073. A Sermon On Ephesians 2:14-16—Part II

A SERMON ONEphesians 2:14-16

PART II

What hath been done on the person of Christ himself on the cross, virtually and representatively, towards our reconciliation mutual.—A twofold reconciliation between the saints themselves, in and by Christ, held forth in the words, and distinguished. This second is to unfold the transactions by which Christ hath virtually slain and abolished all this enmity, and procured this peace.

Now, to make way for the distinct handling of what belongs to this second head, from what is to follow in the third, and to sever the one from the other, I desire that in the text this difference may be observed between the things that Christ hath done for the effecting and accomplishment of that peace:—

1. What was transacted and done simply and abstractly in his own person alone, for the procurement of it, on the cross.

2. What he works efficiently in us, (though concretely, in himself, upon us,) by his Spirit, and through providences, to the full accomplishment thereof. The first of these belongs to this second head; the last of these takes up the third head.

Only for the clearing of this method I shall desire it may be noticed, how evidently in the text these two sorts of workings by Christ are distinguished each from other, and ranged there in the order I have proposed them.

Here is manifestly a double making of these twain one: the one expressed in time past; the other as to come, and to be perfected. First, ὁ ποιήσας, who ‘hath made both one,’ Ephesians 2:14, and λύσας, ‘having abolished,’ Ephesians 2:15, in his own flesh personally. Secondly, ἵνα χτίσῃ, ‘that he might make both one.’ The first antecedent, and already done; the other consequent, and to be accomplished: the latter distinguished from the former as the consequent or effect from its cause. ‘He hath made both one, that he might create both into one new man;’ the influence and virtue of the first bringing about the latter. And—

Secondly, Accordingly in the original these two are further distinguished by words of a different import, though our translation hath taken no notice of it, but hath folded them up each under one and the same word, ‘making one,’ so making them one indeed. The first, ποιήσας, ‘making one,’ Ephesians 2:14, is of a more large signification, and is applicable and extendible to express, as here also is intended, a virtual, influential making us one in his own person, before we are made one in ourselves. The latter, χτίσῃ, more restrictive, properly and strictly signifies creation, ‘creating both one,’ or making both one by a new creation. And therefore, ‘in one new man’ is added, as the product of this second kind of making. And this imports a physical efficiency and working upon us, a moulding and forming us by creation into this oneness among ourselves, although the mould in which this latter is wrought and cast is his person also, ‘in himself;’ yet not in himself, considered personally and alone, but as uniting us to himself, and so working upon us concretely, through, in, and by himself. And therefore—

Thirdly, They differ, the first being performed in himself singly, personally, when he was in this world, and especially on the cross, and is therefore expressed as past,—‘hath made both one,’—as a business done and perfected already, as much, in respect of such a way making one, as ever it shall be; the other to be effected afterwards in us, in our several ages, and by degrees, as the new creature is; ‘that he might create of two one new man.’ To illustrate the difference of these two makings one but in one parallel instance,—although the like duplicate is found, and distinction holds in all kind of works done in us, and for us, by Christ,—because it is the next akin to this. The parallel is that of reconciliation, or making peace between God and the saints. These two works, as they are the nearest twins of all other done for us by Christ, so are they herein exactly parallel and alike. Now, unto the accomplishment of our reconciliation with God a double reconciliation is necessary. The one wrought out of us, in Christ’s person for us, ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world;’ the other in us, ‘We beseech you to be reconciled unto God,’ 2 Corinthians 5:19-20. The like holds in this our reconciliation mutual. Or to set the likeness of these gemelli to your view in another glass,—that is, another scripture,—that gives forth the nearness of the resemblance of this sort of reconciliation, in parallel words and lines to those in the text; it is Colossians 1:20. He says, first, ‘Christ having made peace by the blood of his cross, to reconcile all to himself.’ This is a work already done, and done for all at once, meritoriously and representatively, as there it follows, ‘in the body of his flesh through death,’ Colossians 1:22. After which he speaks of another reconciliation of us, wrought in us, towards God too, in these words, ‘and you that were enemies hath he now reconciled.’ This latter, therefore, wrought since and after the former, was perfected as the effect of it. The very same, or like here, you have expressed of that reconciliation, or making one of the saints mutually, which we have in hand. First, ‘He hath made both one,’ Ephesians 2:14, ‘in his flesh,’ Ephesians 2:15, ‘in one body by the cross,’ Ephesians 2:16; thus meritoriously and representatively. Secondly, ‘that he might create of twain one new man;’ so efficiently. Both must go in their several seasons and successions to the effecting thereof, or there would not be peace.

I have given you the grounds for these general heads out of the text. I come to such particular branches of each, as into which the text also spreads itself, and is a root unto them.

Two branches of what Christ did in his own person on the cross to reconcile the saints:—1. By way of sacrifice, and taking on him their enmities. 2. Of representation, ‘in one body,’ in himself. That which is proper, as was said, to this part, is what hath been done in Christ’s own person. The particulars hereof are two, which I find in the text, to the materials of which I confine myself, and shall take them in that order wherein they lie.

1. By way of sacrifice, having taken on him before God the enmities of both against each other, and so offering up his flesh as a sacrifice for both.

2. By a voluntary assuming and gathering the persons of all the elect into one body in himself, he representing and sustaining their persons, and so ‘in one body’ reconciling them unto God.

Both are expressly and distinctly mentioned:— The first in these words, ‘having abolished the enmity’—namely, between them—‘in his flesh;’ which flesh, taking on him their enmities, was made a sacrifice on the cross; and therefore, in the 16th verse, ‘by the cross,’ is added. The second in these words, ‘that he might reconcile both to God in one body.’ And though both these were performed at once and by one individual act, yet that act is to be looked at as having these two distinct considerations concurring in it; and the first, in order of nature, making way for the second, as in opening the connexion of the 15th and 16th verses I have already shewn. I must handle them, therefore, each apart:—

How Christ’s offering up himself as a sacrifice to God, and his standing as a common person in our stead before God, should abolish all our enmities against God himself, and reconcile us unto him? This is ordinarily and generally apprehended, and were proper to speak of, if our reconciliation to God himself had been the theme set out to be treated of. But how these very same acts and transactions of Christ should, together therewith, conduce to our reconciliation one with another? This only is genuine at this time, and to be eyed as the direct and proper level of what doth ensue, although even this is so involved with that other, that this cannot be explicated without supposing and glancing thereat. This but to set and keep the reader’s eye steady to the single mark aimed at. The first branch. Two things to explicate the first branch:—1. That Christ’s offering himself was intended as a sacrifice for enmities between the saints, as well as against God.

Two things are distinctly to be spoken unto for the clearing of these things:—

1. That the offering up Christ’s flesh on the cross was intended as a sacrifice, as well for our reconciliation mutual, as for reconciliation with God.

