This consecration having a special respect to God the Father, in it we acknowledge his three grand relations. 1. That he is the Creator, and so the Owner of all the creatures; for we offer them to him as his own. 2. That he is our righteous Governor, whose law it was that Adam and we have broken, and who required satisfaction, and hath received the sacrifice and atonement, and hath dispensed with the strict and proper execution of that law, and will rule us hereafter by the law of grace. 3. That he is our Father or Benefactor, who hath freely given us a Redeemer, and the covenant of grace, whose love and favour we have forfeited by sin, but desire and hope to be reconciled by Christ. As Christ himself was incarnate and true Christ, before he was sacrificed to God, and was sacrificed to God before that sacrifice be communicated for life and nourishment to souls; so in the sacrament, consecration must first make the creature to be the flesh and blood of Christ representative; and then the sacrificing of that flesh and blood must be represented and commemorated; and then the sacrificed flesh and blood communicated to the receivers for their spiritual life. II. The commemoration chiefly (but not only) respecteth God the Son. For he hath ordained, that these consecrated representations should in their manner and measure, supply the room of his bodily presence, while his body is in heaven; and that thus, as it were, in effigy, in representation, he might be still crucified before the church's eyes; and they might be affected, as if they had seen him on the cross. And that by faith and prayer, they might, as it were, offer him up to God; that is, might show the Father that sacrifice, once made for sin, in which they trust, and for which it is that they expect all the acceptance of their persons with God, and hope for audience, when they beg for mercy, and offer up prayer or praises to him. III. In the communication, though the sacrament have respect to the Father, as the principal Giver, and to the Son, as both the Gift and Giver, yet hath it a special respect to the Holy Ghost, as being that Spirit given in the flesh and blood, which quickeneth souls; without which, the flesh will profit nothing; and whose operations must convey and apply Christ's saving benefits to us, John vi. 63; vii. 39.[75]