r. ^ 'ir BY THE SAME AUTHOE. In Vlmo. liHce 5s. cloth. S E E M N S, CONTENTS. The comparison of Ourselves with Others — Balaam — The Chris- tian Race — The Church — On Grieving the Holy Spirit — Christ — The Lamb of God — Satan — Christian Confidence — The Faith of Devils — Reverence and godly Fear — The Penitent Thief — The Sleeper aroused— The last Judgment. " We recommend this little volume with more than ordinary earnestness. . . . The distinctive features of Mr. Smith's Sermons are their learning, the extent of spiritual knowledge which they display, and their practical character. We never remember to have met with so many traces of deep reading in so small a volume. The- writer seems not merely to have wandered over the wide field of standard English Divinity, but to have examined it with the minutest attention, to have culled all its flowers, and to have appropriated all its fruits. . . . Mr. Smith's Sermons are deep Sermons. They are full of spiritual knowledge, and will, consequently, be appreciated by the Christian reader in proportion to his attain- ments in religion, and the maturity of his taste for the ripeness of divine truth." — Churchman's Monthly Review. " Specimens of sound theology, and models of warm parish address. There is a vein of well-matured thought runs through the whole, indicative of good read- ing, an 1 discriminating taste in the selection and use of materials Sermons better calculated to rouse sinners to repentance, and to edify Christians, we can scarcely conceive ol."— Evangelical Magazine. ' There is a degree of learning, orthodoxy, good sense, and piety evinced in these Discourses which must recommend them at once to every practical reader." —Gentleman's Magazine. " There is a great deal of original thought in this volume, together with abundance of purest gospel doctrine .... A volume of excellent practical Chris- tianity."— C/«r«svitli your kind j)orniission, introiUiced in the preface, and gives weiglit to tlie sentiments which I have ventured to assert. In the Tract on the Encliarist, I have essayed to specify the distinctive blessini;- whicli we are encouraged to expect on our approacli to the Lord's Table. Tlie design of this attempt is not to awaken or satisfy a rash curiosity respecting tlie mysteries of our faith, but to uphold, as an attraction to the devout communicant, the in- ert'able privileges vouchsafed to those who em- brace the appointed means. It is, surely, an un- settled opinion on the subject of this sacrament that chills the ardour with which the Lord's Table should assiduously be thronged by those who aspire after the spiritual graces of His special Presence. Where there is no settled and clear view concern- ing the manner of that Presence, there can be no ex))licit I'aith on the part of the communicant; and where faith wants distinctness, it is proi)or- tionally deficient in intensity. Details give energy and direction to the ho[)es which, without them, rove in a maze. Uncertain expectations perplex the mind when it should worship without distraction. This, my Lord, must form my apology for at- tempting to explain what our Church has left DEDICATION Vll undefined ; for, as a learned writer/ of opposite sentiments on tliis subject has o?jserved : " It is coiiiriionly said, and I think truly, that the Church of England has not declared for any particular modus of tlie presence of Christ's body in the sa- crament. We are indeed instructed by the Church, that ' Christ's body and blood are verily and indeed taken, and received by the faithful in the Lord's Huj)j)er \ fjut whether substantially, or in jjower, or efficacy only, is not determined." The Church excludes only the notion of a ma- terial presence of His body and blood, — a doc- trine which wlioever would see refuted may f your Lordsliip well knows) very profitably consult the Treatise of Jiishop Jeremy Taylor on " The Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament," and his " Dissuasive fVoin Popery." I have the honour to remain, My Lord, Your Lordship's obliged and grateful Servant, T. TuNSTALL Smith. ' John.son, " Unbloody Sacrifice," c, II. sect, i, p. 224. C N T E N T 8. TREATISE ON BAPTISM. Preface .--..- Page xiii c H AP. I. The Holy Spirit's office - - - - I II Evangelical presence of the Holy Spirit - - 3 III. Baptism - - - - - - 7 IV. Baptismal grace not a new natm-e - - - !' V. Erroneous interpretations of Scripture - - - 1 i VI. Conversion - - - - - - 12 VII. Testimonies - - - - - - \'d VIII. Baptismal Justification - - - - 24 IX. Sin after baptism pardonable - - - - 35 X. Presumptuous sin perilous - - - - 38 XI. Baptismal holiness - - - - - 45 XII. The Church and the world - - 47 XIII. Conclusion - - 50 X CONTENTS. TREATISE ON THE LORD'S SUPPER. Preface _..__. Page 55 CHAP. I. The institution - - - - - 57 II. John vi. 53 - - - - - - 64 III. 1 Cor. X. 16 - - - - - - 68 IV. 1 Cor. xi. 29 - - - - - - 76 V. Hyperbolical expressions of the Fathers - - 77 VI. Sober statements of the Fathers - - 81 VII. The real presence not in the elements - - 84 VIII. Invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the elements - 88 IX. The Eucharist termed a sacrifice - - - 90 X. 'J'he distinctive benefit of the Eucharist - - 92 BAPTISM, PREFACE. The Reader who has taken the trouble to peruse a small volume of Sermons, which I published some three or four years since, will discover, in this Treatise, some observations which have been stated there in not very dissimilar terms. The repetition was needful for the completeness of the subject which is here discussed ; and the following pages may fall into hands which are not familiar with that volume. I rejoice in having the kind permission of the eminent Prelate to whom these Treatises are dedicated, to state in his own words, originally written without any view to their publication, the b XIV PREFACE. design of the sacrament of Baptism as exhi- bited in these pages. His Lordship observes, " I think that much of the controversy which has taken place on the subject of Baptism would have been avoided, if the disputants had first formed to themselves some clear and distinct notions of the mode in which the Holy Spirit acts upon the mind of man. You say, and I think truly, that He infuses no new quality, but acts upon the existing principles and faculties of human nature. It is clear, therefore, that in the case of infants, Baptism can only be, what you state it to be, an admission into a state of federal relation to God : an adoption into His family : a consignment of the Infant to the guid- ance and guardianship of the Holy Spirit, who will, as the faculties of the infant expand, sanc- tify and enlighten them, provided that the parents and sponsors, on their parts, duly prepare those faculties for the reception of the gifts and graces of the Spirit ; it being the purpose of God to constitute us, in