2. How, according to the analogy of the ends, use, and intent of sacrifices of old, the offering up of Christ’s flesh should be intended and directed as a sacrifice to take away these our own enmities, and make peace and friendship amongst ourselves. For the first, which is the ὅτι of this point, that as a sacrifice it was so intended, the whole frame and contexture of these words doth evince it.

First, When he says, Ephesians 2:15, that he ‘hath abolished the enmity in his flesh,’ he doth undeniably intend that enmity which was between these twain, the Jew and Gentile; this hath been proved before; and therefore he is found particularly to instance in the rites of the ceremonial law, which by a metonymy he calls the enmity, as the outward occasion of that bitter enmity in each other’s hearts. Now then—

Secondly, That this enmity was taken away by his flesh as a sacrifice—

First, The laying together the phrases of the text evinceth it; as when he says he ‘hath abolished this enmity in his flesh’—

1. In saying, ‘the enmity in his flesh,’ it necessarily imports his having taken that enmity in or upon his own flesh, to answer for it in their stead. Even as well as when in the 16th verse he is said to have ‘slain the enmity’—namely, against God—‘in himself,’ thereby is intended that he took that enmity on himself, undertaking to pacify and allay, and by being himself slain, to slay it.

2. In saying in the time past, that he ‘hath abolished it in his flesh,’ this notes out a virtual act perfectly done and past, as in him, by virtue of which it is to be destroyed actually in us after. Unto which—

3. Add that in the 16th verse there is an additional word, ‘by the cross,’ put in, which, ἀπὸ τοῦ χοινοῦ, or in common, is to be referred to the abolishing of this enmity in his flesh, Ephesians 2:15, and reconciling us mutually, as well as to the slaying of the enmity against God, mentioned Ephesians 2:16, as that which equally and alike shews the way how we are to understand that in his flesh he hath perfectly abolished both these enmities, namely, by taking on his flesh that enmity, and offering it up upon the cross as a sacrifice for it. For to say, ‘by the cross,’ or, ‘by the sacrifice of himself on the cross,’ is all one; so as what the one verse wants, the other supplies. ‘In his flesh,’ says the 15th verse; ‘by the cross,’ says the 16th. And, which will warrant this, we have elsewhere both put together, Colossians 1:20; Colossians 1:22, ‘By the blood of his cross, in the body of his flesh, through death.’

Secondly, The paralleling this place with that of Colossians 2 argues this. The enmity here instanced in by a metonymy is the rites of the ceremonial law, which he is said to have made void or weak. Thus expressly, Ephesians 2:15, ‘Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, the law of commandments in ordinances.’ Now the abolishing thereof is, in that second to the Colossians, expressly said to have been by the sacrifice of his flesh on the cross; or, which is all one, that by his being nailed to the cross, he nailed it to his cross: Colossians 2:14, ‘Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross,’ which fully accords with this text, ‘He abolished it in his flesh by the cross.’

Lastly, for a winding up of this, the parallel which the Apostle observeth in his discourse, between his effecting our peace and reconciliation with God, and this our peace and reconciliation one with another, will induce to it. He being first alike in common termed ‘our peace,’ Ephesians 2:14, in respect to either. Then to demonstrate each apart, a double enmity, as I observed at first, is distinctly and apart mentioned by him: the one, Ephesians 2:15; the other, Ephesians 2:16. Of the one he says he hath ‘abolished;’ of the other, he hath ‘slain’ it: of the one he says, he hath ‘abolished it in his flesh;’ of the other, ‘in himself,’ as the Greek hath it, Ephesians 2:16. And so those words, ‘by the cross,’ are common to each, as those first words, ‘he is our peace,’ were to all that followed. And so, as the parallel hath hitherto run along in these particulars, so it holds on, that look how in this, or by that way he slew the enmity between God and us on the cross, by the same way he abolished the enmity between the Jew and Gentile, or the people of God mutually. But he slew the enmity between God and us on the cross, by taking these our enmities against God on himself; and they being found on him, he was slain and sacrificed for them on the cross, and thereby slew them, and reconciled us to God. In like manner then it is to be understood, that he first took all our enmities against one another on his flesh, ‘in his flesh,’ says the text,—and it was the general intent of sacrifices, to be offered up for what was laid upon them, or reckoned to them,—and so our enmities being there all found in his flesh, that flesh was offered up for them; and so they were all dissolved, and abolished, and made weak, as the text speaks of them, in his being dissolved or made weak, as 2 Corinthians 13 and Philippians 2 speak in like manner of him. So then, as there was a double enmity, and a double slaying, which the Apostle mentions, so there must be in this one sacrifice a double consideration, in the intention thereof. It is a sacrifice serving at once to slay and abolish both the one and the other, he being in common alike and indifferently termed, ‘our peace,’ as in relation to either; there being nothing also done for us by Christ, but the like was first done on himself. The second thing to explicate the first branch: That one end or use of sacrifices, both among Jews and Gentiles, was to ratify peace between man and man, as truly as between God and man; and that Christ’s sacrifice holds an analogy herein to other sacrifices. This being cleared, I come to the second, the διύτι namely, to demonstrate how, according to the analogy of the ends and use of sacrificing of old in the shadow, Christ’s sacrifice was likewise intended and directed to make peace between man and man, Jew and Gentile, as truly and as genuinely as between God and man. For the illustration of this, we must know and consider that of old feuds or enmities between man and man were removed and put to an end by sacrifice; and also leagues of amity and friendship, even between man and man, were anciently ratified and confirmed, and reconciliation established by sacrifices. And as by sacrifices, so likewise after sacrifices, or, over and besides sacrifices, by eating and feasting together, and this both among Jews and Gentiles; of which latter, namely, that by eating together friendship was sealed, we shall have further use anon, to confirm and explicate this very notion in hand. I say, leagues of peace and friendship were used to be ratified by sacrifices solemnly before God;^[98] so to make such covenants a matter of religion, to bind the stronglier, and not to be merely the obligations of human faith and honesty; even by this, that men did find them ratified in the presence of a deity, which they worshipped as their god, by so solemn and religious an action, which did withal invocate from God a curse upon the infringers of that peace and friendship made thereby. This to have been their use I am to clear.

[98] ‘Liquet quod apud Israelites fœdera partim epulis, partim sacrificiis inita fuisse et sancita.’—VideRivet, in Genesis 31; Exercit. 135.

We may consider, that though all sacrifices were offered up before and unto God, yet not all only by way of expiation or atonement made unto God, or as expressions of thankfulness unto him; but some were sacrifices of pacification, and federal in their intention, between man and man, being offered up before God as a witness and avenger. This to have been one use of sacrifices is evident both among Jews and likewise Gentiles, who were in their sacrifices and the rites thereof imitators of the Jews.

