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

CHAP. IX.

Of the Analogy and proportion between the holy Actions used by Christ in this Sacrament, and Christ himself who is the substance of it.

Of the Analogy and proportion betweene the holy Actions used by Christ in this Sacrament, and Christ himselfe who is the substance of it.

IT follows now, that we enquire farther into the nature of this holy Sacrament, which will be explained by considering the Analogy, fitness, and similitude between the signs, and the things signified by them, and conferred or exhibited together with them, which is Christ the Lord. Now, this Analogy or fitness as it hath been in some general manner expressed in the nature or quality of the elements substantially or physically taken; so more expressly and punctually is it proposed unto us in those holy ^aactions which do alter in the use, and make it a Sacrament. And first we find that Christ took the Bread and Wine, and blessed it, and gave thanks, and so consecrated it, or set a part unto a holy or solemn use,² which is the reason why Saint Paul calls it a Cup ⟨p. 46⟩of blessing; so that unto the Church it ceaseth ^cto be that which nature had made it, and begins to be that unto which the blessing had consecrated it: In like manner did the eternal Son of God assume into the subsistence of his own infinite person, the whole nature of man, the body and the soul, by the virtue of which wonderful union notwithstanding the properties of the divine nature, remain absolutely intransient and uncommunicable unto the humane; yet are there shed from that inexhaustible fountain many high and glorious endowments, by which the humanity under this manner of subsistence is