But if this will not do, he would fain have us gi'ant " that the whole manner of giving the communion unto the laity, Avh ether under one or both kinds, is left to the disposition of the ehurch." I tell you truly, I should have thought so too, had not Christ and his apostles beforehand determined it; but as the case stands, it is left so much to the disposition of the church, whether the blessed cup shall be administered to the people, as it is whether we shall have any sacra- ments or no, and not one jot more. And let not our author flatter himself that it was a "preconceived opinion of the arbitrariness of this business, that made men scruple it no more in former ages, when the cup was first taken from them." They scrupled it until you had roasted some of them in the fire, and shed the blood of multitudes by the sword ; which was the old way of satisfying scruples.
At length our author ventures on St Paul, and hopes, if he can satisfy him, he shall do well enough, and tells us, " This indifferent use of communion amongst the ancient Christians, in either kind, sometimes the one, sometimes the other, sometimes both, is enough
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to verify that of St Paul, ' We are all partakers of one bread and of one cup/" But what is this "indifferent use," and who are these~"an- cient Christians" he tells us of ? Neither is the use of one or of both indifferent among the Papists, nor did the ancient Christians know any thing at all of this business of depriving the people of the cup, which is but a by-blow of transubstantiation. He knows they knew nothing of it, whatever he pretends. Neither doth the apostle Paul say nakedly and only, that " we are all partakers of one bread and one cup ;" but, instructing the whole church of Corinth in the right use of the Lord's supper, he calls to mind what he had formerly taught them as to the celebration of it: and this, he tells them, was the imitation of the Lord himself, according as he had received it in command from him to give the blessed bread and cup to all his communicants. This he lays down as the institution of Christ, — this he calls them to the right use and practice of; telling the whole church that " as often as they eat this bread and drink this cup" (not eat the bread without the cup), they " do show forth the Lord's death until he come." And therefore doth he teach them how to perform their duty herein in a due manner: verse 28, " Let," saith he, " a man ex- amine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup;" adding the reason of his caution, "for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh," etc.; intimating, also, that they might miscarry in the use of either element, for saith he, " who- soever shall eat this bread and drink this cup unworthily." In the administration of the whole supper you may offend, unless you give heed in the participation of either element. What can possibly be spoken more fully, distinctly, plainly, as to institution, precept, prac- tice, and duty upon all, I know not. And if we must yet dispute about this matter, whilst we acknowledge the authority of the apostle, I think there is small hope of being quit of disputes whilst this world continues. The pitiful cavils of our author against the apostle's ex- press and often-repeated words deserve not our notice; yet, for the sake of those whom he intends to deceive, I shall briefly show their insufficiency to invalidate St Paul's authority and reasonings.
1. He says, " That we may easily see what was St Paul's opinion, from these words, ' Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink this cup of our Lord unworthily;'" and so say I too: the meaning of them is before declared. But saith he, " Repeating the institution as our Lord delivered it, he makes him, after the consecration of the bread, say absolutely, ' Do this in commemoration of me ;' but after the chalice, he speaks with a limitation, ' Do this, as oft as you shall drink it, in commemoration of me.'" What then? Pray what are the next words? Are they not, " For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup?" Is not the same tenn, "as often," annexed to the one
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as well as to the other ? Is it a limitation of the use of either, and not a limitation of that kind of commemoration of the Lord's death to the use of both? From these doughty observations he concludes, " That the particle ' and' in the other text must needs be taken dis- junctively : ' We are all partakers of one bread, and of one cup ;' that is, all of us either partake of both, or each one, at least, either of the one or other." A brave exposition! But what shall we say to the other "and" in the other texts so often occurring to the same purpose? Are they also to be taken disjunctively? This, it seems, Ls to inter- pret Scripture according to the sense of the fathers; to vent idle cavils, which they were never so weak or perverse as once to dream of. Had the apostle but once used that expression, " This bread and this cup," yet adjoining that expression to the institution of Christ commanding the administration of that bread and cup, it were teme- rarious boldness so to disjoint his words, and render them incongruous to his purpose; but, repeating the same expression so often as he doth, still with respect to the institution of the ordinance whereof he speaks, to make us believe that in all those expressions he in- tended quite another thing than what he says, is a wild attempt. Miserable error! what sorry shifts dost thou cast thy patrons upon? Who would love such a beast, that so claws and tears her em- bracers? The trivial instances of the use of the particle "and" or " et" disjunctively, as in that saying, " Mulier est domus salus, et ruina," — which is evidently used not of the same individual person, nor of the same actions, but only expresses the different actings of several individuals of the same species, — concern not this business, whose argument is far from being founded alone on the signification of that particle (though its use be constant enough to found an infer- ence not to be shaken by a few anomalous instances), but from the necessary use of it in this place, arising from the context of the apostle's discourse.