First, The Jews. Jeremiah 34, from Jeremiah 34:8, &c., we read, that Zedekiah the king made a solemn covenant with the people, and they with their servants, to let them go free, according to God’s law on that behalf made, Exodus 21:1, and Deuteronomy 15:12. And this sacrificial covenant was solemnly performed in God’s house, and before God, as Jeremiah 34:15 and Jeremiah 34:18. The rites of it were, they ‘cut a calf in twain, and passed between the parts of the calf, even the princes, and all the people,’ Jeremiah 34:19, in token that it was one common sacrifice between all those parties, masters and servants, and the joint act of each: which being thus solemn before God, carried with it an implicit or tacit execration, that if either brake this covenant in this manner confirmed, then let God so deal with them as this calf sacrificed was dealt withal. And therefore these having broken this covenant, Jeremiah 34:11, which breach of faith was the occasion of this part of Jeremiah’s message to them, God threatens to bring the curse invocated and signified by that rite upon them, and to retaliate the like unto them. Jeremiah 34:18, ‘I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant;’ so he calls it, because the matter of it was his command, and it had been ratified before him, as it follows, ‘which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof.’ That ‘therefore I will give,’ is verbum similitudinis, as it is often used, whose meaning is, I will make them as that calf, I will answerably deal with them, and so it is explained: ‘I will give them into the hands of them that seek their life,’ and expose them to the sword of the slayer, to slay at his pleasure, as you have done this beast which you have sacrificed; ‘and their dead bodies shall be for meat to the fowls of the heaven.’ The like intendment of sacrifices, with the same rite, and like imprecation to confirm leagues and covenants and end feuds, was in use among the heathen, as might be evidenced by many quotations, which I have met withal. To instance in one out of Livy, which is most punctual to the thing in hand, and parallel to the former out of Jeremiah. ‘They cut a beast in two; the midst and the head, with the bowels, were placed at the right hand of the way, and the hinder parts on the left hand, and both the armies (that made the league) passed between this divided sacrifice.’^[99] And as the same rites with the former are expressed in this, so the same imprecation is recorded at the making of this covenant, and by sacrifice confirmed, recorded by the same author, when these two nations, Albans and Romans, made this league: Qui prior defecerit, tu ilium, Jupiter, sic ferito, ut ego hunc porcum hodiè feriam;—‘Let God strike him that breaks it, as I strike this swine,’ said the sacrificer.^[100]

^[99] ‘Caput, medium, et prior pars ad dextram, posterior ad lævam viæ; pariter inter hanc divisam hostiam copiæ armatæ traducuntur.’—Liv., lib. xxxix.

[100] The Latin,fædus à feriendo, and hencepercture, eliccre fædus, to strike a covenant with us. Thussanctio à sanguine, which that of Tacitus confirms,Sacrificiis conspiratio sancitur;—agreement and combinations had their sanction and confirmation by sacrifice andfædus cruore sacratum.—Lib. Annal.12.

‘Et cæsâ jungebant fœdera porcâ.’^{[101] [101]} Æneid. Virgil., lib. viii. The Holy Ghost speaks in like language: ‘My people that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.’ To bring all this home to the point in hand. There being to be a perpetual league and covenant of peace, to be struck between Jew and Gentile and all other the elect of God who should be at variance in any age; and Christ having interposed himself as a Mediator for us to God, he did withal undertake to be an arbiter between them, and us all among ourselves, for all our differences also. And as he offered up his flesh as one common sacrifice upon the cross, at once to be expiatory to God, to blot out the sins and enmities of ours against God himself; so also pacificatory between man and man, Jew and Gentile, and all other the elect; and therein answering to, and fulfilling one true end and intendment of sacrifices, as well as in the other of making atonement to God. And the text, you see, having said first that he is made our peace, in making both one, Ephesians 2:14, and then pointing us to his flesh, as in which he bore their enmities, Ephesians 2:15, and then carrying us to the cross, Ephesians 2:16, it evidently, as was said argues that he was made our peace by being thus made a pacificatory sacrifice for both. And surely, if there were no other reason to confirm it, all sacrifices, in all their ends and uses, having been but shadows of this; and his flesh, and the sacrificing it, being the substance; this eminent sacrifice of his must needs be supposed, as such, to have the perfection, use, and efficacy that all other sacrifices could any way be supposed subservient unto, or it had not been the complete perfection of them; especially there being this need of having his sacrifice directed to this end as well as to that other, there falling out so great animosities among those that were members of him; which, as it called for a sacrifice to be offered up to allay and destroy them, so Christ in sacrificing himself would not leave out nor lose this part of his glory and perfection in this respect.

Hence accordingly, as here he is termed ‘our peace,’ so elsewhere the ‘covenant of the people,’ and both in the like latitude of sense and meaning. When here he is called our peace, the meaning extends not only to his being our peace between God and us, but between ourselves also; so when he is called the covenant of the people, it intends not only his being a covenant unto God for us, but a covenant before God of us; or, as there it is expressed, of the people of God, namely, among themselves. He is twice so called, and with much evidence as to this sense. Isaiah 42:6, ‘I will give thee for a covenant of the people,’—that is, says Sanctius, to the Jew,—‘and for a light of the Gentiles;’ and thus a covenant of both. And, Isaiah 49:8, ‘For a covenant of the people, to establish the earth;’ that is, to this end, to settle in peace the whole earth, both Jew and Gentile; so then a covenant of the people, as you see, even in this very respect: peace on earth among men, as well as good-will towards men, from God in heaven, being the foot of that song that was sung at his birth, and the sum of what is here said. ‘He is our peace.’ The analogy between the rites of such pacificatory sacrifices and this sacrifice of Christ’s, as offered up for our mutual enmities. And how this end and intention of Christ’s sacrifice is held forth in the Lord’s Supper.

