to me by faith, who am the true food, without which you must perish everlastingly. I intend my flesh for your meat, and my blood for your drink. But that you may not be shocked at such a kind of food, I appoint bread to represent my body, and wine my blood, under which (that you may not have only the dead unprofitable flesh) I shall signify and impart to you my Spirit, in order that by its powerful impulse, the principles of eternal life contained in my word, and the saving efficacy of my dispensation may be applied to your souls. Having thus made provision for your immortal part, I desire that hereafter as often as you feast on, and refresh your souls with this spiritual nourishment, you do gratefully remember me, who have given up my body to be torn, and my blood to be shed for the remission of your sins, and the eternal preservation of your souls."

But our author will not allow this passage of St. John to be meant of the Lord's supper at all. Let us examine his reason. He begins with telling us that it hath been applied to the Lord's supper especially since the doctrine of transsubstantiation, by some who have laboured hard to make the application. In this he says what is very true. But those who laboured that point for that purpose were guilty of a great oversight in so doing, because the explanation of the whole passage subjoined by our Saviour, is the plainest and most direct argument that is to be found in holy writ against the doctrine of transubstantiation. It is not an argument by deduction and consequence; but in express terms. Besides, we find the sacrament necessary in both kinds from the fifty-third verse of this chapter. Nor were the Protestant commentators guilty of a less oversight in denying it to be meant of the Lord's supper, for the very same reasons. Had they rightly understood it, on both sides, they had in all likelihood exchanged opinions.

He says again that it could not relate to the duty of the Lord's supper, because it was not then instituted, nor so much as hinted at to his disciples. This consequence does not follow. Could not Christ have spoken of an institution which he intended? And why should he have hinted it to his disciples before? Was not that itself a timely and sufficient hint? Was it however impossible that he should speak then of a future institution, and without previous intimation given to his disciples? That he does speak of some

what future, and then intended, is plain from his words, 'The bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.'

But farther he tells us that there is such a difference of expression in the two cases as may shew that they are not to be applied to the same thing. Our Saviour says in the form of institution, the bread which you are to eat is my body, not my body is your bread or your food, &c. But when our Saviour said, 'this bread is my body,' and bid them eat it, he intended they should feed on it, and then it must have been their bread or food, according to what he tells them in the sixth of St. John.

He observes likewise, that there is no mention in this passage of eating and drinking in remembrance of Christ after he should be taken from his disciples; from whence he argues that it could not be meant of the Lord's supper, which is a memorial of his sufferings a long time afterward, and could not be put in practice during his presence with them. By this way of arguing St. Matthew and St. Mark, in their accounts of the institution, could not have spoken of the Lord's supper, for neither of them have mentioned the commemoration; pay, by the very same way of reasoning, our Saviour could not have given this sacrament to his disciples before his own death, for how could they commemorate a future event? nor even after his resurrection, for how could they commemorate him present? These are all the blunders offered by our author on this head; what follows is only a modest endeavour to help our Saviour and St. John to express in the author's sense what they have attempted to speak in their own words.

I shall therefore lay him aside for awhile, and try if I can offer any satisfactory reasons, why this passage ought to be understood of the Lord's supper, beside such as may be deduced from the explication already given of it.

It is generally allowed that St. John wrote his gospel after the other three gospels and the writings of St. Paul had been published; nay, it is commonly supposed to have been wrote the last of all the scriptural canon. His end for writing it is known to have been no other, than that of perpetuating certain particulars in our Saviour's history, which had been either omitted or not fully related by those who had handled the subject before, in order to rectify some

errors and abuses that had by that means crept into the church. The Cerinthian heresy was the chief of these. But before he wrote his gospel, the Heathens had probably accused the Christians of certain horrible rites, particularly feasting on human flesh and blood. It seems therefore very probable that the aforesaid passage was intended as an explanation of the Lord's supper, on which this charge had been fixed. The whole discourse is admirably well fitted to this purpose, because in it is shewn the abhorrence with which both the Jews and disciples received the doctrine of feeding on Christ's body and blood, while they understood it in a literal sense, and then the true spiritual sense is immediately subjoined. Now St. John having cleared up this difficulty about the sacrament, had no occasion to say any thing of the institution. It was enough for him to explain the nature of the mystery, as for the time, and manner, and end of its appointment, they were all sufficiently related before.

