alone; viz. That, as Covenants amongst Men are figned by fome peculiar Mark or Seal, in order to fhew and prove their Truth and Validity: fo Chrift's Death, or Chrift's Bloud, confidered as the Proof He voluntarily gave that the Terms brought by Him to Mankind from GOD, were truly what He had reprefented them to be, is by a Figure of Speech called the Seal of the New Covenant; and He may be faid to have fealed it with His Bloud, as his Death was the strongest proof He could give of the Reality of his own and of his Father's affectjon towards Mankind. This is the Seal of the Covenant; that is, It is to this Covenant what a Seal is to Humane Covenants: and there can be no Other. Chrift himself put this Seal to it once; and but once and it cannot be fuppofed to be fet again to It, without great Impropriety and Abfurdity. It was fufficient at firft; and it remains fo for ever. The Partaking of the Lord's Supper is the Remembrance of that Seal which Chrift, according to the will of his Father, and in his Name, fet to the New Covenant: and therefore, cannot be the receiving the Seal itself. It is the Commemoration of his Bloud fhed long ago; and therefore, cannot be the partaking of

His

His Bloud itself. It deftroys (as I have often faid) the Notion of this particular Commemoration, or Remembrance, of his Bloud, to suppose it prefent, And confequently, The Seal here remember'd, cannot be prefent. There can be no actual putting to the Seal, in a Ceremony, instituted on purpose for the Commemoration of Chrift's having already once for all put the Seal of his Bloud to the Covenant of Grace.

When Chrift faid of the Cup, at the Inftitution of this Rite, "This is my Bloud of

the New Covenant;" He did not mean that Real Bloud which was to be fhed, in witness to this Covenant: but Wine to be drunk in remembrance of That Bloud. And, if the Words were as St Luke and St Paul relate them, "This is the New Covenant in, (or through) my Bloud;" He did not mean that the Cup was to be that Covenant, but a Memorial of that Covenant then to be fealed with his Bloud. But in neither of these Expreffions can it be implied that this Rite is itself a repeated Seal of that Covenant; or any thing more, than That the Wine at the Lord's Table is the Memorial of that Bloud which may be figuratively called the Seal of that Covenant; and, in confequence of this,

the

the Memorial of that Covenant itself, to the reality of which Christ's Bloud was the Seal, or Testimony. This therefore, is not properly a Federal Rite, or a Rite making or renewing a Covenant; but a Rite which implies in it, and leads to, the Remembrance of a Covenant to be confidered as long ago propofed, fixed, and fealed, by Chrift himfelf, on the part of Almighty God; and accepted and entered into, by Every man, perfonally on his own part, at the instant of his first fincerely believing in Chrift, and profeffing himself his Difciple. Before this, No Rite can perfonally engage Him in this Covenant; because no one can be perfonally engaged in a Religion which He has not perfonally agreed to: tho' He may be juftly liable to punishment for willfully and unreafonably refufing to enter into it, when duly and plainly offered to Him, on the part of Almighty GOD. And after this is once done, No Rite can be justly said to relate to this Covenant, any farther than as an open Profeffion that this Perfon is already engaged in it.

Neither does this Chriftian Rite appear to Me to answer to any Rites or Cere

monies,

monies, amongst the Jews or Heathens, which were properly Federal Rites.

To the Bloud of the Sacrifices, which Mofes called The Bloud of the Covenant ; Ex. xxiv. 8: To this Bloud, I fay, the real Bloud of Christ answers; and not the Wine in the Lord's Supper. The Bloud of Chrift is, in the fame figurative Manner of speaking, the Seal of the Gospel-Covenant, in which the Bloud of thofe Sacrifices was the Seal of the Law-Covenant. But the Wine in the Lord's Supper is not the Bloud of the New Covenant; but appointed to be drunk in remembrance of the Bloud of the New Covenant: which makes it as different from that Bloud, and that Covenant, as the Memorial is from the Thing remembered.

If the Lord's Supper fuccedes in the place of the Passover; this will likewise help to fhew that it cannot be Itself a Federal, or Covenanting, Rite. For the Pafchal Supper itself was inftituted, in remembrance of that Redemption or Deliverance of Ifrael out of Egypt, by which God claimed Them for his People. And fo, the Lord's Supper was inftituted for the remembrance of that Redemption or Deliverance of Chriftians, which God proposed

to Them, by Chrift, in his New Covenant. As therefore, the Paffover was a perpetual Memorial of the One Deliverance, and the Covenant formed upon it: fo is the Lord's Supper the Memorial of the Other, and of the Covenant formed upon That; and neither of Them therefore, can be efteemed as the Actual Making those Covenants which are only remembred in them.

The Sacrifices of the Ifraelites, and Those of the Heathens, to which St. Paul alludes, I. Cor. x. are confidered by Him in that place only as Acts of Religious Honour paid by the Jews to the True God; and by the Heathens to fuppofed Imaginary Dæmons, in oppofition to the True God: as has been already fhewn at large, p. 35, &c. But the Lord's Supper does not, in his argument, answer to thefe Sacrifices; but to the Feasts made upon what had been before Sacrificed. Nor does the Lord's Table, in St Paul's argument, answer to the Altars spoken of by Him; but to thofe Tables at which what had been before offered upon the Altars, was eaten in common by Those of the fame Religion. And his whole argument refts (not upon these Feafts being Federal Rites, of which He

fays.