Meditations on the holy sacrament of the Lords last Supper Written many years sinceMeditations on the holy sacrament of the Lords last Supper Written many yeares since

So then we see the end of all Sacraments made after the second Covenant (for Sacraments there were even in Paradise before the Fall) namely to exhibit Christ with those benefits which he bestoweth on his Church unto each believing Soul; but after a more especial manner is Christ exhibited in the Lords Supper, because his pretence is there more notable; for as by Faith we have the evidence, so by the Sacrament we have the presence of things farthest distant and absent from us. A man that looketh on the light through a shadow doth truly and really receive the self same light which would in the openest and clearest Sun-shine appear unto him, though after a different^d manner; there shall we see him, as Job speaks, with these self same eyes, here with a spiritual eye after a mystical manner: so then in this Sacrament we do most willingly acknowledge a Real, True, and Perfect Presence of Christ, not in, with, or under the Elements considered absolutely in themselves, but with that relative habitude and respect ⟨p. 88⟩which they have unto the immediate use whereunto they are consecrated; nor yet so do we acknowledge any such carnal transelementation of the materials in this Sacrament; as if the Body or Blood of Christ were by the virtue of Consecration, and by way of a local substitution in the place of the Bread and Wine in, but are truly and really by them, though in nature different, conveyed into the Souls of those who by Faith receive Him. And therefore Christ first said, Take, Eat, and then, This is my Body; to intimate unto us (as^a learned Hooker observeth) that the Sacrament, however by Consecration it be changed from^b common unto holy Bread, and separated from common unto a divine use, is yet never properly to be called the Body of Christ till Taken and Eaten, by means of which Actions (if they be Actions of Faith) that holy Bread and Wine do as really convey whole Christ, with the vital influences that proceed from him unto the Soul, as the hand doth them unto the mouth, or the mouth unto the stomach. Otherwise if Christ were really and corporally present with the consecrated Elements severed from the act of faithful Receiving, the wicked should as easily receive him with their