And thus baptism, not as a mere outward washing, but as including the grace which it signifieth, and the covenant and vow which it sealeth, is the very kernel of the christian religion, and the symbol, or livery, of the church and members of Christ.

Q. 35. Are all damned that die unbaptised?

A. Baptism is the solemn devoting men in covenant to Christ. All that hear the Gospel are condemned that consent not to this covenant. But the heart consent for ourselves and children is our title condition before God, who damns not men for want of an outward ceremony, which, by ignorance or necessity, is omitted. Believers' children are holy, because they and theirs are devoted to God before baptism. Baptism is to Christianity what public matrimony is to marriage, ordination to the ministry, enlisting to a soldier, and crowning to a king.

CHAP. XLVI.

Of the Sacrament of Christ's sacrificed Body and Blood.

Q. 1. WHAT is the sacrament called the Lord's supper, or eucharist?

A. It is a sacred action in which, by bread and wine consecrated, broken, and poured out, given and taken, and eaten and drunk, the sacrifice of Christ's body and blood for our redemption is commemorated, and the covenant of Christianity mutually and solemnly renewed and sealed, in which Christ, with the benefits of his covenant, is given to the faithful, and they give up themselves to Christ, as members of his church, with which they profess communion.b

Q. 2. Here are so many things contained, that we must desire you to open them severally and first, what actions are here performed?

A. 1. Consecration. 2. Commemoration. 3. Covenanting and communication.

Q. 3. What is the consecration ?

A. It is the separating and sanctifying the bread and wine, to this holy use; by which it ceaseth to be mere common bread b Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. x. 16, 17, and xi. 23-26, 28

and wine, and is made sacramentally, that is, by signification and representation, the sacrificed body and blood of Christ.

Q. 4. How is this done, and what action consecrateth them? A. As other holy things are consecrated, as ministers, utensils, church maintenance, oblations, the water in baptism, &c., which is by an authorised devoting it to its proper holy

use.

Q. 5. But some say it is done only by saying these words, "This is my body;" or by blessing it.

A. It is done by all that goeth to a dedication or separation from its holy use; and this is, 1. By declaring that God commandeth and accepteth it, (which is best done by reading his institution,) and that we then accordingly devote it. 2. By praying for his acceptance and blessing. 3. By pronouncing ministerially that it is now, sacramentally, Christ's body and blood.

Q. 6. Is the bread and wine the true body and blood of Christ?

A. Yes, relatively, significantly, representatively, and sacramentally: that is, it is consecrated bread and wine, on these accounts so called.

Q. 7. But why do you call it that which it is not really, when Christ saith, "This is my body," and not, 'This signifieth it?'

A. The name is fitly taken from the form; and a sacramental form is a relative form. If you see a shilling of the king's coin, and the question be, whether this be a shilling, or the king's coin, or silver? You will answer, it is all three; the matter of it is silver; the general relation is money or coin; the special relative form is, it is a shilling. And this is the fittest name, when the value is demanded. So the question is, whether this be bread and wine, or a sacrament, or Christ's sacrificed body and blood. It is all these, and the answer must be according to the meaning of the question.

It is usual to say of pictures, this is the king, and this is such -an one, and this is my father, &c. Certainly the two parts of the sacrament must be understood alike. And of one, Christ saith, "This cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you." (Luke xxii. 20; 1 Cor. xi. 25.) Where none can deny, that by "cup," is meant the wine, and by "is the New Testament," is meant, is the exhibition and sealing of the New Testament, and not the very Testament itself.

And it is known that Christ's common teaching was by parables and similitudes, where he saith, (Matt. xxi. 28,) "A

certain man had two sons," &c., (v. 33,) "A certain householder planted a vineyard," &c. And so frequently, (Matt. xiii. 21-23, 37-39.) "He that soweth is the Son of Man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy is the devil; the reapers are the angels;" that is, they are signified. This is ordinary in the gospel, (John xv. 1,) “I am the Vine, and my Father is the Husbandman." (John x. 7, 9, 14.) "I am the Door; I am the good Shepherd." As David, (Psalm xxii. 6,) "I am a worm, and no man." (Matt. xv. 13, 14.) "Ye are the salt of the earth, the lights of the world;" that is, ye are like these things.

Yea, the Old Testament useth "is," for "signifieth," most frequently, and hath no other word so fit to express it by.

Q. 8. Why then do the papists lay so much stress on the word "is;" yea, why do they say, that there is no bread and wine after the consecration, but only Christ's body and blood, under the show of them?