Now observe further a correspondency unto those rites mentioned, that were used in those sacrifices of peace, also held forth in this sacrifice of his. The beast in such cases was divided and cut in twain, for both parties to pass through, and so peace to be made between them; and Christ, to make both or twain one, as here, was divided and cut, as it were, in twain, the Godhead for a time forsaking the manhood: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ His soul also being by death separated from his body, his joints loosened, to dissolve this enmity; the vail of his flesh rent, to rend the partition-wall. Thus he was cut in twain, as one common sacrifice between both. And again, as the sacrificing of the beast cut asunder was reckoned the common joint act of both parties in such a case, and they were esteemed by God and by one another each to have a hand in the sacrificing of it, and as consenting to the covenant and peace that was intended to be entered into and ratified by it; so here in this. And though we then personally existed not, yet all we being considered in him by God, who gave us to him, and by himself, that voluntarily sustained our persons, and he offering up himself as a sacrifice on our behalf, and for our behoof, and in our names; hence his will in offering up himself was voluntas totius, the act and will of the whole body whose persons he sustained; our wills were thereby involved in his will, his act was our act: and it may be truly said that a covenant of peace was then made before God by us, and for us; for he was our priest therein for us, as well as our sacrifice. And hence, in a further correspondency to the manner of those typical sacrifices, therein although the priest only offered up the sacrifice for the people, and in their name and stead, yet to shew it was their act, they used to eat of it after, or of that which was offered up with it. The interpretation of which eating thereof by the people, the Apostle gives us to be this, 1 Corinthians 10:18, they that did eat of the sacrifices were partakers of the altar; that is, thereby they declared the sacrifice to be theirs, the offering it up to be their act, that they partook, and had a hand in it, as if they had been at the altar with the priest himself. Just in like manner, to shew that we were reckoned consenting to, and partakers in this sacrifice of Christ our priest, and that it was our own act, we do in like manner partake of that sacrifice by eating of it; the Lord’s Supper being, as Tertullian rightly termed it, participatio sacrificii, which notion the Apostle there confirms in a parallel of the Lord’s Supper, in this very respect, to the case of those sacrifices then; for unto this purpose it was that he brings in that instance of the sacrifices, 1 Corinthians 10:16, ‘The bread which we break,’ says he, ‘is it not the communion of the body of Christ?’—namely, considered as sacrificed once upon the altar of the cross,—and so by eating thereof we are all partakers of that one bread as the thing signifying, and of that one body sacrificed as the thing signified; and so by this way of partaking therein, namely, by eating thereof, is shewn, as in the sacrifices of old, that it is our own sacrifice. And this not only as Estius^[102] upon the place, who says, ‘that by eating they were accounted partakers of the sacrifice, as that which was offered for them;’ but further, as Grotius,^[103] speaking of the Lord’s Supper, upon Matthew 26:25, ‘They are in Christ’s intent,’ says he, ‘through their eating thereof, so partakers of this his sacrifice, (quasi ipsi hoc obtulissent,) as if themselves had offered it up.’ And thus to hold forth this previous consent of theirs was one part of Christ’s intent in instituting eating and drinking in the Lord’s Supper, in a correspondency to the like mysterious intent in the people’s eating of the sacrifices of old. Grotius indeed puts the reason why it is to be esteemed as if we had offered up that sacrifice only upon this, ‘Because it was offered up by him,’ says he, ‘that had taken their nature.’ But I add out of this text, because he had taken on him their persons, in one body, and their enmities, and stood in their stead as their priest as well as their sacrifice; and so it was to be reckoned their act on his cross, as much as the people’s then, who used to bring the sacrifice to the priest, who there offered it alone upon the altar: whereas here we ourselves were brought to Christ by the Father to undertake to be a priest for us, and he voluntarily undertook our persons. And so as Levi is accounted to have offered tithes in Abraham his father when he paid them to Melchizedek, so we much rather to have offered up a common sacrifice of peace amongst ourselves when Christ offered up himself.

[102] ‘Edendo consebantur ipsius sacrificii tanquam pro ipsis oblati fieri participes.’—Est. in loc.

[103]‘Christus vult in se credentes participes fieri ejus sacrificii, planè, quasi ipsi hoc sacrificium obtulissent, quia oblatum ab eo qui naturam eorum susceperat.’ And hence also likewise, as in those pacificatory federal sacrifices between two parties of men, whoever of them went about to violate or infringe the terms of peace that sacrifice was intended to confirm, did, by reason it was his act, bring upon himself the curse which ceremonially and visibly was inflicted on the beast or sacrifice slain: so here this act of sacrificing of Christ for mutual peace, being thus interpretativè ours, and our consent involved, hence, I say, in like manner, whoever goeth about to break this covenant and seeketh to uphold the enmity among the people of God, he doth not only renounce his own act, but, what in him lies, frustrates that intention of it, and so further incurs the imprecation unfolded in it, and brings upon himself the blood of the covenant, as, in allusion to this curse, according to the implied intent of such a sacrificial covenant, the Apostle speaks, Hebrews 10.

Now, further to finish this branch, let this be added: that Christ was not simply offered up as a sacrifice to confirm a mere or bare league of peace and amity between us,—sometimes such sacrifices before spoken of were designed only to make and bind new leagues and covenants between such parties as never had been at variance,—but here in this case of ours, as there was a covenant of amity to be struck, so there were enmities to be abolished and slain, as the text hath it, and that by this sacrifice and slaying of his flesh; which cannot be conceived otherwise to have been transacted, but that, as in other sacrifices offered up, the trespasses were laid upon the head of the sacrifice, and so in a significant mystery slain and done away in the death of the thing sacrificed. And that as in that other way of reconciling us to God, ‘the Lord did lay upon him the iniquities of us all,’ namely, against himself, as Isaiah speaks in allusion unto the rites, and the signification thereof in those sacrifices, to which this text similarly speaks when it says, ‘he slew the enmity in himself,’ Ephesians 2:16; so answerably it was in this, which is its parallel, all the enmities and mutual injuries and feuds between us, the people of God, were all laid upon him, and he took them in his flesh, and in slaying thereof slew these also, and abolished them, that so he might reconcile them in one body. And so the same nails that pierced through his hands and feet, did nail all our enmities, and the causes and occasions of them, to the same cross, as Colossians 2 insinuates. So as we are to look upon Jesus Christ hanging upon the cross as an equal arbiter between both parties, that takes upon himself whatever either party hath against the other. Lo, here I hang, says Christ dying, and let the reproaches wherewith you reproach each other fall on me, the sting of them all fix itself in my flesh, and in my death die all together with me; lo, I die to pacify both. Have therefore any of you ought against each other? Quit them, and take me as a sacrifice in blood between you: only do not kill me, and each other too, for the same offence; for you, and your enmities, have brought me to this altar of the cross, and I offer myself as your peace, and as your priest; will you kill me first, and then one another too? And thus, if taking all your sins against God himself upon his flesh, and sacrificing it for you, is of prevalency to kill and slay that enmity, much more is it of force to kill these your enmities also. Thus like as by assuming the likeness of sinful flesh, he killed the sin in our flesh; so by taking these our enmities and animosities in his flesh, he slew and abolished them; and as his death was the death of death, so of these. And like as he cured diseases, by taking them on himself by sympathy, it is said of him, when his healing of them is recorded, himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses. And as not our sins against God only, but our sicknesses by sympathy; so not our enmities against God only, but our animosities one against another; and by bearing them, abolished them; by dying an arbiter between us, slew them. And therefore in the text he is called ‘our peace,’ not our peacemaker only, when this peace among ourselves is spoken of, to note out, as Musculus observes, that he was not only efficiently our peacemaker, the author of our peace, but our peace materially, the matter of our peace, by the sacrifice of himself. God is styled our peacemaker, our reconciler,—‘God was in Christ reconciling the world,’—but not ‘our peace.’ This is proper to Christ; and why, but because he only was the sacrifice of our peace, and bore our enmities? even as he is not only called the Redeemer,—so God also is,—but redemption itself.

