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crifice of Praife and Thanksgiving, that is, an Euchariftical Sacrifice, and confequently is humbly offer'd to GOD as a Sacrifice, and publickly avowed for fuch, as from the Tenor and Coherence of the Words does evidently appear. And that this Sacrifice is offered in, and by the Confecration and Reception of the Elements of Bread and Wine, will yet more plainly appear, if we look into the firft Reformed Liturgy in the Reign of King Edward VI. where it is exprefly faid, that we Thy bumble Servants do celebrate and make bere before Thy Divine Majefty, WITH THESE THY HOLY GIFTS, the Memorial which Thy Son bath willed us to make. ------ Entirely defiring Thy Fatherly Goodness mercifully to accept THIS OUR SACRIFICE of Praife and Thanksgiving. In which Prayer they moft plainly call the Elements or Gifts (Awpa) of Bread and Wine, the Sacrifice of Praife and Thanksgiving. For they do not give this Name to the Prayers or Praifes then offered, but to the Gifts or Elements, and thereby teftified their Belief, that thofe Elements were then offered as a proper Sacrifice to render GOD propitious and gracious to them, through the Merits of that One truly Expiatory Sacrifice, of which this is the Memorial. Nor let it be faid, that this firft Liturgy of

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King Edward VI. contains not the Judg ment of the prefent Church of England, the Ufe of it being now laid aside. For as that firft Liturgy, when it was compiled by our Learned Bishops and Divines, was declar'd by the Lords Spiritual and Tem-* 2-3 Edw. poral, and the Commons in Parliament, that VI. Cap.1. is, by all the States of the Realm, to have been concluded, and fet forth BY THE AID OF THE HOLY GHOST,with one Uniform Agreement: So alfo, when the fecond Liturgy was fet forth, and ordered to be used in the room of this, by the fame Authority, this firft Liturgy was fo far from being condemned, that it received a New Ap probation, and was declared to be agree-5-6Edw. able to the Word of GOD, and the Primi VI.Cap.1. tive Church, very comfortable to all good People defiring to live in Chriftian Converfation, and most profitable to the State of this Realm. But if this Liturgy was ftill fo well approved, why was it laid aside, and another with divers Alterations from it fubftituted in its Place? The Parliament itself gives us the Reafon a little after, because there hath rifen in the Ufe and Exercife of the forefaid Common Service in the Church, heretofore fet forth, divers Doubts for the Fashion and Manner of the Miniftration of the fame, rather by the Curiofity of the Minifter and Mistakers, THAN OF F ANY

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p. 110,&c.

ANY OTHER WORTHY CAUSE. And if we enquire who thefe Minifters and Miftakers were, we fhall find, they were Bucer, Fagius, and Martyr, Foreign Prefbyterians, who were, for Reafons of State, invited into England; and that the principal Mover for thefe Alterations, was John Calvin himself, the Father of the Presbyterians, who could not bear our first Liturgy, because he had no Hand in the compiling * Antidot. it, as has been fully proved by * Dr. Heylyn. Lincoln. But though thefe Presbyterians had Interest enough then, and ever fince, to get this Liturgy to be laid afide, and another to be ufed in its Stead, yet they could not get any Part of it to be condemned; but the very fame Parliament, as has been fhewn, which authorized the Use of the fecond Liturgy, at the fame Time gave an Encomium of the First, as agreeable to the Word of GOD. The Church of England therefore ftill holding this firft Liturgy to be agreeable to the Word of GOD, notwithftanding it has laid afide the Ufe of it, I fhall not doubt to fuppofe, that whatever is contain❜d in that Liturgy, and has not been particularly condemn'd by the Church fince, is yet agreeable to the prefent Sense of the Church of England; nor fhall I fear to produce it as Her Opinion. Now this Doctrine of the Gifts, (Apa) as the Pri

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mitive Church called the Elements of Bread and Wine, being fo plainly declared in that Liturgy to be the Sacrifice of Praife and Thanksgiving, and this Doctrine being not condemned by the Church, but rather approved, by what remains in our prefent Liturgy, is undoubtedly, in the Judgment of the Church of England, very agreeable with the Holy Scriptures. This Doctrine is alfo as oppofite to Popery, as any Thing can be. For the Papists hold, as has been fhew'd from their Creed, That in the Sacrifice of the Mass, the whole Chrift GOD and Man, is offered up hypoftatically to the Father, and that there is no Bread and Wine there, after the Confecration, but only the Body and Blood of Chrift, into which the Bread and Wine are tranfubftantiated. But we hold, that there is no Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Chrift, but of Bread and Wine only, and that they are not tranfubftantiated into the Body and Blood of Chrift, but only reprefent His Body broken, and His Blood fhed upon the Crofs. Now, a Reprefentative Body cannot be the Body which is Reprefented, a Sacramental Body can never be a Natural one; they must be as distinct, as a Prince and his Ambassador, as a Man and his Attorney, as an Original and a Copy, which can never be the fame. Confequently,

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* Luk. xxiv. 47:

fequently, we that hold the Bread and Wine to be the Sacramental or Reprefentative Body of Chrift, can never hold it to be His real Natural Body, as the Papifts do: We that hold the Eucharift to be a Sacrifice of Bread and Wine, as a Memorial of Chrift's Sacrifice, being celebrated in Remembrance of His Meritorious Death and Paffion, can never believe this to be a Sacrifice of Chrift Himself, or of His Individual Natural Body and Blood, together with His Soul and Divinity, which is the Popish Doctrine. Nor ought I, or any one elfe, to be charged with Popery. for maintaining it.

4. THE Neceffity of Sacerdotal Abfolution, as it has been preached and taught by me, is plainly agreeable to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, and of the Church of England, as I have fully proved it to be, in my Answer to Dr. Cannon, to which no Reply has been yet made, or attempted by that Learned Gentleman, or any other, that I know of. It is evident, as I fhewed in my Sermon on Remiffion of Sins, from Job. xx. 21, 22, 23. That Chrift did give to his Apoftles, and their Succeffors, the Power to remit and retain Sins: And that they exercised this Power in the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments for the Remiffion of Sins: That they preached Repentance

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