ARTICLE XVII. Do this in Remembrance of Me.

THE Explication of the preceding Article, having en∣gaged us to a length extraordinary, we will endea∣vour to recompence it by our shortness in this.

We are entirely agreed, that the Intention of the Son of God was to oblige us by these words to commemorate that death which he underwent for our Salvation. We Confess, that that real Presence which we suppose in the Commu∣nion, do's not at all contradict the Nature of this Comme∣moration. We are persuaded, that as the Jews eating of their Peace-Offering, which was the remembrance of God's Co∣venant, and particularly of the Passover, the Type of that Paschal Lamb that was offered for them in Egypt, called to mind the Sacrifice of Isaac, and that great Deliverance God had wrought for them, in bringing them up out of the Land of Bondage: So whilst we Eat of those Holy Elements which our Saviour Christ has instituted like the Peace-Offering a∣among the Jews, to perpetuate the Memory of his death, We call to mind the more lively, that great deliverance which He has wrought for us, and render thanks for it, and by faith and repentance apply to our selves the Merits of it.

Thus whilst we receive these Holy signs which he has instituted for our Memorial, we need no real descent of the Son of God from Heaven; no new Crucifying of the Lord of Glory to raise in our Souls those just re∣sentments we ought to have of so excellent a Blessing. But as a Child cannot but recollect the kindness and affec∣tion of a dear Father, as often as he beholds the Monument where his dead Body lies interred: So we much more, can∣not chuse but excite our Love to our blessed Redeemer, as often as we see before our eyes these Sacred Elements under which he is vailed. Nor is it necessary for this, that this Page  55 Mystick Tomb, as Monsieur de Meaux phrases it, should any more be changed into the very real Body of our Saviour to raise this remembrance, than that natural One into the dead Corps of the Father, to recall the tender Affections of his Child at the sight of it.

In a word; As we will not now move any Argument from the nature of this remembrance, to oppose that substantial change, which we have before combated on more solid grounds; so we suppose muchless ought Monsieur de Meaux from the sole opinion of that more lively remembrance, which he imagines the actual eating of the very Flesh of Christ would raise in us, then only to do it in a figure, to conclude him to be substantially there. It is evident, that they who be∣lieve this change, and they who believe it not, receive him en∣tirely alike. They see, and taste, and feel the same thing: It is Faith alone which works in both, and makes the one belie∣ving him spirituarlly present, to remember him with the same love, to honour him with the same reverence, and embrace him with the same hope, as the other, who thinks him corpo∣really, but yet after a manner altogether unperceivable, con∣tain'd under the sacred Elements that are presented to him.