Now for a coronis to this first branch, and withal to add a further confirmation yet that Christ’s death was intended as a sacrifice to these ends, for amity and unity among God’s people, we may clearly view and behold this truth in the mirror of the Lord’s Supper; one most genuine and primary import whereof, and end of the institution of it, being this very thing in hand. I shall have recourse thereto again in the next branch also, upon the same account that now. The Lord’s Supper, in its full and proper scope, is, as you know, a solemn commemoration of Christ’s death offered up upon the cross; or if you will, in the Apostle’s own words, it is a shewing forth his death till he comes. And do this, says Christ, in remembrance of me, namely, in dying for you; and so withal to commemorate, with application to themselves, the principal ends and intendments of that his death, which is therein acted as before their eyes. Hence therefore I take this an undoubted maxim which no knowing Christian will deny, and it is the foundation of what I am now a-building: that look what principal ends, purposes, or intendments, this supper or sacrificial feast holds forth in its institution unto us, those must needs be looked at by all Christians, in the like proportion, to have been the main ends and purposes of his death to be remembered. So that we may argue mutually, from what were the ends of Christ’s death, unto what must needs be the designed intendments of this sacrament. And we may as certainly conclude and infer to ourselves what were the intendments of his death, by what are the genuine ends of that sacrament. These answer to each other, as the image in the glass doth to the principal lineaments in the face; the impress on the wax, to that in the seal; the action, the sign, and remembrances, to the thing signified and to be remembered.

Now it is evident that Christ upon his death instituted that supper, as to be a seal of that covenant of grace between God and us, ratified thereby; so also to be a communion, the highest outward pledge, ratification, and testimony of love and amity among his members themselves. And accordingly, it being in the common nature of it a feast, look as between God and us, it was ordained to be epulum fœderale, a covenant-feast between him and us,—the evidence whereof lies in this, that he invites us to his table as friends, and as those he is at peace withal, and reconciled unto,—so in like manner between the saints themselves, it was as evidently ordained to be a syntaxis, a love-feast, in that they eat and drink together at one and the same table, and so become, as the Apostle says, ‘one bread.’ And again, look as between God and us, to shew that the procurement of this peace and reconciliation between him and us was this very sacrifice of Christ’s death, as that which made our peace, God therefore invites us, post sacrificium oblatum, after the sacrifice offered up, to eat of the symbols of it; that is, of bread and wine, which are the signs and symbols of his body and blood sacrificed for peace: so in like manner doth this hold, as to the peace between ourselves. And we may infer that we were, through the offering up thereof, reconciled one to another, and all mutual enmities slain and done away thereby, in that we eat together thereof in a communion, which was a sacrifice once offered, but now feasted upon together; and doth shew that Christians, of all professions or relations of men, have the strongest obligations unto mutual love and charity; for the bread broken and the cup are the symbols of their Saviour’s body and blood once made a sacrifice; and therefore they eating thereof together, as of a feast after a sacrifice, do shew forth this union and agreement to have been the avowed purchase and impetration of the body and blood so sacrificed.

There was a controversy of late years fomented by some, through popish compliances, that the Lord’s Supper might be styled a sacrifice, the table an altar, which produced in the discussion of it, as all controversies do in the issue some further truth, the discovery of this true decision of it: that it was not a sacrifice, but a feast after and upon Christ’s sacrificing of himself, participatio sacrificii, as Tertullian calls it, a sacrificial feast, commemorating and confirming all those ends for which the only true and proper sacrifice of Christ was offered up, and so this feast a visible ratification of all such ends whereof this is evidently one. A digression, shewing—1. That eating and drinking together, especially upon and after a pacificatory sacrifice, was a further confirmation of mutual peace, both among Jews and Gentiles; and, 2. That the eating the Lord’s Supper hath the same intent and accord thereunto. The harmony of all these notions together.

Now therefore, to draw all these lines into one centre, and to make the harmony and consent of all these notions the more full, and together therewith to render the harmony more complete between the Lord’s death, and its being intended as a sacrifice to procure this peace, and the Lord’s Supper as a feast after this sacrifice, holding forth this very thing as purchased thereby, and so further to confirm all this. Look, as before I shewed, as in relation to the demonstration that Christ’s death was intended as a sacrifice for such a peace, that that was one end and use of sacrifices, both among Jews and Gentiles, to found and create leagues of amity between man and man; so it is proper and requisite for me now to make another like digression, as in relation to this notion of the Lord’s Supper, to shew how that also by eating and feasting together, especially after or upon such a kind of sacrifice, these leagues of love were anciently used to be further confirmed and ratified: that so it may appear that as according to the analogy of such sacrifices, Christ’s death was a sacrifice directed and intended to that end, so also that according to the analogy of such feasting in and upon sacrifices, this eating and feasting together upon the symbols of that sacrifice by believers is as genuinely intended a seal of this reconciliation amongst them, and that in a due correspondency and a answerableness to the genuine intent of that sacrifice itself, as that which had purchased and procured it.

I might be as large in this as in the former. When after a grudge and enmity passed between Laban and Jacob, Laban, to bury all things between them, would enter into a covenant of peace: ‘Come,’ says he, Genesis 31:44, ‘let us make a covenant, I and thou, and (that by a sign, for he adds) let it be a witness between thee and me.’ Now what was that sign and witness? In Genesis 31:46, it is said they took stones, and made a heap, and did eat there; and, Genesis 31:54, ‘after an oath passed,’ Genesis 31:53, Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mount, and called his brethren (or kinsmen) to eat bread; and early in the morning Laban departed. The like did Isaac with Abimelech, Genesis 26:28; David with Abner, 2 Samuel 3:20. I single forth chiefly those two, because the parties that used and agreed in this signal rite were, the one Jews, as Isaac and Jacob; the other Gentiles, as Abimelech and Laban: to shew at once that this way of covenanting was common to them both, as the former by sacrificing was also shewn to be. And further, that this rite of eating together the Gentiles themselves did use, especially after such sacrifices as were federal, unto this intent, that by that superadded custom of eating together upon or after sacrificing, they might the more ratify and confirm such covenants, first made, and begun by sacrificing.^[104] This seems to be the intendment, Exodus 34:15, ‘Lest thou make a covenant’—God speaks it to the Jew—‘with the inhabitants of the land, and thou go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;’ namely, upon pretence of confroming that covenant, which, having first been contracted and agreed on, they might further be drawn on to sacrifice, and so eat of the sacrifices also with those heathens, in token of confirming such a league, as was the known common manner and custom of each to do.