A. The sacrament is exceedingly venerable, being the very eating and drinking Christ's own sacrificed body and blood, in similitude or representation. And it was meet that all Christians should discern the Lord's body and blood in similitude, from common bread and wine. And in time, the use of the name, when the church was drowned in ignorance, was taken (about one thousand years after Christ) for the thing signified without the sign; as if they had said, 'This is the king;' therefore it is not a picture, nor is it cloth, or colours. And it being proper to the priests to consecrate it, they found how it exalted them to be judged able to make their Maker, and to give or deny Christ to men by their authority; and so they set up transubstantiation, and by a general council made it heresy to hold that there is any bread or wine left after consecration.

Q. 9. Wherein lieth the evil of that opinion?

A. The evils are more and greater than I must here stay to recite. In short, 1. They feign that to be Christ's body and blood, which was in his hand, or on the table when he spake the words, as if he had then two bodies.

2. They feign his body to be broken, and his blood shed before he was crucified.

3. They feign him to have flesh and blood in heaven, which two general councils have condemned; his body being a spiritual body now.

4. They feign either himself to have eaten his own flesh and drunk his own blood, or at least his disciples to have done it while he was alive.

5. They feign him to have been the breaker of his own flesh, and shedder of his own blood, and make him to do that which was done only by the Jews.

6. They contradict the express words of the Scripture, which three times together call it bread, after the consecration in 1 Cor. xi. When yet they say, it is not bread.

7. They condemn the belief of the soundest senses of all men in the world, as if it were heresy. All our eyes, touch, taste, &c., tell us that there is bread and wine, and they say there is

none.

8. Hereby they deny all certainty of faith, and all other certainty; for if a man may not be certain of what he seeth, feeleth, and tasteth, he can be certain of no sensible thing for we have no faculties but sense to perceive things sensible as such: nor any way to transmit them to the intellect but by sense. And we can no otherwise know that there is a bible, a church, a council, a pope, a man, or any thing in the world, and therefore much less can believe any of them. So that all human and divine faith are thus destroyed; yea, man is set below a beast that hath the benefit of sense.

9. Hereby they feign God to be the grand deceiver of the world; for things sensible are his works, and so is sense; and he makes us know no supernatural revelation but by the intromission of some sense, and if God may deceive all men by the way of sense, we can never be sure but he may do it otherwise.

10. They set up men, who confess their own senses are not to be credited, to be more credible than all our senses, and to be the lords of the understandings of all princes and people in despite of sense, and he that is to be believed before our senses is an absolute lord.

11. They deny it to be a sacrament, for if there be no sign, there is no sacrament.

12. They feign every ignorant, drunken priest, every time he consecrateth, to work greater miracles than ever Christ wrought, and so to make miracles common, and at the wills of thousands of wicked men. I must not here stay to handle all this, but in a small book called 'Full and Easy Satisfaction, which is the True Religion,' I have showed thirty-one miracles with

So 1 Cor. x. 15, and xi. 25—28; Acts xx. 7, 11, and ii. 42, 46.

twenty aggravations, which all priests are feigned to work at every sacrament.

Q. 10. What is it that is called the mass, which the papists say that all the fathers and churches used in every age, and we renounce?

A. In the first ages, the churches were gathered among heathens, and men were long instructed and catechised hearers before they were baptised Christians; and the first part of the day was spent in public, in such common teaching and prayer as belonged to all, and then the deacon cried, Missa est; that is, dismissed the unbaptised hearers, and the rest that were Christians spent the rest of the time in such duties as are proper to themselves, especially the Lord's Supper and the praises of God. Hereupon all the worship following the dismission of the unchristened and suspended, came to be called barbarously the mass or dismission. And this worship hath been quite changed from what it was in the beginuing, and the papists, by keeping the name 'mass' or dismission, make the ignorant believe, that the worship itself is the same as of old.

Q. 11. What be the changes that have been made ?

A. More than I may now stay to number. Justin Martyr and Tertullian describe it in their time to be just such as the Scripture mentioneth, and we now commonly perform, that is, in reading the Scripture, opening and applying it, praying as the minister was able, praising God, baptising and administering the Lord's Supper. After this, ministers grew less able and trusty, and they decreed that they should pray and officiate in set forms; yet so that every bishop might choose his own, and every presbyter must show it to the bishops and have their approbation; the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments, and the words of baptism, and delivery of the Lord's Supper, were always used in forms before. After this, they grew to use the same forms called a liturgy in whole provinces ; some ceremonies were so ancient, that we cannot find their original, that is, the anointing of the baptised, the giving them milk and honey to taste; dipping them thrice; clothing them in a white garment after; to worship with their faces toward the east, and not to kneel in prayer or adoration any Lord's day in the year, nor any week-day between Easter and Whitsuntide, and especially to observe those two yearly festivals, and Good Friday's fast.

And quickly after the encouraging of persecuted Christians to