But flesh with the life] That is, living flesh with the bloud in the veines; or, the bloud let out of the veines, wherewith the life and soule of the creature is powred out; for the soule of a beast, or fish, or fowle hath no existence without the body (as the soule of man hath) being rather a vitall facultie then a substance; and the life is called the bloud and the bloud the life, because the spirits which are the liveliest parts of the creature are produced of the purest part of the bloud, and with it diffused throughout the whole body, by the operation and activitie whereof the mmbrs are lively, & active, and without which there is no bodily life in man or beast, though the bloud continue in the body, as in cretures strangled. By this in Gods intention is, first, morally forbidden all crueltie, not onely to man, but to other creatures. Secondly, the eating of flesh and bloud together, or either of them raw, whereby men might become (by degrees) to feed upon mans flesh, as those who for such a barbarous manner are called Anthropophagi, that is, men-eaters, Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 6. cap. 30. Thirdly, afterwards the eating of all manner of bloud was expresly forbidden, Leviticus 7:2. & Chap. 17. vers. 10. and that not onely because the bloud is the life of the flesh; as here, and Leviticus 17:14. or the life of the flesh is in the bloud, as the reason is expressed, Levit 17. 11 but there is a reason mysticall against the eating of bloud in the same verse, and that is, because in sacrifices the bloud was to be let out and sprinkled, to signifie that the life of man by sinne is forfeited to God, and to be offered to him, as the Authour from whom at first it was derived, and to whom at last it is to be presented, and for that mans life was to be redeemed by the bloud of Christ; To these two some adde a third, viz. a Physicall cause of forbearance of bloud, which may serve for all times, and it is because the bloud of beasts is somewhat grosse, and yeeldeth not very wholesome nourishment to the body of man, and therefore the beasts which were to serve for food were not to be strangled, but to be killed, that the bloud might be let out and parted from the flesh. And from this prohibition of bloud in this Chapter, before the ceremoniall law was ordained, and the decree of the Apostles for forbearance of things strangled and of bloud, Acts 15:20. after the obligation of it was expired, some inferre a perpetuitie of prohibition of all such meats, especially since in the Apostles decree pollution of Idols, so vers. 20. or, meats offered to Idols, vers. 29. and fornication are forbidden and all in one tenour, as necessary things to be forborn, vers. 28. so that to this day they hold it unlawfull to eate any thing made of bloud, though mingled with other materials, and broyled and dressed as other meats are: and therefore the Christian Greeks find fault with the Latines for using their Christian libertie herein, as Theod. Balsamon on the 63. Can. of those supposititious Canons which are intituled to the Apostles. But first for answer to the Position, it may be alledged that all meats which are wholesome (though some be more wholesome and nutritive then others, and to some stomachs and constitutions grosser meats may be more sutable then fine) are by Evangelicall liberty lawfull to be eaten; for that see the fifteenth of Matth. vers. 11. Acts 10. from 5: 10. to the 16. 1 Corinthians 8:1. 8. & Chap. 10. 25. Titus 1:15.