[104] Some instances have been collected by Mr. Meade, (Diatr., part ii.,) uponMalachi 1:11, as also by R. C. after him, Grotius, Rivetus, of the customs of several nations, ancient and modern, to shew eating and drinking together to have been intended testimonies and ratifications of amity. I shall only cast in one from the custom of the East Indians, as in the stories of whom there are found, as well as in other Eastern nations to this day, many footsteps of like customs to the Jews of old. Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador there, in his journal observations, relates how he was invited by one of the great ones of the court to a banquet, with this very expression, similar to those which those authors allege as in use among other nation, ‘We will eat bread and salt together, to seal a friendship which I desire,’ (Purchas’ Pilgr., part i., p. 348.)

Yea, and those that were more barbarous and inhuman among the Gentiles, when they would put the more binding force into their covenants, or some such more solemn conspiracy, they used to sacrifice a man,—a slave I suppose,—and eat his flesh and drink his blood together; which, because they judged the more stupendous, they judged would carry with it the deepest and most binding obligation. Thus we read in Plutarch, those Roman gallants entering into a covenant, drank the blood of a man, whom first as a sacrifice they had killed: σφαγέντος ἀνθρώποῦ ἐπισπείσαντες αἷμα. And the same Plutarch says of another company,—those conspirators with Catiline,—that they sacrificed a man, and did eat his flesh, (καταθύσαντες ἄνθρωπον ἐγεύσαντο τῶν σαρκῶν,) so to bind and unite each other more firmly to stick fast and close together in so great an undertaking, by the most sure and firmest way that their religion could invent. And Psalms 16:4 makes an express mention of such among the heathens, terming them their drink-offerings of blood. See also Ezekiel 39:17-19. Men and nations less barbarous took wine instead of blood, to confirm their leagues after sacrifices, it being the likest and nearest unto blood, the blood of the grape.

Now then, to bring all this home to the point in hand: Christ our passover, and so our sacrifice for us, having been slain and offered up for our mutual peace, hath instituted and ordained us believers to keep this feast,—it is the Apostle’s own allusion, agreeing with, and founded on the notion we have been prosecuting,—and that to this end, that by partaking of it as a sacrifice, and by shewing forth his death, we might hold forth all the avowed ends of that sacrifice with application to ourselves; the eminent ends of the one as a sacrifice, corresponding and answering to the eminent cuds of the other as a feast. A feast it is of God’s providing, and he the great entertainer of us at it, in token of peace between him and us; for he it was who prepared the sacrifice itself, and unto whom, as a whole burnt-offering, Christ was offered up. But God is not as one that sits down and eats with us, though he smelt a sweet savour in it; we are the guests, and he the master of this feast; and yet he thereby proclaims and professeth his being reconciled, in that he causeth us to sit down at his table. And this is the prime and most eminent significancy of it; and to hold forth this intent thereof, as between God and us, others have prosecuted this notion. But there is another more conspicuously suited to the notion which hath been driven, and which is no less in the intention of the institution itself, and indeed of the two more obvious to outward sense; and that is, that the persons themselves for whom it is prepared, that do visibly sit down, and do eat and drink, in proper speech, the bread and cup together, that they are agreed and at peace each with other. God is but as an invisible entertainer, but our eating and drinking together is visible to all the world; we outwardly shew forth his death, and do withal as visibly shew forth this to have been the intent of it. Yea, and if we could raise up those nations of old, both Jews and Gentiles, and call together the most part of the world at this day, and should but declare that this is a feast, especially a sacrificial feast, a feast after a sacrifice, offered once up for our amity and peace by so great a mediator; the common instinct and notion which their own customs had begot in them would presently prompt them, and cause them universally to understand and say among themselves, These men were at enmity one with another, and a sacrifice was offered up to abolish it, and to confirm a union and pacification amongst them, and lo, therefore, they do further eat and participate thereof, and communicate therein; a manifest profession it is that they are in mutual love, amity, and concord one with another, and thereby further ratifying that unity which that sacrifice had been offered up before for the renewing of. This is truly the interpretation of that solemn celebration, even in the sight of all the heathens, and unto the principles of all the nations among whom sacrifices were in use; yea, and this they would all account the strongest and firmest bond of union that any religion could afford. And add this: the more noble the sacrifice was, as if of a man, being a more noble creature, the more obliging they accounted, as was observed, the bands of that covenant made thereby.

Now our passover is slain, our peace is sacrificed, not man, but Christ God-man; he sanctifying, by the fulness of God dwelling personally in him, the sacrifice of that his flesh, and human nature, to an infinity of value and worth. He hath become a sacrifice of our mutual peace, was cut in twain; and to complete this union among ourselves, he hath in a stupendous way appointed his own body and blood to be received and shared as a feast amongst us, succeeding that sacrifice once offered up. 1 Corinthians 10:16, ‘The bread we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? The cup, the communion of his blood?’ (so speaks Paul, a most faithful interpreter of these mysteries;) and a communion of many, as one body? as it follows there. It is strange that a heathen, speaking of one of their sacred feasts, intended to confirm an agreement between two great personages, should use the same expression: communicârunt concordiam,^[105]—they are said to have communicated concord; and this because they communicated together in the same feast dedicated to their chief god, and which was ordained to testify concord between them. The Apostle calls it in like manner a communion, whereby many are made one bread, in that they eat of that one bread, which whilst they eat and drink in, they eat and drink the highest charity and agreement, each with and unto other.

[105] ‘Scipio, Jovis epulo, cum Graccho concordiam communicavit.’—Valer. Max., lib. vi., c. 2. But that this sort of peace and love, namely, mutual among the receivers, was an avowed intendment of our partaking of the Lord’s Supper, needs not to be insisted on; this import of it hath taken the deepest impression upon the most vulgar apprehensions of all that profess Christianity, of any other. To be in charity with their neighbour, &c., hath remained in all ages of the church, upon the spirits of the most ignorant and superstitious, when those other higher ends and intendments of it were forgotten. My inference therefore is strong and sure: that what was thus eminent an intention of this feast upon a sacrifice, must needs be, upon all the former accounts, as eminent an intention of that sacrifice itself, as such.

Only let me add this: that though all the people of God will not, some of them not at all, many not together, eat of this feast, through difference of judgment,—and it is strange that this, which is the sacrament of concord, should have in the controversies about it more differences, and those more dividing, than any other part of divine truth or worship,—yet still however this stands good to be the native original end and institution of the ordinance itself, and so by inference, this to have been the intent of Christ’s death as a sacrifice to the same end; of which death, to be sure, they all must partake, and unto which Christ they must have recourse, even all and every person, that are, or shall be the people of God. And by so doing, they find themselves, upon all these accounts forementioned, engaged and obliged unto peace and concord with all the saints in the world, how differing soever in judgment, in him who is our peace, and by that sacrifice hath made both one. And thus much for this branch, which treats of what Christ hath done in his own person to procure this peace. The second branch, What Christ did by way of representation of our persons. That phrase, ‘in one body,’ explained. The second branch of this first head is, What Christ did by way of representation of our persons, and how that conduceth to this mutual reconciliation of the saints among themselves? This we have in that small additional which is found, Ephesians 2:16, ‘That he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity.’ The meaning whereof is this, that he did collect and gather together in one body all the people of God; that is, did sustain their persons, stood in their stead, as one common person in whom they were all met, representing them equally and alike unto God, and so reconciled them to God in one body. As you heard, he bore their enmities in his flesh, and so abolished them; so withal he bore their persons, considered as one collective body, and under that consideration reconciled them to God. And this superadds to the former consideration, of being a sacrifice for their enmities mutually, for that he might have been, and have performed it for each of their persons, considered singly and apart; but further, we see was pleased to gather them into one body in himself.

