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The 3. & last thing for the perfecting of this visible covenant, & vn••ing of the mēbers one to another, M. B. makes, the holy sacramēt* 1.1 of the L. supper, which a•• it is a seal of our faith, so i•• i•• a testimony of that visible com••••••iō of love, also of one member with another. 1 Cor. 10. 16. 17.
You confound all things in saying the sacrament makes the co∣venaunt;* 1.2 which is a seal of it, and praesupposeth both the covenant, and the Church, whereof it is an ordinance. The covenant must be before the Church, and the Church before the sacrament: how then can the sacrament make the Church? And where you further call it an holy sacrament, a seal of ••aith, a testimony of the visible cōmunion of love, & of one member with another, you speak the truth, but not tru∣ly: such it is in it self, & in the right administration, & use of it: but not in the prophane abuse of it vpon wicked men, of whom wee speak: and for whom, & their vniting with Christ you here plead. Vpō whom whilest you, & the rest of the ministers of your Church, do prophane it, as you do, the more holy it is in it self, the more vn∣holy is your fact, & the more heynous your sin. It is as you say, the seal of faith, and of the for••ivenes of sinns through faith to the peni∣tent, & beleevers, but is it therefore so, & such to apparantly impe∣nitent, & vnbeleeving persons? it is in it self a testimony of the cōmuni∣on of love: but is it so vnto, & among the wicked? or is it not in that abuse made a lying witnes to testifie, & witnes love, where apparant hatred, and malice reigns against God, & good men? It is an out∣ward pledge, or symbole of the cōmunion which the faithful haue with Christ, (for of that the Apostle speaketh 1 Cor. 10. 16. 17. di∣rectly) and so by cōsequence, one with another: & bycause it vnites Christ the head with his own members, & one of them with ano∣ther, doth it therefore vnite Christ or his true members, with the true apparant visible lims of the Divil, which all vngodly men and women are? This is the force of Mr Br. arguments. Bycause the L. supper is of this or that vse unto them, to whō by the word of God it apperteyns, therefore it hath or must be judged to haue the same vse amongst them which are apparant vsurpers of it, and to whom by the word of God it apperteyns not. There is nothing more cō∣mon in both his books, then this kind of deceiptfull arguing.
Here is yet an Arg: of cōparisō to be taken knowledg, & cōsidred of; & the rather because the author both wills the reader to note it, in the margent, and repeats it himself over & over, in the text.