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The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

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(diakri÷nwn) the Lord's body," (because he hath not distinguished the<br />

body... Syr. Ether. Eateth <strong>and</strong> drinketh condemnation on himself, by not<br />

discerning... Syr. Murdock): "Whosoever shall eat this bread, <strong>and</strong> drink<br />

this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty (enocoß) of the body <strong>and</strong><br />

blood of the Lord," (is guilty of the blood of the Lord <strong>and</strong> of His body).<br />

Syr. Etheridge. 1 Cor. xi. 27-29.<br />

From the four propositions already established it is a necessary<br />

inference, <strong>and</strong> in the cogent texts just quoted it is expressly taught, that,<br />

while none but those who receive in faith receive savingly, all who come to<br />

the Supper receive sacramentally, the body <strong>and</strong> blood of Christ. As those<br />

to whom the gospel is a savor of death unto death, receive in common<br />

with those to whom it is a savor of life unto life, one <strong>and</strong> the same thing<br />

outwardly, to wit: the gospel; so do those who abuse, to their own<br />

condemnation, the Lord's Supper, <strong>and</strong> those who rightly use it to their<br />

soul's welfare, receive one <strong>and</strong> the same thing sacramentally. It is the very<br />

essence of the sin of the rejection of the gospel, that, receiving it outwardly,<br />

with the attendant energy of the Holy Spirit in, with, <strong>and</strong> under it, the<br />

rejector has not received it inwardly, <strong>and</strong> thus makes it not merely<br />

practically void, but pernicious to his soul. So is it the very essence of the<br />

sin of unworthy treatment of the Lord's Supper, that, receiving it in its<br />

sacred <strong>and</strong> divine element, as well as in its outward one, the communicant<br />

makes no inward appropriation of the benefit there offered, but turns, by<br />

his unbelief, the food of his soul to its poison. In the passages quoted<br />

immediately after the <strong>The</strong>sis, men, whose unworthiness is such that their<br />

condemnation is sealed by their eating, are represented as guilty of the<br />

body <strong>and</strong> blood of Christ; that is, the object of their abuse is specifically<br />

declared to be, not bread <strong>and</strong> wine, either in themselves or as symbols, but<br />

the body <strong>and</strong> blood of Christ. That which-they are treating with contumely<br />

is said to be the body of the Lord, <strong>and</strong> their crime is that they do not<br />

discern it: "not discerning the body of the Lord." But unbelief would be its<br />

own safeguard, if it were the communicant's faith, <strong>and</strong> not the will <strong>and</strong><br />

institution of Christ, which is the ground of the presence. <strong>The</strong> unbeliever<br />

could

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