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The Apostle having thus represented the LAST SUPPER to be of the nature of a Feast upon Sacrifice, for the truth of which he appeals to their own conceptions of it-the cup of blessing, is it not the Communion? &c. --the bread which we break, is it not the Communion? &c. He then endeavours to convince them of the impiety of their behaviour, from the nature of those feasts, as it was understood both by Jews and Gentiles; who alike held, that they WHO EAT OF THE SACRIFICES WERE PARTAKERS OF THE ALTAR: i.e. had the benefits of the Sacrifice. But what had these caters of the things sacrificed, in common with the Partakers of the bread and wine in the LAST SUPPER, if this Supper was not a feast of the same kind with the sacrificial Feasts? If the three religious Feasts, Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, had not one common nature, how could the Apostle have inferred that this intercommunity was absolutely inconsistent?--Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of Devils. For though there might be impiety in the promiscuous use of Pagan and Christian Rites; yet the inconsistency arises from their having one common nature, which, springing from contrary originals, destroys one another's effects. The reasoning stands thus-Those who eat of the Sacrifice, are partakers of the Altar ; that is, are partakers of the benefits of the Sacrifice. These benefits, whether real or imaginary, were confirmed by a pact or convention between the Sacrificer and his God. They who cat in the feast on that Sacrifice are partakers of the supposed benefits of the Sacrifice, and, consequently, are Parties to the federal Rites which confirmed those benefits: so that the same Man could not, consistently with himself, be Partaker of both tables, the Lord's table and that of Devils.

This argument, St. Paul urges to the Wise Men, whose practice he is here exposing. And we see, it turns altogether on the Postulatum agreed on, "that the Last Supper is of the nature of a feast upon Sacrifice."

Now, if, instead of this idea, we substitute that other of the Socinians, That the Last Supper is a mere commemoration of a dead Benefactor, all the force of this rcasoning disappears and vanishes. For, although a rea

* See note [1] at the end of this Book.

sonable

sonable man cannot execute two federal conventions, which destroy one another (the inconsistency here charged upon the Corinthians), yet he might celebrate, without absurdity, though not without impiety, a federal Rite in one religion, and a bare remembrance of a deceased Benefactor in another.

*

Further, the same Apostle, in correcting another abuse in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, takes occasion, once again, to declare the NATURE of this holy Rite.-His Corinthians, as appears by the next Chapter had been guilty of eating the bread and wine in a very indecent manner, confounding it with the convivial doings in their ordinary repasts; where charity and sobriety had been too often violated This faulty behaviour, by such an indiscriminate celebration, the Apostle calls the being guilty of the body and blood of Christ: a charge immoderately exaggerated, were the Last Supper a mere commemoration of a dead Benefactor. The Corinthians did not make a fit distinction between their more ordinary food, and their eating, and drinking in memory of a deceased Friend. This, without doubt, was a high indecorum; yet, to rank such delinquents with the Murdercis of the Lord of life, is a severity in which we can see neither justice in the sentence, nor propriety in the terms of it. But let us only suppose (what we have indeed proved), that St. Paul regarded the Last Supper as a feast upon Sacrifice, that is, a Rite in which the benefits of Christ's death and passion were, in a certain manner, conveyed, in a proper celebration, thus impiously abused; and then the charge is fairly and justly made out. The profanation of such a Rite was, indeed, aiding and assisting in the crime of his Murderers, as far forth as it rendered his death ineffectual to the Participants; and therefore properly compared to the prodigious enormity of that impious act.

Such then, I presume, is the true nature of the LORD'S SUPPER. And were the adjusting an exact notion of it a matter of mere speculation, I should have been much shorter; and have left the discussion of it (under the simple idea of a religious custom of Christian Antiquity) to the Ecclesiastical Historian.

* 1 Cor. xi. 27.

But

But the Institution abounds with important conse quences, in support of the Catholic Doctrine, which I here pretend to illustrate and confirm. For, if the Last Supper be a feast upon Sacrifice; the unavoidable consequence is, that the death of Christ was a real Sacrifice. It being the highest absurdity to believe, that a Rite was instituted on the supposition of a real Sacrifice, and to keep such Sacrifice in perpetual memory, and yet that no real Sacrifice, thus commemorated, ever had existence; but only the shadow of one, under a figure of Speech. And now it is high time to call again upon the SOCINIANS to examine and review this whole matter.

