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The Sacramental Body Of Christ Confers Even More Than His Corporal Body Could
William Beveridge (1637-1708)
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| William Beveridge (1637-1708) was Bishop of St Asaph’s, popular and renowned for his scholarship and preaching |
THE plain case is this: There is no way whereby it is possible for any of us to be saved but by Jesus Christ; nor by Him, without believing in Him. And therefore we had need use all the means we can for the exercising our faith in Him, and keeping it always fixed upon Him.
But we can by no means do it so effectually, as by the frequent receiving of that Holy Sacrament which He Himself ordained for that very purpose, that we might remember Him so as to believe and trust on Him for all things relating to our Salvation.
For He hath so ordered it, that this Sacrament doth not bring Him into our remembrance only in a slight and superficial manner, without making any impression upon our minds, but it exhibits and presents Him to our very eyes as dying for our sins; or, to use the Apostle's words, "Herein Jesus Christ is evidently set forth before our eyes as crucified among us," (Gal 3:1), whereby our minds are deeply affected, and our faith confirmed in Him.
All the promises which God hath made us in Christ being hereby sealed, as it were, and delivered to us in His blood. As the Sacrament of Circumcision is said to be a "token of the covenant betwixt God and man" (Gen 17:11), "and a seal of the righteousness of faith" (Rom 4:11), so the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper both signifies and seals to us the covenant of grace, founded in the death of Christ, there represented before our eyes, whereby our faith is strengthened, and we are able to look upon ourselves as entitled to, and interested in, all the blessings which are promised in the said covenant, by the means of that body and blood which we there behold as broken and shed for us.
For which purpose also Christ Himself, in the institution of it, calls the signs by the name of the thing signified, saying, "This is My body which is broken for you, and this is My blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (1 Cor 11:24).
Whereby He fully assures us, that this is not common bread and wine, but His Own body and blood, not in a carnal, but in a spiritual or sacramental sense: so that, by eating this bread and drinking this cup, we partake of His body and blood to all intents and purposes for which the one was broken and the other shed; and that, too, as much, or rather more, than we could have done it by eating His very body and drinking His very blood, in a carnal and literal sense.
To the same purpose is that of the Apostle, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Cor 10:16). Though it be not His very body and blood itself, it is the communion of them; they are both communicated to us, so that, if we receive them as we ought by faith, we attain the end wherefore His body was broken and His blood shed, even the remission of our sins; which is, therefore, particularly mentioned by Himself in the institution of the cup.
From "The Necessity And Advantage Of Frequent Communion", available online at Google Books.
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