the cultivation of the Spiritual field, fellow-labourers with Himself. This is all that I understand by Baptismal regeneration. I can see no ground for the notion that a spiritual quality or seed is infused into the Infant's soul : his natural faculties, in themselves, remain as they were before: but whereas they would, if PREFACE. XV he had never been baptized, have remained under the influence of Satan, they are now, as they expand, under the influence of the Spirit, pro- vided that, through the neglect of Parents and Sponsors, nothing be done to counteract that influence." CHAPTER I. THE HOLY spirit's OFFICE. When the dying Saviour exclaimed " It is finished," the preliminaries requisite for the recon- ciliation of man to his offended God were all accomplished. By His obedience unto death the Redeemer had made reparation for man's sin and brought in everlasting righteousness. As regarded the work of reconciliation, then, all was now finished ; but not as regarded its application to our hearts. In the divine wisdom it was ordained that there should be a mediator to reconcile mankind to God, and in whom the Father should behold His Church. But it was equally appointed that there should be a Spirit to enter into the hearts of the B 2 THE HOLY spirit's OFFICE. Church, and unite them both to their living Head Christ Jesus, and to each other in Him. Christ has, it is true, in His own Person, reconciled the manhood to God ; He has paid the price of our redemption from " the God of this world ;" the once crucified, but now risen Saviour has ascended up on high, and in His own Person claimed for us exemption from the curse and acceptance before God ; but unless we rise with Christ, in the power of the Spirit, and assert for ourselves that stand- ino: in Him which he has claimed for us, His finished work avails us nothing ; we are not per- sonally partakers of the reconciliation which He has achieved. Without the Spirit, therefore, the chain of sal- vation were incomplete : one link, of three, were wanting. Without His presence the means of grace would be barren and unprofitable, empty conduits, conveyers of no life to the soul. With- hold the Spirit, and baptism profits not: it may serve for the purification of the flesh, but no stain will it wash from the guilty soul. Without His unction the Bible is a sealed book : it presents a dim and confused landscape, until the Spirit re- moves the vail from the heart and the scales from the eyes. Without Him preaching avails nothing; it is but a letter that kills, unless He come and quicken it. Finally, without the Spirit no incense THE EVANGELICAL PRESENCE, &C. 3 of prayer can ascend from the altar of our heart to God : except He help our infirmities, we know not what to pray for as we ought. From all which considerations it appears plainly that the advent of Jesus Christ in the flesh is not sufficient for our salvation ; there must be another advent, and that of the Holy Spirit, before we can be made partakers of the finished work of Christ. CHAPTER II. THE EVANGELICAL PRESENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. The Holy Spirit had, indeed, been present before the advent of Christ in the flesh. " Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 1 David's prayer was, " take not thy Holy Spirit from me."^ In the wilderness, the Israelites had offered despite to His grace ; " they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit," saith Isaiah.^ They alway resisted the Holy Ghost, said the martyr Stephen.^ But under the Gospel He is present in a diffe- ' 2 Pet. i. 21. 2 Ps.li. 11. » Isa. Ixiii. 10. * Acts vii. 51. B 2 4 THE EVANGELICAL PRESENCE rent manner, and in another character. In the dispensations of divine grace, as is remarked by Mr. Woodward,^ the third person in the Blessed Trinity has never acted absolutely and indepen- dently, but as emanating, or proceeding, from another source. And He has, in some mysterious manner, partaken of the nature of that fountain whence He has proceeded. Before the incarnation of the Son of God, the Holy Ghost proceeded from simple Deity, and His rays had then com- paratively little power to renew our fallen nature. We have just seen that the Jews were visited by His inspirations : nevertheless, upon the recital of Christ's invitation to all who thirst after higher influ- ences, to come unto Him and drink, St. John illus- trates His words with this remarkable comment, " this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive ; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified."*^ That is, as has been well observed by the above writer, the Spirit had not yet acted with evangelical power, because He had not yet proceeded from the glorified God-man. He had not yet issued from that new source and come forth from that Being who, by taking the manhood into God, had power to touch the human * Essays, p. 70. • vii. 39, OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 5 soul with sympathetic influence, and to im- pregnate it with energies unfelt before. It was on this account that Jesus assured His disciples it was expedient for them that He should go away .7 When He ascended up on high, He " received gifts for men, yea for the rebellious also, that the Lord God," the Holy Spirit, " might dwell among them."^ " We see the first effects of this grace on the day of Pentecost, when human nature appeared suddenly animated by a principle and furnished with powers such as the world had never seen before." The cistern, (so to speak,) out of whose fulness the Holy Spirit is now derived, is the human nature of Christ. It was necessary, observes Bishop Andrews, not only that the Word should take flesh, but that the flesh so taken, should receive the Spirit to give life, the life of grace, to the new creature. In accordance with which observation, " the first Adam/' saith St. Paul, " was made a living soul ; the last Adam a quick- ening Spirit. "9 Jesus, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rested without measure in the days of His flesh, for His personal discharge of that oflfice which He had undertaken on our behalf, is ^ John xvi. 7. ^ Ps. Ixviii. 18. M Cor. xv. 45. 6 THE EVANGELICAL PRESENCE, ScC, now emphatically designated " Christ" as being anointed with the Spirit for the supply of His Church on earth. And we conclude that the Holy Spirit, in His operations on the soul of the believer, now acts as the Spirit of the risen Christ, and it is in this character that He is present with the Church. 