By Lewis Bayly
1. To keep Christians in a continual remembrance of that propitiatory sacrifice which Christ, once for all, offered by his death upon the cross, to reconcile us to God (Matt. xxvi. 26.) "Do this," saith Christ, "in remembrance of me." (Luke xxii. 19.) And, saith the apostle, "As oft as ye shall eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come" (1 Cor. xi. 26;) and he saith that by this sacrament, and the preaching of the word, Jesus Christ was as evidently set forth before the eyes of the Galatians, as if he had been crucified among them (Gal. iii. 1;) for the whole action represents Christ's death, the breaking of the bread blessed, the crucifying of his blessed body, and the pouring forth of the sanctified wine, the shedding of his holy blood. Christ was once in himself really offered (Heb. ix. 26; x. 12x. 12;) but as oft as the sacrament is celebrated, so oft is he spiritually offered by the faithful.
Hence the Lord's Supper is called a propitiatory sacrifice, not properly or really, but figuratively; because it is a memorial of that propitiatory sacrifice which Christ offered upon the cross. And to distinguish it from that real sacrifice, the fathers call it the unbloody sacrifice. It is called the Eucharist, because the "church in this action offers to God the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for her redemption, effected by the true and only expiatory sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. If the sight of Moab's king sacrificing on his walls his own son, to move his gods to rescue him (2 Kings iii. 27), moved the assailing kings to such pity, that they ceased the assault, and raised their siege, how should the spiritual sight of God the Father, sacrificing on the cross his only-begotten Son to save thy soul, move thee to love God thy Redeemer, and to leave sin, that could not in justice be expiated by any meaner ransom?
