?4 TIANSUBS?ANTIA?ION. [BOOS II. still persevere in my faith and service; I say, except a man do so, he hath no life in him, nor will I raise him up at the last day. This, so far as we can gather from the chapter by comparing one part with another, is its true meaning. Thus we see the text is not to be interpreted in a gross and carnal sense, as if it was necessary to salvation that every one should eat the natural flesh of Christ, or drink his blood. It is enough if he truly believe in Jesus Christ; that he become his disciple; that he so believe his death as to be conformable to it, by his dying to sin and living to righteousness. This is tndy feeding on Christ's body and blood. And though we do not deny one instance of eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood is through the sacrament, yet it is by no means to be confined to that only. Every true believer that lives according to his belief, does, in every act of re- ligion he performs, eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood, for he exercises acts of faith on him, and obedience to him, and that is the true eating and drinking here mentioned. But the Church of Rome will have it that Christ here speaks of literally eating his flesh and drinking his blood. This is the very mis- take of the carnal Jews. They "strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat ?"They said, "This is hard saying; who can bear it ?" And the Church of Rome holds and ?eaches at this day the very doctrine for which the carnal Jews were condemned. They maintain that, literally, Christ gave his body to be eaten, and his blood to be drunk. They have adopted the construction of the depraved Jews, and maintain it most pertinaciously, though it be absurd and impious. Those who partake of the Lord's supper unworthily are said (1 Cot. xi, 29) to "eat and drink judgment to themselves, not discerning the Lord's body ;"from which some Roman Catholic writers triumphshalF exclaim, "How can they discern the Lord's body if it be not there ?." To this it may be enough to reply, that it is there under the symbolical representation of the elements of bread and wine, which he appointed to represent his body in that holy ordinance. The believing Israelite discerned the Lord's body in the paschal lamb, which prefigured the sacrifice of Christ; but no Jew ever imagined that the lamb was the real Messiah; so every one who eats the Lord's supper in faith dis- cerus the Lord's body in the symbols which represent and commemo- rate his death; but it was reserved for the Church of Rome to excel in impiety and absurdity all that had been foolishly maintained by lhe Jews in times of the greatest apesracy and idolatry, by teaching that the symbols which represent the Sadour are really the Saviour himself. 3. It is argued, from the secret discipline of the early church, ?hat the doctrine of transubstantiation was lhe chief mystery held in con- cealment from the catechumens. To this we reply, 1. That this so far from being the case, that the chief mysteries were the doctrine of the trinity, divinity of Christ, incarnation, and those c'onnec?ed wi?h them. This appears from Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome, Origen, Angus- fine, and Philoparris, who all refer to the doctrine of the trinity, &c. 2. The Catholic Church of the first five centuries recoguised no change of the elemems at all; and a doctrine which did not exist in the early church certainly could not be taught in its secret discipline. 3. More- over, Julian the Apeslate, who had been baptized, and therefore ini- 1
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