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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
Meditations on the holy sacrament of the Lords last Supper Written many years since by Edward Reynolds then fellow of Merton College in Oxford.Meditations on the holy sacrament of the Lords last Supper Written many yeares since by Edvvard Reynolds then fellow of Merton College in Oxford.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Robert Bostock, 1638
MEDITATIONS ON THE HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE LORDS LAST SUPPER. › Chapter 20
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Secondly, in Faith there is a conversion likewise, the virtue whereof ever there resides where the vital power is. In natural life the power of altering is in the man, and not in the meat, and therefore the meat is assimilated to our flesh: but in spiritual life the quickening faculty is in the meat, and therefore the man is assimilated, and transformed into the quality of the meat. And indeed the word is not cast into the heart of man, as meat into the stomach, to be converted ⟨p. 229⟩into the corrupt quality of nature, but rather as seed into the ground to convert that Earth which is about it into the quality of it self.
Secondly, in Faith there is a conversion likewise, the vertue whereof ever there resides where the vitall power is. In naturall life the power of altering is in the man, and not in the meate, and therefore the meate is assimilated to our flesh: but in spirituall life the quickning faculty is in the meate, and therefore the man is assimilated, and transformed into the quality of the meate. And indeed the word is not cast into the heart of man, as meate into the stomacke, to be converted ⟨p. 229⟩into the corrupt quality of nature, but rather as seed into the ground to convert that Earth which is about it into the quality of it selfe.
Thirdly, where Faith is there is some growth in grace, we grow nearer unto Heaven then when we first believed, an improvement of our knowledge in the mysteries of godliness, which like the Sun, shines brighter, and brighter unto the perfect day: An increase of willingness to obey God in all things; and as in the growth of natural bodies if they be sound, and healthy, so in this of Faith likewise, it is universal, and uniform, one part doth not grow, and another shrivel, neither doth one part grow too big, and disproportioned for another, the Head doth not increase in knowledge,1 and the Heart decay in love, the Heart doth not swell in zeal, and the Hand wither in charity, but in the nourishment of Faith every grace receives proportionably its habitual confirmation.