If you ask me, Where and when this representation of all the saints was by Christ more especially made, and when it was they were looked at by God as one body?—the text tells us, on the cross, by which he thus reconciled us to God in one body.

I will not now insist on that which at first, to make my way clear, I was so large upon: that that kind of reconciliation of us, wrought by Christ for us on the cross, is here intended; to all which this may be added, that it was that reconciliation which at once took in and comprehended all, both Jew and Gentile, in all ages, into one body; which was never yet since actually done, but therefore then was done in himself. That which is now only left for clearing my way is the opening the import of those words, ‘in one body,’ which clause is that I take for my foundation of this second paragraph.

There is a question among interpreters, Whether by this ‘one body’ in the text be meant the church only, considered as one mystical body in Christ, or only the body and human nature of Jesus Christ himself, hanging upon the cross? I would, to reconcile both senses, take in both, as conducing to the reconciliation of us.

1. Supposing, which is necessary, Christ’s person, his human nature, or ‘his flesh,’ Ephesians 2:15, to be the ubi, the substratum, the meeting-place, and rendezvous of this other great body of the elect, where this whole company appeared and was represented, so to be reconciled unto God. For indeed what the Apostle mentions here apart, and at distance each from other,—his flesh, Ephesians 2:15, and body, Ephesians 2:16,—these elsewhere he brings together: Colossians 1:22, ‘Having made peace in the body of his flesh, through death.’

2. Which body, as hanging upon the cross, was clothed upon, when most naked, with this other body, which he himself took on him to sustain and represent, and to stand in their stead, even the whole body of his elect; his body, personally his, becoming by representation one with his other body, mystically his. In sum, in the body of Christ personal, as the body representing, the whole body of Christ mystical, as the body represented, was met in one before God, and unto God. And in that one body of Christ personal were all these persons, thus represented, reconciled unto God together, as in one body, by virtue of this representation. The influence that our being reconciled to God in one body hath into our reconciliation mutual, in two eminent respects.

If any shall ask, What influence and virtue this their being considered as one body, met in his body, and under that consideration reconciled to God, hath into their reconciliation one with another?—I answer, much every way; neither is it mentioned last, as last in order, but as the foundation of all other considerations thereto belonging.

1. In that they were thus all once met in one body, in the body of Christ, both in his intendment and his Father’s view, this consideration, if no more, hath force enough in it to bring them together again in after-times. Even this clandestine union,—such indeed in respect of our knowledge of it then, yet having all three Persons the witnesses in heaven present,—this pre-contract, this anticipated oneness, this forehand union hath such virtue in it, that let them afterwards fall out never so much, they must be brought together again, and be one. Heaven and earth may be dissolved, but this union, once solemnised, can never be frustrated or dissolved; what God and Christ did thus put together, sin and devil, men and angels, cannot always and for ever keep asunder. His Father’s donation of them to him, and Christ’s own representation of the same persons to his Father again, have a proportionable like virtue in them; for there is the same reason of both. Now of the one Christ says, ‘All that the Father giveth me shall come to me,’ John 6:37. Christ mentions that gift of them by the lump to him by the Father, as the reason, or cause rather, why they could not ever be kept from him. And as none can keep them from him, because given of the Father to him, in like manner, and for the like reason, the whole body of them cannot be kept one from another, because presented by him again to the Father. Christ mentions both these considerations, as of equal efficacy, in that prayer, whereby he sanctified that sacrifice of himself John 17, ‘Thine they were, and thou gavest them me.’ ‘All mine are thine, and thine are mine;’ and I pray, John 17:21, ‘that they all may be one,’ and that in this world, ‘as we are.’ Christ then not only died for his sheep apart, that they might come to himself, as John 10:15, but further, that they might be one fold, as it follows there. And as the Evangelist interprets Caiaphas’s prophecy, he died to ‘gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad,’ John 11:51-52. To make sure which gathering to come, he in and at his death gathered them together representatively; they met all in him, and ascended the cross with him, as Peter’s phrase is of all their sins,—therefore much more their persons,—1 Peter 2:24, Ὃς αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν ἐν σώματι αὑτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον,—He himself carried in, or together with, his body, our sins up to the tree;—Ascendere fecit sursum simul cum seipso. The cross was the first general rendezvous in this world, appointed for him and his members, where they were crucified in him, and with him, as the Apostle often speaks. Christ told the Jews, ‘If I be lifted up,’ John 12:32, speaking of his death on the cross, John 12:33, ‘I will draw all to me.’ And here you see the reason of it, for in their lifting up him, they lift up all his with him, as hung to, and adjoined with him in one body, in his body. This great and universal loadstone, set in that steel of the cross, having then gathered all these lesser magnetic bodies, pieces of himself, into himself, the virtue thereof will draw them all together in one again, as they come to exist in the world. They may be scattered, they may fall out; but as branches united in one root, though severed by winds and storms, and beaten one from and against another, yet the root holding them in a firm and indissoluble union, it brings them to a quiet order and station again. And if the now scattered Jews must one day come together, and make one body again, because those dry bones, the umbræ, the ghastly shadows of them, were seen once to meet in Ezekiel’s vision; how much more shall the elect coalesce in one new man, because they once met in him that is the body, and not the shadow? If those Jews must meet, that the prophecy, the vision might be fulfilled, these must much more, that the end of his death, and his hanging on the tree, may be fulfilled, in whom all visions and promises have their Amen and accomplishment. As in his death, so in his resurrection also, they are considered as one body with him: Isaiah 26:19, ‘Together with my dead body shall they arise,’ says Christ, and both in death and resurrection, one body, to the end they may be presented together in one body all at last, Colossians 1:22. And in the meantime, in the efficacy of these forehand meetings, are they to be created into one new man, 2Php 2:15, and that even εἷς, one individual man, Galatians 3:28, not ἐν, one bulk, body, or thing only. This one new man, which they are to grow up into, answereth exactly to that one body which was then gathered together, represented, and met in him on the cross, bearing the image of it, and wrought by the virtue of it.

