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

since Presence is therefore only necessary that by means thereof that union may be effected. Now united unto Christ we are not carnally, or physically, as the meat is to the body, but after a mystical manner, by joints and sinews, not fleshly but spiritual: even as the faithful are united to each other in ⟨p. 96⟩one mystical Body of Christ, into one holy ^aspiritual Building, into one fruitful olive, into a holy, but mystical marriage with Christ. Now what Presence fitter for a Spiritual union than a spiritual presence. Certainly, to confine Christ unto the narrow compass of a piece of Bread, to squeeze and contract his Body into so strait a room, and to grind him between our teeth is to humble him (though now glorified) lower than he humbled himself, he himself to the form of a servant, but this to the condition of a monster. That Presence then of Christ which in the Sacrament we acknowledge is not any gross Presence of circumscription, as if Christ Jesus in Body lay hid under the accidents of Bread and Wine; as if he who was^a wont to use the senses for witness and proof of his Presence,³ did now hide from them,⁴ yea deceive them under the appearances of that which he is not; but it is a spiritual Presence, of energy, power, and concomitancy with the Element, by which Christ doth appoint that by and with these mysteries, though not in or from them, his sacred Body should be conveyed into the faithful Soul: and such a Presence of Christ in power, though absence in flesh as it is most compatible with the properties of a humane Body, so doth it most make for the demonstration of his power, who ^bcan (without any necessity of a fleshly Presence) send as great influence from his sacred ⟨p. 97⟩Body on the Church, as if he should descend visibly amongst us. Neither can any man show any enforcing reason why unto the real exhibition and reception of Christ crucified there should any more physical Presence of his be required, than there is of the Sun unto the eye for receiving his light, or of the