Chap. xxix. Of the Lords Supper S
1
OUR Lord Jesus in the night wherein he was betrayed instituted the sacrament of his body and blood called the Lords Supper to be observed in his Church unto the end of the world for the perpetuall remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death the sealing all benefits thereof to true believers their spirituall nourishment and growth in him their further engagement in and to all duties which they owe unto him and to be a bond and pledge of their communion with him and with each other as members of his mysticall body
2
IN this sacrament Christ is not offered up to his father nor any reall sacrifice made at all for remission of sins of the quick or dead but only a commemoration of that one offering up of himself by himself upon the cross once for all and a spirituall oblation of all possible praise unto God for the same so that the popish sacrifice of the Mass (as they call it) is most abominably injurious to Christs one only sacrifice the alone propitiation for all the sins of the elect
3
THE Lord Jesus hath in this ordinance appointed his ministers to declare his word of Institution to the people to pray and bless the elements of bread and wine and thereby to set them apart from a common to an holy use and to take and break the bread to take the cup and (they communicating also themselves) to give both to the communicants but to none who are not then present in the congregation
4
PRIVATE masses or receiving this sacrament by a priest or any other alone as likewise the deniall of the cup to the people worshipping the elements the lifting them up or carrying them about for adoration and the reserving them for any pretended religious use are all contrary to the nature of this sacrament and to the institution of Christ
5
THE outward elements in this sacrament duely set apart to the uses ordained by Christ have such relation to him crucified as that truly yet sacramentally only they are sometimes called by the name of the things they represent to wit the body and blood of Christ albeit in substance and nature they still remain truly and only bread and wine as they were before
6
THAT doctrine which maintaines a change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christs body and blood (commonly called transubstantiation) by consecration of a priest or by any other way is repugnant not to scripture alone but even to common sense and reason overthroweth the nature of the sacrament and hath been and is the cause of manifold superstitions yea of gross idolatries
7
WORTHY receivers outwardly partaking of the visible elements of this sacrament do then also inwardly by faith really and indeed yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually receive and feed upon Christ crucified and all benefits of his death the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in with or under the bread and wine yet as really but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance as the elements themselves are to their outward senses
8
ALTHOUGH ignorant and wicked men receive the outward elements in this sacrament yet they receive not the thing signified thereby but by their unworthy coming thereunto are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord to their own damnation wherefore all ignorant and ungodly persons as they are unfit to enjoy communion with him so are they unworthy of the Lords table and cannot without great sin against Christ while they remain such partake of these holy mysteries or be admitted thereunto