment; but when she found none, being of a generous nature, that loves not to obtrude herself upon unworthy spirits, she resolved to leave earth, and take her flight for heaven: but as she was going up, she chanced, Elijah-like, to let her mantle fall; and Falsehood, waiting by for such an opportunity, snatched it up presently, and ever since goes about disguised in Truth's attire. Pure falsehood is pure nonentity, and could not subsist alone by itself; wherefore it always twines up together about some truth, Tapaqvádos εikos, as Athenagoras the Christian philosopher speaks, In. Orat. de like an ivy, that grows upon some wall, twining herself into it with wanton and flattering embraces, till at length destroyed and pulled down that which held it up. There is always some truth which gives being to every error: "Est quædam veritatis anima, quæ corpus omnium errorum agitat et informat." There is ever some soul of truth, which doth secretly spirit and enliven the dead and unwieldy lump of all errors, without which it could not move or stir. Though sometimes it would require a very curious artist, in the midst of all error's deformities, to descry the defaced lineaments of that truth which first it did resemble: as Plutarch spake sometime of those Egyptian fables of Isis and Lib. de Iside Osiris, that they had αμυδράς τινας εμφάσεις τῆς ἀληθείας, certain weak appearances and glimmerings of truth-but so as that they needed Savov ixvndárov, some notable diviner-to discover them. et Osiride. And this I think is the case of that grand error of the Papists, concerning the Lord's supper being a sacrifice; which perhaps at first did rise by degeneration from a primitive truth, whereof the very obliquity of this error yet may bear some dark and obscure intimation. Which will best appear, when we have first discovered See chap. v. the true notion of the Lord's supper; whence we shall be able at once to convince the error of this popish tenet, and withal to give a just account of the first rise of it. "Rectum index sui et obliqui." CHAP. I. That it was a custom among the Jews and Heathens, to feast upon things sacrificed; and that the custom of the Christians, in partaking of the body and blood of Christ once sacrificed upon the cross, in the Lord's supper, is analogical hereunto. THE right notion of that Christian feast, called the Lord's supper, in which we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ, that was once offered up to God for us, is to be derived (if I mistake not) from analogy to that ancient rite among the Jews, of feasting upon things sacrificed, and eating of those things, which they had offered up to God. For the better conceiving whereof, we must first consider a little, how many kinds of Jewish sacrifices there were, and the nature of them. Which, although they are very well divided, according to the received opinion, into four, by, 7xon, DWN, O'bbw, the burnt-offering, the sin-offering, the trespass-offering, and the peace-offeringyet perhaps I may make a more notional division of them, for our use, into these three species. First, Such, as were wholly offered up to God, and burnt upon the altar: which were the holocausts, or burnt-offerings. Concerning sin-between these Secondly, Such, wherein, besides something offered up to God upon the alter, the priests had also a part to eat of. And the difference these are also subdivided into the offerings and the trespass-offerings. Thirdly, Such, as in which, besides something offered up to God, and a portion be two, see Petit in his Variæ Lectiones. stowed on the priests, the owners themselves had a share likewise. And these were called or peace-offerings,-which contained in them, as תלק לשם וחלק רבהן יחלק,the Jewish doctors speak by, a portion for God, and the priests and the owners also; and thence they use to give the etymon of the Hebrew word shelamim. nam because these sacrifices brought peace שרוס ביניהם to the altar, the priests, and the owners, in that every one of these had a share in them. Now, for the first of these, although (perhaps to signify some special mystery concerning Christ) they were themselves wholly offered up to God, and burnt upon the altar; yet they had ever peace-offerings regularly annexed to them, when they were not a nap, offerings for the whole congregation, but for any particular person; that so the owners might at the same time, when they offered up to God, feast also upon the sacrifices. And for the second, although the owners themselves did not eat of them, the reason was, because they were not perfectly reconciled to God, being for the present in a state of guilt, which they made atonement for in these sacrifices; yet they did it by the priests, who were their mediators unto God, and, as their proxies, did eat of the sacrifices for them. But in the peace-offerings, because such as brought them had no uncleanness upon them, (Lev. vii. 20.) and so were perfectly reconciled to God, and in covenant with him, therefore they were in their own persons to eat of those sacrifices, which they had offered unto God as a federal rite between God and them; which we shall explain at large hereafter. So then the eating of the sacrifices was a due and proper appendix unto all sacrifices, one way or other, and either by the priests, or themselves, when the person that offered was capable thereof. Wherefore we shall find in the Scripture, that eating of the sacrifices is brought in continually as a rite belonging to sacrifice in general. Which we will now shew in divers instances. ས Exod. xxxiv. 15. God commands the Jews, that when they came into the land of Canaan, they should destroy the altars and images, and all the monuments of idolatry among those Heathens thus; "lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and one call thee, and thou EAT of his sacrifice" which indeed afterward came to pass, Num. xxv. 2. "They called the people to the sacrifice of their gods, and the people did EAT, and bow down to their gods;" or, as it is cited in Psal. cvi. 28. "They joined themselves unto Baalpeor, and ATE the sacrifice of the dead." When Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, came to him, (Exod. xviii. 12.) " he took a burnt-offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, TO EAT BREAD before the Lord" by sacrifices there are meant peace-offerings, as Aben-Ezra and the Targum well expound it, which, we said before, were regularly joined with burnt-offerings, So Exod. xxxii. When the Israelites worshipped the golden calf, the text saith, that "Aaron built an altar before it, and made a proclamation, saying, To-morrow is a FEAST unto the Lord:" (see how the altar and the feast were a-kin to one another :) "And they rose up early in the morning, |