1 That this gift should follow upon the glorifica- tion of the Redeemer, is in accordance with the whole tenor of the covenant of grace. There was a vast work to be accomplished before the Holy Spirit could, consistently with His own holiness, dwell with men. It was needful that expiation should first be made for human guilt. The curse must be re- moved before the blessing could descend. Not without the provision of a full atonement could Jesus be installed in His priestly ofl[ice, and claim the covenanted reward of His obedience unto death, even the promise of the Spirit, in order to carry on among mankind the work which He had undertaken, and to apply to the hearts of His ransomed people the fruits of His achievement. ' Acts ii. 33, 36. Gal. iv. 6. Eph. i. ?>, 22, 23 ; iv. 15, 16. Col i. 18, 19 ; ii. 9, 10. Bishop Andrews, Sermon on John xvi. 7 ; p. 632, fol.ed. 1635. Sermon on Acts ii. 16—21, p. 713. Calvin, Inst. IV. xvii. 8, 9. Hooker, E. P. B. V. § 56. Perkins, vol. i. p. 653, 4. Alexander Knox, Postscript to the Treatise on the Eucharist, Remains, vol. ii. BAPTISM. / Now, too, that a propitiation was offered for their sins, the Holy Spirit could come down and dwell with men. It was in anticipation of the atonement to be made, that He had hitherto visited the sons of men (as the Word Himself, if the opinion of the ante-Nicene Fathers be correct, appeared to the patriarchs in bodies which were preludes of His incarnation,) now that atonement was actually effected, He descended to dwell with them permanently, and after a far higher man- ner. CHAPTER HI. BAPTISM. The atonement of Jesus Christ is the ground- work, the basis, of the Holy Spirit's operations, who thereupon descended to gather out a Church from the midst of a fallen world, and unite it, by Sacraments, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Under His guid- ance, and blest with His presence, the ambas- sadors of Christ go forth to preach the Gospel to every creature; to invite the sinners of mankind to repent and believe, to renounce a world which lies 8 BAPTISM. in wickedness, and enter by baptism into the pale of the universal Church, whose privilege it is to realize the position of redeemed men. It is by baptism that we become members of Christ's body the Church, and thus have access, by the Spirit, to all the privileges which Christ has claimed for us, and which are laid up for us in Him. The Church is the instrument which the Lord has elected for the benefit of all mankind ; the can- dlestick, which shall uphold the light of truth before a benighted world ; the channel through which His kindness shall flow forth upon the unthankful and the evil. In the administration of baptism, the ministers of Christ receive each little one into a state of grace, of reconciliation to God in Christ ; they consign him to the guardian care of the ever pre- sent Spirit, to be sprinkled by Him with the Re- deemer's blood, and trained up in His love. He is delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.^ 2 Col. i. 13. CHAPTER IV. BAPTISMAL GRACE NOT A NEW NATURE. To arrive at a clear perception of the grace of baptism, it will be well to, consider, in the first place, wherein fallen man differs from man in his original uprightness. Surely, into the race, as now propagated, there has been no insertion of a system of affections which had originally no place in their constitution. The consequence of man's fall was his subjugation to the devil; the prostration of the faculties wherewith he was already endowed to an ignoble and a sinful end ; the alienation of his heart from God, and the concentration of its affections on the creature ; the withdrawal of his energies from their allegiance to the Lord, and their devotion to the perishable interests of sense. What, then, is man's restoration ? It is not the destruction of these abused faculties; it is their renovation ; their withdrawal from the idols before whose shrine they have hitherto prostrated their powers, and their surrender to God in Christ ; their sanctification in His service ; their consecration to the glory of His name. In place B 5 10 BAPTISMAL GRACE NOT A NEW NATURE. of the idols which were hitherto the objects of supreme attraction, there is now substituted the living God. Wherein, now, consists the difference between the baptized believer and the baptized infidel ? It lies here : in both instances alike, the subject of this sacrament was, by the act of his admission into the Church, consigned to the Spirit who is dwelling there ; but, in the former case, the Holy One has been welcomed into the heart ; in the latter, His presence is neglected ; and al- though He stands at the door and knocks, the heart has not been submitted to His control, and therefore the affections are not brought into cap- tivity to Christ. Here has not been an infusion of some thing in the one case which has been withheld in the other. The Spirit vouchsafed at baptism is not a thing but a Person, who, while He busies him- self with the hearts of all the baptized, dwells only in those who renounce the lusts of the flesh and open their hearts for His reception. The whole company of the baptized are represented in Scripture as together constituting the temple of the Holy Ghost, as was exemplified in the Co- rinthian Church, where His presence was re- flected in the gifts displayed even by its carnal members. But each true believer is also de- ERRONEOUS INTERPRETATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 11 scribed as himself a temple, wherein the Holy One is pleased to dwell. CHAPTER V. ERRONEOUS INTERPRETATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. The idea of a new nature infused is probably obtained from the terms " seed " ^ and " first- fruits of the Spirit." ' But the former is ex- pressly interpreted as " the word " of God, en- grafted in the heart ; ^ and the term " firstfruits of the Spirit " is, in other words, the Spirit, whose presence here is a foretaste, a pledge and earnest of that future harvest when God shall be all in all. It is true that the flesh and the Spirit are re- presented as contesting the supremacy in the Christian; 6 but here the former signifies the inbred proneness in our nature to all evil ; the latter, the new and holy disposition produced by the energy of the Holy Spirit, and guided by His influence. The Christian is not in one part flesh, and in another spirit ; but the whole man is 3 1 Pet. i. 23. 1 John iii. 9. '» Rom. viii. 23. ^ 1 Pet. i. 23. Luke viii. 1 1. « Gal. v. 17. 12 CONVERSION. partly flesh and partly spirit throughout, as throughout lukewarm water heat and cold co- exist. It is true, also, there is the warning " quench not the Spirit f^ but when we note its connexion with the precept " despise not prophesyings," ^ we shall be disposed to refer the expression, not to a baptismal grace infused into the proselytes, but to the gifts, of whatever kind, enjoyed by the early Church. CHAPTER VI. CONVERSION. If the remarks now advanced be true, how- futile are the pretensions of those who refer their conversion to some momentary impulse, on the unscriptural supposition that, at the instant, there was infused into them an ingredient additional to their former nature, as a token of their sal- vation. The conversion of a sinner is the re- newal of his former nature in righteousness and true holiness ; it is the surrender of his heart to God ; the withdrawal of its opposition to the ' 1 Thess. V. 19, • Verse 20. TESTIMONIES. 