"I come to God's Altar": Brevint on the gift of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist

I have presented some of their scholars to be ordained Deacons and Priests here by our own Bishops, (whereof Monsieur de Tarenne's Chaplain is one, and the Duke de la Force's Chaplain another,) ... and I preached here publicly at their ordination.

Cosin's words here refer to the ordination on Trinity Sunday, 12th June, 1650 in Paris of the Reformed theologians Daniel Brevint and John Durel.  They were ordained deacon and priest on the same day according to the Ordinal of the Church of England by Thomas Sydserf, the exiled Bishop of Galloway.  

This itself, of course, was a significant statement: receiving episcopal orders while episcopacy and the liturgy remained prohibited in England and, in 1650, with little hope of their restoration.  It was, despite the circumstances, a compelling statement of the Laudian vision. Cosin presenting and preaching; a faithful bishop conferring holy orders, maintaining apostolic order; two respected French Reformed theologians and pastors seeking the grace of episcopal ordination.

When the Restoration did come, Brevint and Durel were active defenders of the Laudian character of the restored Church of England.  For Brevint, this was particularly found in his The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice (1673), a celebration of the rich Eucharistic piety that Laudianism encouraged.

In thoroughly Laudian fashion, Brevint notes that our participation in the Sacrament is "in another manner and degree" than occurs in through the hearing of the Word, "for the holy Eucharist is a means of communicating the blood of Christ":

the end of the blessed Communion, the exigency and pious desire of communicants, and the strength of other places of Scripture, require a great deal more in the Eucharist than a mere memorial or representation.

1. The proper end of the holy Communion, - which is to make us partakers of Christ in another manner and degree, when with faith and repentance we take and taste those holy mysteries, than when with the like dispositions we do hear the holy Gospel. 

2. The exigency and honest desire of communicants, - who seek no more for a bare representation or remembrance of Christ crucified at this holy table, than Mary and other devout women did for winding-sheets or napkins about his grave. I want and seek my Saviour Himself, and I watch for all the opportunities of coming to his Sacrament, for the same purpose that once made St. Peter and St. John run so fast to his sepulchre, - because I hope to find Him there. 

3. Lastly, the full sense and importance of other places in Scripture, - which allow the holy Communion a much greater virtue than is that of representing only. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ? (1 Cor. x. 16.) For whether the word which we render Communion, be taken in an active sense, as it is often for communication, - the holy Eucharist is a means of communicating the blood of Christ; or though we take it but in a neuter and intransitive sense, yet the holy Eucharist will be still a mystery, wherein, one way or other, true Christians shall find, not a commemoration or representation only, but a communion also with the blood so represented and remembered.

And so in the holy Eucharist is "the richest gift that a saint can receive on earth", the gift that is not "outwards Shews without Substance":

Here, then, I come to God's Altar with a full Persuasion that these Words, This is my Body, promise me more than a Figure; that this holy Banquet is not a Representation made of outward Shews without Substance ... But how these mysteries become in my behalf the supernatural instruments of such blessings, it is enough for me to admire. One thing I know (as said the blind man after he had received his sight, St. John ix. 15), He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed and do see ... as He offers Himself to men, the holy Eucharist is, after the Sacrifice for sin, the true festival and Sacrifice of peace-offerings, and the table purposely set up to receive those mercies that are sent down from the altar. Take and eat; this is my body which was broken for you; and this is the blood which was shed for you.

Here then I wait at the Lord's table, that both shews me what an apostle, who had heaven for his school, had the greatest mind to see and learn, and offers me the richest gift that a saint can receive on earth - the Lord Jesus crucified.

As Laud himself had said, the altar is "the greatest place of Gods Residence upon earth. I say the greatest, yea greater then the Pulpit. For there tis Hoc est Corpus meum, This is my Body. But in the Pulpit, tis at most, but; Hoc est Verbum meum, This is my Word. And a greater Reverence (no doubt) is due to the Body, then to the Word of our Lord".