dation of it. Dr. Pelling, in his treatise on the Sacrament, has made frequent use of it, and has enlarged upon it; and may properly be consulted for those parts, wherein Cudworth himself may seem to have been rather too concise and sparing of words. The notion then being sufficiently fixed and established, we have nothing now remaining, but to pursue it in its just consequences or inferences, for the supporting the point in hand. If the Eucharist be indeed a sacrificial feast, in such a sense as hath been mentioned, it will inevitably follow, that it is also a federal banquet, carrying in it the force of a compact or stipulation between God and man. This conclusion or corollary is drawn out at large by Dr. Cudworth in a distinct chapter f, and still more largely by other learned and judicious writers 8; 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 h, it is objected, that the covenant was subsequent to the feasti, 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 k: which is permitted to pass without any objection. A third is that of the Israelites victualling, and thereby covenanting with the Gibeonites1: Cudworth, chap. vi. 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 h Gen. xxvi. 28-31. to which it is objected, as in the first instance, that the covenant was subsequent m. 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 n; which might be as easily replied to, were it needful: but I forbear, lest I should be tedious to the reader. 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 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 P. Socinus, being aware that the ancient sacrifices were altaris oblatio, quo sacramento praedicatur 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.' Aug. 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 cove nanting 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. Isaiah lxii. 8. 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 4. The force of his reasoning stands only in the equivocal meaning of the word 6 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. 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 r.' The sum of all is this: the legal sacrifices were federal rites, binding legal stipulations a Socin. de Usu et Fine Coenae, p. 46, alias 761. * Pelling on the Lord's Supper, p. 106. 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 Ꮓ 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 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. CHAPTER 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 |