13 Divine will ; the choice of the Lord as his portion, as the strength of his soul, the light of his life. The third Person in the ever blessed Trinity, proceeding from the incarnate Saviour, — not a new soul, or a new mind, or a new nature, — is now received to dwell where, before, a barrier was opposed to His admission. From Christ, as the root, the sap of the Spirit flows into the branches ; from Christ, as the Head, the Holy One animates and pervades the body. In neither re- generation nor conversion is a new mechanism introduced. CHAPTER VII. TESTIMONIES. As a general laxity of expression has fostered, if it has not created, much erroneous opinion on the subject of the last three chapters, a right view of which is indispensable to my argument, it may be well to fortify my statements by the deliberate testimony of writers of all shades of theological opinion. It is not to their explana- tion of terms (as my observations on the new birth in baptism, in the last chapter of this 14 TESTIMONIES. treatise, will show) but to the thing itself, that I desire to direct the attention of my reader. No arrangement will be necessary in the catalogue of their names. Archbishop Sharp :^ "It is the misunder- standing these phrases of Scripture, and straining them further than they were intended, that is the occasion of all these mistakes about regene- ration. They will take the term of regeneration, or the new birth, or the new creature, in a literal sense ; whereas these words ought only to be under- stood figuratively, that is to say, we are not to imagine that, for the producing the effects which these words import, there is a new soul, or a new mind, or a new nature created in a man by the Spirit of God, which is the literal way of under- standing these words : but only thus, that the same soul which before had a vicious inclination, is now by the grace of God virtuously disposed: that the same mind which was before ignorant of the things of God, and utterly averse to them, is now enlightened to a better understanding of them, and doth more love and delight in them than it did before : the nature in the regenerate and unregenerate is the same, that is to say, it is the same human nature that is common to all men ; but only in the one it is very much cor- ^ Sermon on Rom. xii. 2, TESTIMONIES. 16 rupted and depraved, in the other it is amended, and restored in some measure to its true per- fection and liberty." Rev. T. Scott, of Aston Sandford :i " No new faculties are communicated in this change : but a new and heavenly direction is given to those which the Creator had bestowed but which sin had perverted. The capacity of understanding, believing, loving, rejoicing, &;c., previously be- longed to the man's nature : but the capacity of understanding the real glory and excellency of heavenly things, of believing the humbling truths of revelation, in an efficacious manner; of loving the holy beauty of the Divine character and image ; and of rejoicing in God's favour and service, belong to him as born of the Spirit. Re- generation may, therefore, be defined as a change wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the understanding, will, and affections of a sinner, which is the commencement of a new kind of life, and which gives another direction to his judg- ment, desires, pursuits, and conduct." Bishop Beveridge : - " All men that proceed naturally from the first Adam are conceived and born in sin, their nature is corrupted and de- praved, so that they are prone of themselves to do evil, and unable to do anything that is truly ' Essay on Regeneration. ^ Sermon on 1 Pet. i. 3. 16 TESTIMONIES. good; but when a man believes in Christ the second Adam, and so is made a member of His body, he is quickened and animated by His Spirit, which being the principle of a new life in him, he thereby becomes a new creature, another kind of creature from what he was before, and there- fore is properly said to be born again, ' Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.'^ The Spirit by which he is now actuated and influenced being God Himself, whereby it comes to pass, that such a man is quite altered from what he was, he is turned into another man, as Samuel said Saul should be, ' when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him,'" and all because, as it is said of Caleb, * he hath another spirit with him,'^ which being the Spirit of God Himself, his whole nature is changed; for he now partakes of the Divine nature,^ and is made in his capacity like to God Himself; and so is quite another thing, another kind of crea- ture from what he was before." See also his Sermon on 2 Cor. v. 17. Wesley -^ " From hence it manifestly appears what is the nature of the new birth. It is that great change which God works in the soul, when He brings it into life ; when He raises it from ' John i. 13. ' 1 Sam. x. 6. * Numb. xiv. 24. ^ 2 Pet. i. 4. ' Sermon on John iii 7. TESTIMONIES, 17 the death of sin to the life of righteousness. It is the change wrought in the whole soul by the Almighty Spirit of God, when it is ' created anew in Christ Jesus,' when it is ' renewed after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness ;' ..... In a word, it is that change whereby the earthly, sensual, devilish mind, is turned, into the ' mind which was in Christ Jesus.' This is the nature of the new birth." Again,^ " In general, from all the passages of Holy Writ, wherein this expression, the being horn of God, occurs, we may learn that it implies not barely the being baptized, or any outward change whatever; but a vast inward change, a change wrought in the soul by the operation of the Holy Ghost ; a change in the whole manner of our existence ; for, from the moment we are horn of God, we live in quite another manner than we did before : we are, as it were, in another world." This new mode of life he then proceeds to illustrate. * Whitefield:^ "This expression (being a new creature) is not to be explained as though there were a physical change required to be made in us . . . no, it only means, that we must be so altered as to the qualities and tempers of our minds, that we must forget what manner of persons we once were Our souls, though still the same as * Sermon on I John iii. 9. ^ Sermon on 2 Cor. v. 17. 