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SEcondly, if wee consider the gift, it is not a bread that perisheth, which is lesse worth then the life, as our Sauiour saith, but is the Bread of God that came down from heauen, to giue life to the world, a food more precious then all creatures; and therefore such a food as wee are commanded in the very Sacrament
to discerne from common naturall food, and to eate that Bread, and drinke the Cup of the Lord worthi∣ly, except we would prooue guiltie of indignitie done to the Bodie and Bloud of the Lord Iesus: In the which warning, as faith, and a re∣ligious disposition is required in the heart, so an externall reuerence an∣swerable thereto should be in the ex∣ternall action; for this the very word importeth: Therefore hee that eateth this Bread,* 1.1 and drinketh the Cup of the Lord vnworthily, shall bee guiltie of the Bodie and Bloud of the Lord: And after, Hee that eateth and drinketh vnworthily, eateth and drinketh iudge∣ment to himselfe, because hee hath not discerned the Lords Bodie. This eating and drinking here, must be the ex∣ternall receiuing of the Sacrament; for the spirituall and inward eating and drinking admitteth no vnwor∣thinesse; but is performed with such discretion, as giues to Christ the
reuerence that is due to him, both in outward action, and inward affec∣tion: But the externall action of ea∣ting and drinking may be vnworthi∣ly performed, if either it be done in hypocrisie or profanely. I call that to eate and drink in hypocrisie, when an hypocrite giueth all due and ex∣ternall reuerence to the Sacrament, but in the meane time, hath neither faith, nor the true and right estima∣tion that he should haue of the spiri∣tuall benefit. To eate profanely, is both to eate without the outward and inward reuerence, that is due to the Bodie and Bloud of our Sauiour; for no man wants the outward reue∣rence, but hee that hath not the in∣ward. They who thinke that the vnworthinesse onely consisteth in the want of faith and inward reuerence, must thinke hypocrites onely to eate vnworthily; yet it is certaine in this place,* 1.2 that the Apostle findeth no fault with the hypocrisie or supersti∣tion
of the Corinthians, but with their profanenesse; for comming drunken, for eschewing the poore, and despising the Church: so this vnworthinesse was as well in their outward behauiour, as in their in∣ward disposition: And so conse∣quently the Apostle would haue vs to discerne the Lords Bodie, not by our inward estimation onely, but by our outward carriage and gesture, that it may bee seene of all, that in the Sacrament wee doe chiefly con∣sider and respect, not the outward and symbolicall elements, but the thing signified, the Bodie and Bloud of Christ, and that according there∣to we compose and frame our selues and our manners; which if wee doe, this question is at a point: For what gesture, I pray you, can make a more euident difference betwixt Christs Bodie, the Bread of Life, and other common Bread, by giuing thereto such reuerence as best beseemeth
the dignitie and worthinesse thereof, then the humble and religious ges∣ture of Kneeling.
1. Cor. 11. 27, 29.
1. Cor. 11. 21.