An appeal to the learned. Being a vindication of the right of visible saints…

3. Its being a Sacrament of confirmation can be no sufficient reason. For the Passover was so as well as the Lords Supper; Circumcision was the initiating Sacrament to the Jews, and the Passover the Sacrament of confirmation: but Unregenerate men might lawfully celebrate the Passover, when God first appointed it, multitudes of them were Unregenerate, as appears by their carriage in the Wilderness. As this Sacrament does represent ⟨p. 80⟩Christ as food for the Soul, so did the Passover: As in this Ordinance, Saints have communion with Christ, so they had in the Passover.

4. It is no sufficient reason, because the Minister is to say at the administration of the Lords Supper, That this is Christs body which is given for you, and this is his blood which is shed for you: according to the Pattern: Luke 22.19,20. For these words may be spoken to Unregenerate men. As Ministers often do in their Sermons, when they call on Sinners to come to Christ, and when they reprove for sin, and urge them to duties of Obedience: those expressions do not intend that Christ did dye designedly for them, but that his death and satisfaction is offered to them, and shall be made over to them if they accept of Him.

5. Gods not allowing Scandalous persons to come to this Ordinance is no reason. Some Scandalous persons indeed may be far better than Unregenerate persons, yet there may be great reason for the former to be prohibited and not the latter: Scandalous persons are forbidden, partly to bring them in that way to a sight of their evil practices, partly for the ⟨p. 81⟩