18 TESTIMONIES. to essence, yet are so purged, purified, and cleansed from their natural dross, filth, and leprosy, by the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit, that they may be properly said to be made anew." Dr. South : ^ " The conversion and change of a man's sinful nature, commonly called the work of regeneration^ or the new birth." Similarly in his sermon on 1 Cor. x. 13. Archbishop Leighton:^ " Grace doth not pluck up by the roots and wholly destroy the natural passions of the mind, because they are distempered by sin ; that were an extreme remedy to cure by killing, and heal by cutting off 1 no, but it corrects the distemper in them ; it dries not up this main stream of love, but purifies it from the mud which it is full of in its wrong course, or turns it into its right channel, by which it may run into hap- piness, and empty itself into the ocean of good- ness. The Holy Spirit turns the love of the soul towards God in Christ." Again,^ " A new being, a spiritual life, is communicated to them ( the Saints); they have in them of their Father's Spirit ; and this is derived to them through Christ, and therefore called His Spirit.^ True conversion . . . . is a new birth and being, and elsewhere called a new creation. Though it be * Sermon on 1 Cor. ii, 7. ^ Commentary on 1 Pet. i. 8, 9. 3 On i. 23. * Gal. iv. 6. TESTIMONIES. 19 but a change in qualities, yet it is such a one, and the qualities are so far different, that it bears the name of the most substantial productions." Bishop Butler: 5 " Religion does not demand new affections, but only claims the direction of those you already have, those affections you daily feel, though unhappily confined to objects, not altogether unsuitable, but altogether unequal to them. We only represent to you the higher, the adequate objects of those very faculties and affec- tions." Dr. Barrow : ^ " These operations, together (enlightening our minds, sanctifying our will and affections) do constitute and accomplish that work, which is styled the regeneration, renovation, vivification, new creation, resurrection of a man ; the faculties of our souls being so improved, that we become, as it were, other men thereby ; able and apt to do that for which before we were alto- gether indisposed and unfit." Bishop Pearson, 7 speaking of regeneration: " If He only openeth the womb, who else can make the soul to hear ? The soul, which after its natural being requires a birth into the life of grace, is also after that born again into a life of glory." * Sermon on Matt. xxii. 37. ^ Sermon on 1 Cor. iii. 16. ^ On the Creed, Art. 1. 20 TESTIMONIES. Archbishop Tillotson : ^ " Regeneration is the change of a man's state, from a state of sin to a state of holiness; which, because it is an entrance upona new kind orcourseoflife,itis fitly resembled to regeneration, or a new birth ; to a new crea- tion ; the man, being, as it were, quite changed, or made over again, so as not to be, as to the main pur- pose and design of his life, the same man he was before." Again,9 " Religion doth not design to annihilate and to root out our passions, but regu- late and govern them ; it does not wholly forbid and condemn them, but determines them to their proper objects, and appoints their measures and proportions : it does not intend to extirpate our affections, but to exercise and employ them aright, and to keep them within bounds.'' Cecil : " Regeneration is God's disposing the heart to Himself." Saurin,2 " In what respect are those things called a new birth ? The metaphor concentrates itself on a single point ; that as an infant on coming into the world, experiences so great a change in its mode of existence in regard of re- spiration, of nourishment, of sight, and of all its sensations, and so very different from what was the case prior to its birth, as in some sort to seem ® Sermon on Gal. vi. 15. ' Sermon on Luke xii. 4, 5. * Remains, p. 368. ' Sermon on John iii. 1 — 8. TESTIMONIES. 21 a new creature ; so a man on passing from the world to the Church, is a new man compared with what he was before. He has now other ideas, other desires, other propensities, other hopes, other objects of happiness. If you should not make this restriction, but extend the metaphor, you would make very injudicious contrasts be- tween the circumstances of the new, and of the natural birth." Bishop Jeremy Taylor :^ " Grace does not give us new faculties, and create another nature, but meliorates and improves our own." Perkins :* " Regeneration is usually, in Scrip- ture, the change of the inward man, whereby we are born anew. Renovation is the change both of the inward and outward man, that is, both of heart and life." Bishop Brownrig :^ " Those affections that are in our souls, of love and hatred, of joy and sorrow, of courage and fear, they are not (as some would conceive them) an aftergrowth of noisome weeds in our corrupted nature : but as wholesome herbs implanted in us by God at our first creation ; and so do now stand in need of a sober reformation, not of an utter extirpation and rooting up. Re- ' Apology for authorised and set forms of Liturgy, § 30. * Works, vol. ii. p. 204. ^ Senuon on Luke xii. 4, 5. 22 TESTIMONIES. ligion doth not nullify, but sanctify, our affections, places them upon their proper objects." Faber :^ " Scripture seems to determine the true ideality of Regeneration to be, principally, a moral change of disposition." Again,^ " Chris- tianity does not so much eradicate the passions, as enlist them in her service." Melvill :^ " It is of great importance, that in considering the present condition of our race, we neither exaggerate, nor extenuate, the consequences of the original apostasy. We believe it possible to do the one as well as the other; for though it may not be easy to overstate the degree of our alienation from God, or our inability to return unto Him from whom we have revolted, we may speak as though certain passions and affections had been engendered in us since the fall, having had nothing correspondent in man as first formed. And this we believe would be a great mistake ; for we do not see how any part of our mental constitution can have been added, or produced, since we turned aside from God : we may have prostituted this or that affection, and perverted this or that power ; but assuredly the ^ Primitive doctrine of Regeneration, B. I. c. ii. 7 Treatise on the Holj Spirit, c. ii. ' Vol. ii. Sermon on Deut. xxxiii. 25. TESTIMONIES. 23 affection and the power, under a better aspect and with a holier aim, must have belonged to our nature before, as well as since, the transgression of Adam. We are not to think that an entirely new set of energies and passions was communi- cated to man, when he had fallen from innocence ; for this would be to represent God as interfering to implant in us sinful propensities. When a man is converted, and therefore regains, in a de- gree, the lost image of his Maker, there are not given him powers and affections which he pos- sessed not before ; all that is effected is the re- moval of an evil bias, or the proposing of a new object ; the faculties are what they were, except that they are no longer warped, and no longer wasted on perishable things. And if that renewal of human nature, which is designated as actually a fresh creation, consist rather in its purification and elevation, than in its endowment with new qualities, we may conclude that, in its fall, there was the debasement rather than the destruction of its properties, the corruption of what it had rather than the acquisition of what it had not." Chalmers -.9 "The depravity of our nature . . . does not lie in the utter destitution of all that is amiable in feeling It may be expressed by one word. It lies in ungodliness. [That is, as ' Sermon on Matt. vii. 1 ] . 