The Writers of the New Testament unanimously and invariably call the Death of Christ on the Cross, A SACRIFICE. To this, the SOCINIANS reply, "We confess, indeed, that those Writers do thus uniformly qualify the Death of Christ. But their Phraseology abounds with FIGURATIVE TERMS; and the word SACRIFICE is plainly and eminently of this number. . ... When the Death of Christ, so highly beneficial to mankind, was the subject of their discourse, they could not enforce the value of those Benefits so intelligibly and strongly amongst Men, who had been taught to conceive that the highest benefits were conveyed by the tremendous Rite of SACRIFICE. But that this was all which those Writers meant, when they called Christ's death a SACRIFICE, appears from hence, that SACRIFICE, whatever original it had, soon became, in practice, a superstitious and an irrational Rite; and gloried in an efficacy which right reason disavows, namely, a VICARIOUS ATONEMENT; brought, indeed, by Moses, together with other Pagan Rites, into the Law, on account of the hardness of heart amongst those with whom their Leader had to deal." This, and a great deal more to the same purpose, hath had its effect, to the discredit of the doctrine of REDEMPTION, on those Men, and on others, as ignorant of the true origin and nature of SACRIFICE as themselves.

To remove these objections to a Doctrine so essential to our faith, is the reason why I have been so large in proving,

1. First, From the origin and nature of SACRIFICE, that it is A REASONABLE SERVICE. 2. Secondly,

2. Secondly, That a VICARIOUS ATONEMENT, how much soever disclaimed by natural Religion, is, in the Jewish Sacrifices and in the Sacrifice of Christ, a proper atonement; and may be justified on the surest principles

of reason.

3. Thirdly, That the Sacrifices of the Law were TYPICAL of the great Sacrifice of Christ.

4. Fourthly, That were it the purpose of the sacred Writers, in their history of Christ's death and passion, to represent it as a REAL SACRIFICE, it is not possible to conceive they could convey that meaning in more expressive terins than in those which they have employed.

5. And lastly, That Christ's death and passion was, by himself, ordained to be perpetually commeniorated; by a Rite which declares that death could be no other than a real Sacrifice.

When the SOCINIANS, I say, have well considered all this, they may be asked, with propriety, and modesty, whether it can be believed by any reasonable man, that all this apparatus was provided for, and bestowed upon, a MERE FIGURE OF SPEECH? Or whether they deserve the title they give themselves, of being the only rational interpreters of Scripture, who can suppose such a perversion of Order, in the divine economy, as that it should dignify a MERE FIGURE OF SPEECH with preceding TYPES, and a following FESTIVE INSTITUTION; things, most improper for this Service; and only fitted to mislead us in our notions and conceptions concerning this capital doctrine of our holy Religion?

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We have now (it is presumed) settled the true SPECIFIC NATURE of the death of Christ; and having before spoken largely of its END, we proceed to consider the effects of it.

They are comprised by the sacred Writers in the words, REDEMPTION and JUSTIFICATION.

Redemption respects the price paid by JESUS for our restoration to eternal life; and Justification, the acceptance of that price by GOD THE FATHER.

From these two terms School Divines coined a third, namely, SATISFACTION; which carries in it the ideas of a debt paid and accepted.

The

The disputes amongst Divines concerning the sense and propriety of the terms, Redemption and Atonement, Justification, Satisfaction, &c. have been endless, and the confusion attending them inexplicable; chiefly occasioned by all parties mistaking their ground, and arguing on the principles of NATURAL LAW, when they should have had recourse to the REVEALED, as now explained. But here a difficulty occurs. LIFE AND LIFE AND IMMORTALITY is, throughout the New Testament, considered as a FREE GIFT; called so in express words by St. Paul; "But not as the offence, (says he) so also is the FREE GIFT Yet, we know, a large price was paid for it. And this, likewise, the same Apostle agrees to,-" We were BOUGHT (says he) with a price t." And St. Peter, speaking of certain heretics, says, they denied the Lord that BOUGHT them. And St. Paul again calls, what he had just before entitled A FREE GIFT, A PURCHASED POSSESSIONS.

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To clear up this matter, and to reconcile the Apostle to himself, who certainly was neither defective in natural sense, nor in artificial logic, let us once again remind the reader, that Life and Immortality, bestowed on Adam in Paradise, was a FREE GIFT, as appears from the history of his Creation. As a free gift, it was taken back by the Donor, when Adam fell; to which resumption, our original natural rights are not subject; since natural Religion teacheth, that sincere repentance alone will reinstate us in the possession of those rights, which our crimes had suspended. So that when this free gift, forfeited by the first Adam, was recovered by the second, its nature continuing the same, it must still remain a free gift; a gift to which man, by and at his creation, had no claim; a gift which Natural Religion did not bestow.

But, if misled by measuring this recealed mystery of human redemption, by the scant idea of human transactions, where a free gift and a purchased benefit are commonly opposed to one another, yet even here we may be able to set ourselves right; since, with regard to man," the character of a free gift remains to immortality restored. For the price paid for forfeited man, was not † 1 Cor. vi. 20.--vii. 23. § Eph. i. 14.

* Rom. v. 15.

‡ 2 Pet. ii. 1.

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