mystical union with the body of Christ glorified, and making still part of his whole Person, follows a gracious vital presence of his Divine nature abiding in us, and dwelling with use. Upon the same follows the like gracious vital presence, and indwelling of the other two Divine Persons d; and hereupon follow all the spiritual graces, wherewith the true members of Christ are enriched.

This orderly ranging of ideas may contribute very much towards the clearing our present subject of the many perplexities with which it has been embarrassed; and may further serve to shew us, where the ancients or moderns have happened to exceed, either in sentiment or expression, and how far they have done so, and how they were led into it. The ancients, in their account of spiritual feeling, have often passed over the direct and immediate feeding upon Christ considered as crucified, and have gone on to what is properly the result or consequence of it, namely, to the mystical union with the body glorified, and what hangs thereupon. There was no fault in so doing, more than what lies in too quick a transition or too confused a blending of ideas.

I am aware that much dispute has been raised by contending parties about the sense of the ancients with respect to John vi. It may be a tedious inquiry to go through: for there is no doing it to the satisfaction of considering men, without taking every Father, one by one, and re-examining his sentiments, as they lie scattered in several places of his

quam si Christum quoad corpus suo loco sinamus in caelis. Videmus enim Christianos posse esse invicem membra, et quidem conjunctissima, tametsi aliquis eorum degat in Britannia, alius in Gallia, et alius in Hispania. Quod si de membris ipsis conceditur, cur de capite idem fateri erit absurdum, ut hac spirituali conjunctione simul possit in caelis esse, ac spiritualiter nobiscum conjungi? Quod idem in matrimonio usu venire intelligi

mus, ubi sancta Scriptura praedicat, virum et uxorem unam carnem esse: quod non minus verum fateri coguntur adversarii cum una conjuges habitant, quam si locorum intervallo nonnunquam disjungantur.' Pet. Martyr in 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13, fol. 178. Cp. Albertin. de Eucharist. pp. 230, 231.

John vi. 56; xv. 4. Matt. xviii. 20; xxviii. 20.

d John xiv. 16, 17, 23. I Cor. iii. 16; vi. 19. 2 Cor. vi. 16.

writings, and that with some care and accuracy. It may be of some use to go over that matter again, after many others, if the reader can but bear with a little prolixity, which will be here unavoidable. There have been two extremes in the accounts given of the Fathers, and both of them owing, as I conceive, to a neglect of proper distinctions. They who judge that the Fathers in general, or almost universally, do interpret John vi. of the Eucharist, appear not to distinguish between interpreting and applying: it was right to apply the general doctrine of John vi. to the particular case of the Eucharist, considered as worthily received; because the spiritual feeding there mentioned is the thing signified in the Eucharist, yea and performed likewise. After we have sufficiently proved, from other Scriptures, that in and by the Eucharist, ordinarily, such spiritual food is conveyed, it is then right to apply all that our Lord, by St. John, says in the general, to that particular case: and this indeed the Fathers commonly did. But such application does not amount to interpreting that chapter of the Eucharist. For example; the words, except ye eat the flesh of Christ, &c., you have no life in you,' do not mean directly, that you have no life without the Eucharist, but that you have no life without participating of our Lord's passion: nevertheless, since the Eucharist is one way of participating of the passion, and a very considerable one, it was very pertinent and proper to urge the doctrine of that chapter, both for the clearer understanding the beneficial nature of the Eucharist, and for the exciting Christians to a frequent and devout reception of it. Such was the use which some early Fathers made of John vi. (as our Church also does at this day, and that very justly,) though I will not say that some of the later Fathers did not extend it further as we shall see in due place.

As to those who, in another extreme, charge the Fathers in general as interpreting John vi. of digesting doctrines only, they are more widely mistaken than the former, for

want of considering the tropological way of commenting then in use which was not properly interpreting, nor so intended e, but was the more frequently made use of in this subject, when there was a mixed audience; because it was a rule not to divulge their mysteries before incompetent hearers, before the uninitiated, that is, the unbaptized. But let us now take the Fathers in their order, and consider their real sentiments, so far as we can see into them, with respect to John vi.

Ignatius never formally cites John vi., but he has been thought to favour the sacramental interpretation, because he believed the Eucharist to be a pledge or means of an happy resurrection for it is suggested that he could learn that doctrine only from John vi.f But this appears to be pushing a point too far, and reasoning inconsequently. Ignatius might very easily have maintained his point, from the very words of the institution, to as many as knew anything of symbolical language: for what can any one infer less from the being symbolically fed with Christ's body crucified, but that it gives a title to an inheritance with the body glorified? Or, if the same Ignatius interpreted 1 Cor. x. 16 (as he seems to have done) of a mystical union with the body of Christ, then he had Scripture ground sufficient, without John vi., for making the Eucharist a pledge or means of an happy resurrection. John vi. may be of excellent use to us for explaining the beneficial nature of the Eucharist, spiritual manducation being presupposed as the thing signified in that Sacrament but it will not be prudent to lessen the real force of other considerable texts, only for the sake of resting all upon John vi., which at length cannot be proved to belong directly or primarily to the Eucharist.