24 BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. he explains it, the absence of godliness.] This is the constituting essence of that great moral disease under which humanity labours." CHAPTER VIII. BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. The intemperance of party strife has raised an outcry against the doctrine of baptismal justifica- tion from a misconception of its real meaning. In the case of an infant it implies no more than an admission into a federal relation to God ; an adoption into His family. And in the case of an adult (to adopt the language of Waterland, in his Summary View) baptism is the instrument of conveying justification on God's part; faith the instrument of receiving it on the part of man. In other words, faith is the qualification, baptism the instrument, of the man's justification. For justification is God's act ; and baptism is His instrument whereby, (by the hands of His ordained ministers), He applies to the penitent believer the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, and admits him to the privilege of the covenant of grace. A quotation from Archbishop Tillotson will illustrate the position here assumed with reference BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. 25 to the distinction between an instrument and a qualification; or, as be uses tbe term, a condition, a phraseolog-y to vvbicb (as an eminent Prelate observes) our Divines appear to have been driven since tbe Restoration in consequence of tbe abuse by wbich tbe expressions of tbe Reformers were wrested, during tbe Great Rebellion, to tbe support of Antinomianism ; in like manner as otber beresies bave occasioned tbe adoption of antagonistic terms unknown to tbe primitive Cbristians. I must premise, bowever, tbat tbe Arcbbisbop is not speaking of baptism ; tbe quo- tation is adduced only for tbe purpose of esta- blisbing the above distinction. At tbe close of his 225tb Sermon, he has these remarks : " Faith can, in no tolerable propriety of language, be said to be the instrument f our pardon, and conse- quently not of our justification. An instrument is something subordinate to the principal efficient cause, and made use of by it to produce the effect; and this, in natural and artificial causes, may be understood ; but what notion to have of a moral instrument, I confess I am at a loss. But, to bring tbe business out of the clouds, we may thus conceive of tbe pardon of sin. God, in the gos- pel, hath entered into a covenant of grace and mercy with sinners ; one of tbe benefits promised by God in the covenant, is pardon of sin. The c 26 BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. conditions upon which we shall be made parta- kers of the benefit, are comprehended in this one word, faith, which signifies the whole of Christian religion, viz., such an effectual assent to the reve- lation of the gospel, as doth produce repentance, and sincere obedience, and a trust and confidence in Christ alone for salvation. The procuring, or meritorious cause of this benefit, viz., the pardon of our sins, is the death of Christ, which is called His blood or sacrifice. The principal efficient cause of our pardon is God in the sentence of the law, or, which is all one, in the tenor of this cove- nant, declaring us pardoned upon these terms and conditions. Now how can faith, which is an act on our parts, and the condition to be performed by us, be said to be an instrument, in the hand of God, of our pardon ; unless men will think fit to call a condition an instrument, which I think no propriety of language will allow ?" For the doctrine itself we have the following authorities.^ Bishop Pearson, supplies us with scriptural proofs : " It is certain," says he, "that forgiveness of sins was promised to all who w^ere baptized in the name of Christ ; and it cannot be doubted but all persons who did perform all things necessary to the receiving the ordinance of bap- tism, did also receive the benefit of that ordinance, * On the Creed, Article X. 8 BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. 27 which is remission of sins. * John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repent- ance for the remission of sins.'- And St Peter made this the exhortation of his first sermon, ' Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.'^ In vain doth doubting and fluctuating Socinus endeavour to evacuate the evidence of this Scrip- ture : attributing the remission either to repent- ance without consideration of baptism, or else to the public profession of faith made in baptism ; or if any thing must be attributed to baptism itself, it must be nothing but a declaration of such remission. For how will these shifts ao:ree with that which Ananias said unto Saul, without any mention either of repentance or confession, * Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins?'^ and that which St. Paul, who was so baptized, hath taught us concern- ing the Church, that Christ doth ' sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water V^ It is therefore sufficiently certain that baptism as it was instituted by Christ after the preadministra- tion of St. John, wheresoever it was received with all qualifications necessary in the person accepting, and conferred with all things necessary to be 2 Mark i. 4. ^ ^^^tg ^ 33 * Actsxxii. 16. 5 Eph. v. 26. c 2 28 BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. perfornied by the person administering, was most infallibly efficacious, as to this particular, that is, to the remission of all sins committed before the administration of this sacrament." The Nicene Creed : " I acknowledge one bap- tism for the remission of sins." Falkner :^ *' Whereas infant baptism receiveth the person to be under the covenant of grace, it is justly asserted by Dr. Ward, that even those who after baptism live in wickedness, do continue acquitted and discharged from the original guilt of the first covenant, and that bringing destruc- tion upon themselves under the Gospel, they do perish altogether for the breach of the second covenant, or for not performing the conditions of Christianity, which they undertook in baptism, which also was asserted by St. Augustine, Ful- gentius. Prosper and the African Synods which are by him there produced." Bishop Jeremy Taylor -J " In baptism, being made the adopted child of God, I have obtained the pardon of all sins, original and actual : as Naam9.n was cured of all his leprosy The largest and the longest comfort flowing from the grace of baptism is, that we are to rely upon ^ Libertas Ecclesiastica, B. I. c. v. § 5. ' " What comforts flow from the Sacrament of Baptism," c. v. §§ 5, 6. BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. 