It cannot be denied but that St. John recounts many incidents in our Saviour's life, which had been written by the other evangelists before him, particularly the celebration of the passover that very night in which he instituted his last supper. But he says not one word in that place of this institution, and the reason in all probability was, because he had said as much as was needful on that subject before, in the discourse about spiritual food.

But again, we find in this passage that Christ mentions his flesh and blood separately, four times over, from which we must conclude that when they come to be interpreted spiritually, they must intimate to us two distinct ideas; but unless they be applied to the sacramental body, by which our souls are fed in order to eternal life, and the sacramental blood, through which we have remission of sins, they cannot represent more than one idea, which is no way consonant to the care our Saviour takes to speak of them distinctly.

Again, If we take away our Saviour's human nature, that is, his flesh and his blood, he can neither be food nor life to us, because it is necessary to his being either, that he should obtain remission of our sins; but without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. It follows therefore

that the food of eternal life mentioned in this passage can be no other than the body and blood of Christ which he sacrificed for us, and which are applied to our souls by faith in the sacrament of his last supper.

Again, If our Saviour had not spoken in this place of the same food which he afterward calls his body and his blood, he had not said that he himself was that bread or food. If he had spoken of his precepts as ordinarily delivered in discourse, he could not have called them in any propriety himself. He might have said indeed, I will give you the bread of life. But he could not have said, I am the bread of life. Such an expression is as absurd as if an ambassador, who is sent with articles of peace to a neighbouring prince, should say, I am articles of peace. Or if a husbandman should deliver a system of agriculture to the world, and upon the strength of the rules laid down in it, should tell the public, that he himself is corn, and wine, and oil.

Lastly, If this discourse is not to be understood of the Lord's supper, it must appear to contradict itself; because our Saviour, who so often calls his flesh and his blood meat and drink indeed, and the food of life in the former part of it, in the latter end says, that the flesh profiteth nothing. But if we understand what he says of the Lord's supper, the difficulty will clear up, as may appear by this paraphrase; 'Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you, because you cannot receive the grace and principles which I have annexed to them alone. But if you receive the symbols appointed by me to represent my flesh and blood unworthily, they will profit you nothing, they will to you be my body and blood in no other sense than to make you guilty of commemorating my death without renouncing those sins for which I died, which is a kind of consenting to my death.'

Other reasons might be offered, but I hope these will suffice to shew, that this discourse is scarce intelligible to us, if not understood, of the Lord's supper. No plain reader ever put any other interpretation on it; and such readers usually fall in with the true and natural sense of plain passages, provided they be faithfully rendered, more readily than commentators do. The reason for it is this;

the plain honest man searches his Bible for such information as is necessary to the saving of his soul, with an eye to no controversies, but that between himself and the adversary of his salvation, so that with all the understanding he has, he goes directly on to the true construction, God's grace in the mean time directing and assisting his honest inquiry. Whereas your commentators, who are always deeply engaged in disputes and learned prejudices, lay the bias of their own prepossessions on the Scriptures, and suffer them to speak nothing but their own opinions.

If any one will needs suppose, after all, that the Lord's supper is a purely commemorative rite, let him consider with himself to what purpose such a rite could have been instituted. Let him consider that barely remembering our Saviour's death, which is all our author seems to make absolutely necessary, can have no effect, nor be of any use at all. But then our author will say that he speaks of a grateful and thankful remembrance. If he does, he would do well to consider that such a remembrance is altogether impossible without repentance for past sins, without faith in God's word and promises, and without charity towards our fellow-Christians; so that allowing that to be the sole end of the sacrament, yet still it cannot be purely commemorative, since the whole of a Christian's duty necessarily results from thence.

Drinking the glorious memory of King William the Third, has been thought by some to have a profane resemblance of this sacred institution. However, neither the party warmth with which the memory of that prince was drank, nor the party spirit with which that practice was railed at, could ever raise it so high, as to give any offensive resemblance to our Lord's supper, till the publication of this book, which has brought down the sacrament to a level with that or any other honorary commemoration. Nay, if we consider the matter well, we shall find that our author has sunk the sacrament a good deal lower than the glorious memory. When a company drinks to the memory of King William, they cannot be supposed to do it with either common sense or sincerity, without a hearty abhorrence of Popery and tyranny, without a resolution to oppose both to the uttermost of their power, and without a firm adherence to the