See my Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity asserted, vol. iii. pp. 649, 692, &c. and Preface to Scripture Vindicated, vol. iv. p. 160.

See Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, part i. pp. 387, 388.

8 Εν ποτήριον, εἰς ἕνωσιν τοῦ aïμатos avтоû. Ignat. ad Philad. sect. iv. p. 27. Compare Chrysostom on I Cor. x. 16, who interprets communion there mentioned by ἕνωσις. αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ ἄρτου τούτου ἑνώμεθα.

It seems that Ignatius had John vi. in his eye, or some phrases of it, in a very noted passage, where he had no thought of the Eucharist, but of eating the bread of life, after a more excellent way, in a state of glory. The passage is this: 'I am alive at this writing, but my desire is to die. My love is crucified, and I have no secular fire left: but there is in me living water, speaking to me within, and saying, Come to the Father. I delight not in corruptible food, nor in the entertainments of this world. The bread of God is what I covet; heavenly bread, bread of life, namely, the flesh of Christ Jesus the Son of God, who in these last times became the Son of David and of Abraham: and I am athirst for the drink of God, namely, his blood, which is a feast of love that faileth not, and life everlasting. I have no desire to live any longer among men; neither shall I, if you will but consent h

Here we may take notice of heavenly bread, bread of God, bread of life, our Lord's own phrases in John vi. And Ignatius understands them of spiritual food, of feeding upon the flesh of Christ, the Son of God incarnate. Drink of God, he interprets in like manner, of the blood of Christ; which is the noblest feast, and life eternal. Learned men have disputed whether he intended what he said of sacramental food, or of celestial; whether of enjoying Christ in the Eucharist, or in heaven. To me it appears a clear point, that he thought not of communicating, but of dying and the Eucharist was not the thing which he so earnestly begged to have, (for who would refuse it?) but martyrdom, which the Christians might endeavour to protract, out of an

Η Ζῶν γὰρ γράφω ὑμῖν, ἐρῶν τοῦ ἀποθανεῖν· ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται· καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἐμοὶ πῦρ φιλόϋλον ὕδωρ δὲ ζῶν, καὶ λαλοῦν ἐν ἐμοί, ἔσωθέν μοι λέγον· δεῦρο πρὸς τὸν πατέρα. Οὐχ ἥδομοι τροφῇ φθορᾶς, οὐδὲ ἡδοναῖς τοῦ βίου τούτου· ἄρτον Θεοῦ θέλω, ἄρτον οὐράνιον, ἄρτον ζωῆς, ὅς ἐστιν σὰρξ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,

τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ, τοῦ γενομένου ἐν ὑστέρῳ ἐκ σπέρματος Δαβὶδ καὶ ̓Αβραάμ καὶ πόμα Θεοῦ θέλω τὸ αἷμα αὐτοῦ, ὅ ἐστιν ἀγάπη ἀφθαρτος, καὶ ἀένναος ζωή. Οὐκ ἔτι θέλω κατὰ ἀνθρώπους ζῆν· τοῦτο δὲ ἔσται, ἐὰν ὑμεῖς θελήσητε. Ignat. ad Rom. cap. 7, 8.

over-officious care for a life so precious. However, if the reader is desirous of seeing what has been pleaded on the side of the Eucharist, he may consult the authors referred to at the bottom, and may compare what others have pleaded on the contrary side k. I see no impropriety in Ignatius's feeding on the flesh and blood of Christ in a state of glory, since the figure is easily understood, and is made use of by others m besides Ignatius. Our enjoyment in a world to come is entirely founded in the merits of Christ's passion: and our Lord's intercession for us (as I have above hinted) stands on the same bottom. Our spiritual food, both above and below, is the enjoyment of the same Christ, the Lamb slain. The future feast upon the fruits of his atonement is but the continuation and completion of the present. Only here it is under symbols, there it will be without them: here it is remote and imperfect, there it will be proximate and perfect.

It has been strongly averred, that Irenaeus understood John vi. of the Eucharist; though he never directly quotes it, nor ever plainly refers to it: but it is argued, that by the Eucharistical symbols (according to Irenaeus) we have the principle of a blessed immortality conveyed to our bodies, for which there is no appearance of proof in Scripture, but in John vi. therefore here is as clear proof of his so interpreting that chapter, as if he had cited it at length ". How inconclusive this kind of reasoning is, and how injurious besides to our main cause, is visible enough, and has been intimated before, in answer to the like pretence concerning

Smith. Not. in Ignat. pp. 101, 102. Grabe, Spicileg. tom. ii. p. 229. Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, part i. p. 387, alias 392.

Casaubon. Exercit. xvi. num. 39. Albertinus, de Eucharist. lib. ii. c. I. p. 286. Halloixius, Vit. Ignat. p. 410. Ittigius, Hist. Eccles, saec. ii. pp. 169, 170.

1 A learned writer objects that the eating of Christ's flesh in

I

another world, is a way of expression somewhat unaccountable.' Johnson's Unbloody Sacr. i. p. 389, alias 394.

m Athanasius de Incarn. et contr. Arrian. p. 883. Damascen. tom. i. p. 172. Augustin. tom. v. p. 384.

n Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, p. 387, alias 392.