2. The second is, that if such a force and efficacy flows from their having met once, as one body, then much more from this, which the text adds, that they were reconciled to God in that one body. This clause, ‘in one body,’ was on purpose inserted together with their reconciliation to God, to shew that they were no otherwise esteemed or looked at by God as reconciled to him but as under that representation, view, and respect had of them, as then, by him, that so dum sociaret Deo, sociavit inter se. Their reconciliation with God was not considered, nor wrought only apart, singly, man by man, though Christ bore all their names too; but the terms were such, unless all were, and that as in one body and community, together among themselves, reputed reconciled, the whole reconciliation, and of no one person, unto God, should be accounted valid with him. So as their very peace with God was not only never severed from, but not considered, nor effected, nor of force, without the consideration of their being one each with other in Christ. Insomuch as upon the law and tenor of this original act thus past, God might, according to the true intent thereof, yea, and would, renounce their reconciliation with himself, if not to be succeeded with this reconciliation of theirs mutually. And although this latter doth, in respect of execution and accomplishment, succeed the other in time,—the saints do not all presently agree and come together as one body,—yet in the original enacting and first founding of reconciliation by Christ, these were thus on purpose by God interwoven and indented, the one in the other; and the terms and tenure of each interchangeably wrought into, and moulded in one and the same fundamental charter and law of reconciliation mutual, than which nothing could have been made more strong and binding, or sure to have effect in due time. The reconciliation of the saints to God considered, as in one body; held likewise forth in the administration of the Lord’s Supper: and one eminent foundation of the institution of fixed church-communion hinted therein. The impress and resemblance of this, namely, Christ’s reconciling us to God in one body, we may likewise perceive—and I shall mention it the rather, to make the harmony of this with all the former still more full—in the administration of the Lord’s Supper, in which we may view this truth also, as we have done the other. That supper being ordained to shew forth his death, look, as he died, so it represents it. As therefore Christ was sacrificed, representing the general assembly of saints, and so in one body reconciled them to God; so this supper was ordained, in the regular administration of it, to hold forth the image of this, as near as possible such an ordinance could be supposed to have done it. For, answerably, the seat, the ἑδραίωμα of it, is a communion of many saints met together in one body, and not otherwise. Thus 1 Corinthians 10:17, ‘For we being many are one bread and one body.’ He had said, 1 Corinthians 10:16, that the Lord’s Supper was the communion of the body of Christ, &c.,—that is, a communion of Christ’s body, as to each, so as of a company united together among themselves,—and accordingly the Apostle subjoins this as the reason, ‘For we,’ whom you see do ordinarily partake of it, are many, not one or two apart; and those ‘many’ are ‘one bread, and one body:’ one bread, as the sign; one body, as the thing signified. And thus we are then considered to be, when Christ as dying is communicated by us. For to shew forth his death is the end of this sacrament. The seat, therefore, or subject of partaking in this communion of Christ’s body and blood, and which is ordained for the public participation of it, is not either single Christians, but a ‘many,’ nor those meeting as a fluid company, like clouds uncertainly, or as men at an ordinary, for running sacraments, as some would have them, but fixed, settledly, as incorporated bodies. Which institution having for its subject such a society, as then, when Christ’s death is to be shewn forth, doth suitably and correspondently set forth how that the whole church—the image of which whole universal church these particular churches do bear, as a late commentator hath observed upon that place—was represented in and by Christ dying for us, under this consideration of being one body then in him.^[106]

^[106] ‘Omnes qui eidem mensæ sacræ pariter accumbimus, et unam facimusφρατρἰαν, quæφρατρίαtotius ecclesiæ gerit imaginem.’—Grot.,1 Corinthians 10:17. And there is this ground for it, that the whole of that ordinance was intended to represent the whole of his death, and the imports of it, as far as was possible. So then look, as the death itself and his bitter passion are represented therein, both of body, in breaking the bread, which is the communion of his body; of the soul, in the wine, which is called the communion of his blood; and this is the blood of the new testament, so expressed in allusion to that of the old, in which the blood was chosen out as the nearest visible representer of the invisible soul that could be. The life lies in the blood, for the spirits, which are the animal life, do run in it; so spake the old law, and the poet the same—

‘Sanguine quærendi reditus animaque litandum.’^{[107] [107]} Virg. Æn., 11.

He terms the sacrifice of the blood, the sacrifice of the soul; and so wine was chosen as the nearest resemblance of blood, being also the blood of the grape. As thus the death itself in all the parts of it, so the subject for which he died, his body, and that under that very consideration he died for them, as one body, is in like manner as visibly and plainly held forth; every particular church bearing by institution the image of the whole church, as therein it hath also all the privileges of it, fitly shewing forth thereby not only that Christ died for them singly and apart considered,—which yet is therewith held forth here in that each personally doth partake thereof,—that might have been sufficiently evidenced if every person or family apart had been warranted to have received and eaten this sacrificial feast alone, as they did the passover and the sacrifices, Leviticus 7:18; but the institution is for many, which very word Christ mentions in the institution, ‘This is the blood of the new testament, shed for many;’ which word I believe the Apostle had an eye unto when he said, ‘We being many, are partakers,’ &c. Christ indeed principally aimed therein to shew that his intent in dying was for a multitude of mankind, the whole body of his elect; yet because he inserts the mention hereof at the delivery of those elements, and that the ordinance itself was suited to hold forth this intent, the Apostle takes the hint of it, and adds this gloss and construction upon it, as glanced at in it: that according to the institution and import of this ordinance, the partakers hereof are to be a ‘many,’ not one or two alone, and these united into ‘one body,’ to the end that thereby may be held forth this great intendment in his death, that he died for the many of his church, as one collective body.

This, however, we are sure of, that this way of partaking this supper, as in one body, was to the Apostle a matter of that moment that we find him bitterly inveighing in the next chapter, that the same individual church of Corinth, when they came together in one for that and other ordinances, should, of all ordinances else, not receive this ordinance together in such a community; but perverting that order, should, even in that place appointed for the meetings of the whole church, divide themselves into private several companies, and so make this as a private supper, which in the nature and intendment of the institution of it was to be a communion of the whole church or body together. Insomuch that he says, 1 Corinthians 11:20, ‘This is not to eat the Lord’s supper; for in eating’—namely, this sacramental supper—‘every one takes before (others, perhaps, do come) his own supper,’ together with the Lord’s, and so maketh it as a private collation, or as ἴδιον δεῖτνον. ‘Wherefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat’ that supper, ‘tarry one for another,’ to make a full meeting of the whole body; and as for other suppers, every man is at liberty to take them at home as he pleaseth, 1 Corinthians 11:33. The Apostle is thus zealous in it, as he had reason, because hereby is shewn forth one principal mystery in Christ’s death; for from this, at least upon occasion of this particular, as well as any other, doth the Apostle utter this great maxim, ‘Ye shew forth his death till he come,’ 1 Corinthians 11:26. Of such moment in their import and significancy are things, thus small and mean in the eyes of some, that yet are full of mystery in Christ’s intendment.—And thus much for the second head.