29 the covenant, made between God and us therein, for the remission of all our sins, which we com- mit after baptism to the end of our life. Far be it from me to say, that it sufficetli us to cast our eyes back to the covenant then made, as if the bare and historical memory of it did suffice to blot out our sins ; that is but an empty flash and a vapour of presumption. But this I say, — build upon the eternity and infallibility of God's truth ; and then, by a true and sure grasping faith, joined with repentance, renew yourself in God's mercies by the promise of the old baptismal co- venant. Repentance is a condition never to be omitted to lift us up again, when we have been overtaken with sins. But faith doth not comfort itself in the sincerity of repentance, which in us is ever imperfect, but in Christ's merits once for all, consigned to us in baptism. For the Scrip- tures speak indefinitely, that the laver of regene- ration purgeth away all our sins ; it doth not speak restrictively of sins past, as if it did operate no longer than in that moment when the water is sprinkled : for baptism doth nov/, at the very present time, save us By grievous and pre- sumptuous sins we debar ourselves from the sense and comfort (he might have added from all tlie pro- mised blessings) of the covenant for the present ; yet when we repent, we come not to make a 30 BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. new covenant with God, but to beseech Him to be gracious to us for the old covenant's sake ; as an adulteress, if she be received again, and par- doned by her husband, is not new married, but accepted for a wife upon the first contract of marriage Therefore, this is the very soul of mine and every one's baptismal consolation, — that, being once done, it seals pardon for all our sins, through Christ's blood, unto our life's end." Numerous other citations of the same import might be adduced from this author. Bishop Beveridge :^ " It was always the opi- nion of the primitive, as well as it is of our. Church, that baptism, or the washing of regene- ration, doth so cleanse us from all sin, whether original or actual, that if a person die after bap- tism, without the commission of any actual sin, he is undoubtedly saved by virtue of the blood of Christ mystically sprinkled on him." See also his exposition of the 27th Article of our Church. Hooker : 9 " Baptism is a sacrament which God hath instituted in His Church, to the end that they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ ; and so through His most precious merit obtain . . . that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guilti- 8 Sennon on Matt. vii. 21. ^ E. P. B. V. § 60, BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. 31 ness."*"* " Baptism is necessary to take away sin." Again/ " Baptism implieth a cove- nant or league between God and man ; wherein . . God doth bestow presently remission of sins and the Holy Ghost." Barrow ~ : " The apostles' method was to de- clare and inculcate the main points of the Chris- tian history and doctrine, attesting to the one , and proving the other by testimonies and argu- ments proper to that purpose ; and whoever of their hearers declared himself persuaded of the truth of what they taught, that he did heartily assent thereto, and resolved to practise accor- dingly, him, without more to do, they presently baptized, and instated him in the privileges ap- pertaining to Christianity ; or, in St. Paul's language, did justify them, according to their subordinate manner, as the ministers of God." Again, 3 '' Justification is by St. Paul made the immediate consequent, or special adjunct, of bap- tism ; therein, he saith, we ' die to sin,' (by reso- lution and engagement, to lead a new life in obedience to God's commandment,) and so dying we are said to be justified from sin, (that which otherwise is expressed or expounded, by being freed from sin :) now the freedom from sin ob- tained in baptism is frequently declared to be the ' § G4. 2 Sermon IV. on Rom v. 1. ^ Sermon V. 32 BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. remission of sin then conferred, and solemnly confirmed by a visible seal." " In se- veral places justification is coupled with baptismal regeneration and absolution." Which observa- tion he proceeds to illustrate. Again :* " In our baptism . . . justification and a title to eternal life are exhibited to us." Again : ^ " Hence are those effects or consequences attributed to faith, justi- fying us, reconciling and bringing us near to God, saving us; because it is the necessary condition required by God, and by Him accepted, that we may be capable of those benefits conferred in baptism." His language is similar in his " Ex- position of the Creed." Tillotson : ^ " These two expressions (enlight- ening and tasting of the heavenly gift) seem to denote the spiritual benefits and graces of the Holy Ghost conferred upon Christians by bap- tism, particularly regeneration, which is the proper work of the Holy Ghost, and justification and re- mission of sins." And twice in the same sermon he speaks of" those who have been baptized, and by baptism have received remission of sins." Leighton : ^ Though they (the sacraments) do not save all who partake of them, yet they do really and effectually save believers, (for whose * Sermon on Luke xxiv. 46. 5 " The doctrine of the Sacraments.'* « Sermon on Heb. vi. 4—6. ' On 1 Pet. iii.2l. BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. 