nysius the Pseudareopagite elegantly expressed it, in the divine symbols of a divine birth, and recommended to the grace of God by the prayer of the whole church. Let this be the first care of their piety. Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. 40. in sanctum baptisma, speaks as follows: "Hast thou a child? give not time to vice to gain upon him: let him be sanctified from a child, and consecrated to the Spirit from his tender years." And certainly, if no other benefit accrued from infant-baptism, every prudent person will own it to be very great, that it lays the most inviolable necessity on parents, carefully to train up their children, which they have so early devoted to God, in the mysteries of the Christian religion, and the practice of true piety, both by instruction, admonition, and good example. "They incur the guilt of an impious robber or thief," as Bucer has gravely observed, de regno Christi, lib. ii. c. 9. "who are not at the greatest pains to bring up and form those they have consecrated by baptism, to the Lord Christ, to the obedience of Christ. For, by this neglect, as much as in them lies, they again rob God of the children they gave up to him, betray them, and enslave them to the devil." See what we have more fully written on infant-baptism in a particular dissertation.

L. And therefore it was a very laudable practice of the Bohemian brethren, who were wont to present their children at about twelve years old, in the church to the pastor, in order to make a public profession of their faith, and to shew, whether the parents had done their duty in instructing them, to which they had bound themselves at the baptism of their children, as Lasitius relates, de moribus & institutis fratrum Bohemorum, c. 12. § 28, 29. Which, with the solemnity they usually performed this, is related at large in ratione discipline ordin. frat. Bohem. p. 46. Calvin, Instit. lib. iv. c. 19.

1

§ 4. has hinted that a like practice obtained in the ancient church, and that from hence, in later times, arose the imaginary sacrament of confirmation. And Durel, in vindiciis ecclesiæ Anglicane, observes, that the like custom is still retained in the church of England.

CHAP. XVII.

Of the Lord's Supper.

THE other sacrament of the New Testament is

the holy supper of the Lord; which the Lord Jesus instituted immediately after his last passover, because it was to succeed the passover, from which he transferred also to this most of the rites and phrases, used by the ancient Jews in their As this has long ago passover. been observed by the learned, so it will appear from the brief explication we are now to give of this sacred symbol.

II. This sacrament is called DEIPNON, the supper, 1 Cor. xi. 20. not because its celebration is necessarily confined to the evening or night. For, though in the ancient church this was frequently done; yet that was owing not so much to the religion of Christians, as to the cruelty of persecutors, who, by their tyranny, obliged believers to meet together privately, and in the nighttime but because the Lord instituted this feast after the passover, which was to be slain between the two evenings, and eaten in the night. It was likewise instituted in the very night in which he was betrayed, 1 Cor. xi. 23. and which was the last before his death; hence this most sacred feast was constantly called the supper. Besides, the most sumptuous entertainments

:

among the ancients, especially in the Jewish nation, at least their nuptial feasts, were generally in the evening; as appears from the parable of the ten virgins, Matth. XXV. And therefore it was proper, that that feast, which represents the unspeakable dainties of heaven, and is an earnest of the marriage-supper of the Lamb, Rev. xix. 9. should be held forth to us under the name and

emblem of a supper. Nor is it for nothing, that Paul observes, that Christ gave the supper to the church, in that night in which he was betrayed. For, besides that we have in this an illustrious display of Christ's infinite love to men, in that he should vouchsafe to have such an anxious concern for us, especially at that time, when his mind was otherwise so much taken up, and distressed with the horror of his approaching sufferings; what above all ought to make it sacred to us, and very highly valuable, is, that it was instituted by our Lord, just as he was preparing himself to die.

III. Again, It is called KURIAKON DEIPNON, the Lord's supper, 1 Cor. xi. 20. both because the Lord was the author of it, and because the whole of it agrees to the Lord, and to the remembrance of him; so that the Lord himself, in the right use of it, is exhibited to believers and lastly, because it ought to be celebrated by us, according to the will and prescription of the

Lord.

IV. But the Lord's supper, to pass on from the name to the thing, is the sacrament of education, or nourishment, in the New Testament church, wherein, by the symbols of bread broken, and wine poured out, the dreadful sufferings of Christ are represented to belicvers; and the promises of the New Testament, and enlivening communion with Christ, made perfect by sufferings, both in grace and glory, are signified and sealed to them.

V. For the illustration of this description, it will be useful, we first distinctly consider the external signs; then the things signified by them. The signs are either the symbols themselves, or certain actions about the symbols. The symbol is twofold, bread and wine; and both of them are joined together, to signify the superabundant fulness we have in Christ. Here we are to adore the divine providence, which hath given to his church things so simply and easily obtained, as pledges of things heavenly and several reasons may be assign· ed. 1. That this sacrament might, in all places, even to the end of the world, be in perpetual use among the faithful, it was suitable, such symbols should be instituted, as might, in all places and at all times; be ready at hand for the church's use. 2. It is more consistent with the spiritual œconomy of the New Testament, to be led by some plain and ordinary symbol, which should neither detain the eye nor the mind, presently to behold, meditate on, receive the thing signified, than to be dazzled by some illustrious and miraculous sign, like what was granted to the Israelites in the wilderness, as to be made to give less attention to the mystical signification. 3. And then, the danger of superstition, which can scarcely be altogether avoided in the case of bread and wine, would have been far greater in that of a more illustrious sign. 4. Nor is it from the purpose, that Christ has not again given us the flesh of slain animals, nor bloody meals, such as the fathers formerly eat in their sacred feasts; but has furnished out his table with plain bread and wine. For Christ's blood, by which all our debts are cancelled, and the fire of divine wrath is quenched, being once shed, it became a crime

* These are frequently called, with us, the sacramental elements and the sacramental actions.

any longer to shed any blood in the sacred rites of Christians.

And

VI. Common and ordinary bread is to be made use of, as Christ used that which lay before him, Matth. xxvi. 26. But it was an old subject of debate between. the Greek and Latin churches, whether it ought to be leavened or unleavened, both of them appealing to the example of our Lord. The Latins insist, that Christ used unleavened bread, because immediately after the paschal feast he instituted the supper; at which time it was altogether unlawful for any leaven to be seen among the Israelites. The Greeks, on the other hand, contend, that Christ eat the paschal lamb, the day before the Jews celebrated their passover; from which they infer, that the days of unleavened bread were not yet come, when our Lord celebrated the first supper, and therefore it is most probable, that our Lord used leavened bread, which, before the days of unleavened bread came, was most commonly made use of. indeed, as to Christ's example, we make no manner of doubt, but the Latins have the better of the Greeks in this argument. For whether our Lord celebrated the passover on the same, or on a different day from the other Jews; what was the day of the passover to him, was also to him the day of unleavened bread: which the evangelists expressly affirm, Matth. xxvi. 17. Mark xiv. 12. Luke xxii. 7. Nor is it so certain, that Christ celebrated the passover before the Jews, as Gerard Vossius imagines with the Greeks. The disputes of the celebrated John Cloppenburgh and Lud. Capellus have already laid before the learned world, what probably may be said on both sides of the question. Nay, the opposite opinion seems to be much better founded, as Bochart, whom we have already so often quoted, has made out by cogent arguments, who seems to have ta