33 salvation tliey are means,) as the other external ordinances of God do. Though they have not that power which is peculiar to the Author of them, yet a power they have, such as befits their nature, and by reason of which they are truly said to sanctify and justify, and to save, as the apostle here avers of baptism." Prayer in our baptismal service : " Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin." Homily of salvation: ^ "Our office is, not to pass the time of this present life unfruitfully and idly, after that we are baptized or justified." Johnson : 9 " 'Tis extremely vain and ground- less to suppose, that any particular man can per- form this divine act of applying the merits of Christ's death to himself: it is an act of God, who has the sole power of pardoning, or conferring any spiritual grace upon His creatures ; 'tis very evident, He performs it to Jews and heathens, upon their conversion, in and by baptism ; to those that are already members of His church, in and by the Eucharist." Heylinii " In which (Article the 27th) lest any should object, as Dr. Harding did against Bishop Jewell, that we make baptism to be nothing but a sign of regeneration, and that we * § iii. 9 Unbloody Sacrifice, c. ii. § 2. ' On the Apostles' Creed, Art. X. c. vi. c 5 34 BAPTISMAL JUSTIFICATION. dare not say, as the Catholic Church teacheth, according to the Holy Scriptures, ' That in and by baptism, sins are fully and truly remitted, and put away,' we will reply with the said most reve- rend and learned prelate, (a man who well un- derstood the Church's meaning,) that we confess, and have ever taught, that in the sacrament of baptism, by the death and blood of Christ, is given remission of all manner of sins ; and that not in half, or in part, or by way of imagination and fancy, but full, whole, and perfect of all to- gether ; and that if any man affirm, that baptism giveth not full remission of sins, it is no part nor portion of our doctrine Which doc- trine of the Church of England, (of remission of sin in baptism,) as it is consonant to the Word of God in Holy Scripture, so is it also most agree- able to the common and received judgment of pure antiquity Nor is this only primitive, but good Protestant doctrine, as is most clear and evident by that of Zanchius, whom only I shall instance in, of the later writers. ' When the mi- nister baptizeth, I believe that Christ, with His own hand, reacheth as it w^ere from heaven, be- sprinkleth the infant with His blood to the re- mission of sins, by the hand of that man whom I see besprinkling him with the waters of baptism.' So that I cannot choose but marvel how it comes SIN AFTER BAPTISM PARDONABLE. 35 to pass, that it must now be reckoned for a point of Popery, that the Sacraments are instrumental causes of our justification, or of the remission of our sins, or that it is a point of learning of which neither the Scriptures nor the Reformed religion have taught us anything. So easy a thing it is to blast that with Popery, which any way doth contradict our own private fancies." It would be superfluous to quote the recent charges of the Bishops of London and Exeter in 1842, and of Lincoln in 1843. CHAPTER IX. SIN AFTER BAPTISM PARDONABLE. If the Christian, who was adopted by baptism into the family of God, afterwards forfeit his privileges by presumptuous sin, his wilfulness is no other than that of the prodigal who abandoned the home into which he had been introduced. He sinks into the far country of the flesh. And yet if even there he arise to go to his Father, — if even there he yearn after his Father's presence, and the privileges of his Father's board, shall we deny that the same gracious Spirit, whose watch- 36 SIN AFTER BAPTISM PARDONABLE ful eye has still followed him in all his wander- ings, will, in consideration of the Redeemer's blood, guide his feet to the wished-for home and restore his contrite soul ? His sin has not quenched a new nature which had been infused ; it has grieved the Holy Sj3irit and provoked Him to withdraw : but we dare not deny that the same Spirit will restore the true penitent, (whom the Holy One has Himself con- vinced of sin,) and cleanse his heart from an evil conscience by the blood of Jesus. Far be it from us to extenuate the guilt of sin after baptism, — the despite offered to the Spirit of grace, the shock to the moral sense, the wilful apostasy to the kingdom and power of darkness, — yet dare we not, in ordinary instances, regard the offender as exiled for ever beyond the precincts of the covenant. We admit, indeed, that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is an unpardonable sin :~ but since to hlas2)heme a person is to blast his fame^ this offence is limited to the case of those who, in some such manner as the Pharisees, ascribe to Beelzebub the miracles wrought by the Holy Ghost. To speak against the Son of Man, as they did who called Him a gluttonous man and a winebibber, was a venial offence, in consideration of His self- 2 Mark ii. 28—30. SIN AFTER BAPTISM PARDONABLE. 37 abasement ; but by blaspheming the Holy Ghost they nullified the most povTerful means employed for their conviction. For although God would not that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, yet in the conversion of a sinner, as in all His other acts. He does not work infinitely ; His wisdom prescribes limits to the exercise of His power. We admit, again, that in his Epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle employs some awful expres- sions with reference to an unpardonable sin ; ^ but a clue to his meaning is obtained by a know- ledge of the main end of his epistle. This was, to arm them against apostacy from the Christian faith, to which they were templed by persecution and the insinuations of Jewish teachers. The latter endea- voured to recal these converts to the Law, as the end and perfection of the divine dispensations. The apostle shows that the Law had only a shadow of good things to come ; the substance is of Christ. Now had they renounced their Christian profes- sion and returned to Judaism, they would, by so doing, have affirmed that Jesus was an impostor, and therefore guilty of blasphemy and deserving the accursed death which He had undergone. They would thus, in the apostle*s words ( which are frequently misapplied to any and c\eY\ sin) 3 vi. 4—6. X. 2G— 29. 38 PRESUMPTUOUS SIN PERILOUS. have virtually " crucified the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame ;" they would have " trodden Him under foot," and " counted His blood an unholy thing ;" they would have " done despite" or offered insult, " to the Spirit of grace," who had hitherto illuminated their hearts and persuaded them of the truth of Christianity ; — and, having rejected Christ, they would now be hopeless, inasmuch as " there remained no more a sacrifice for sins," no other expiation was in store. If, as is probable, this total apostasy from the Christian faith is the " sin unto death" referred to by St. John,'* there remains no scriptural ground for despair as regards the true penitent. CHAPTER X. PRESUMPTUOUS SIN PERILOUS. But although we may not despair, yet an attentive consideration of the word of God will show the imminent peril which is incurred by a voluntary abdication of our Christian privileges, * 1 John V. 16. PRESUMPTUOUS SIN PERILOUS. 39 Granted that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost was a height of malice which, perhaps, they only could attain who beheld the miracles of the Son of man, yet is it impossible to say how near a sceptical caviller at the truths of revelation may even now draw to this unpardonable sin. Every irreverent word is an approach to it. Every impious thought, deliberately entertained, borders on this profaneness. And therefore the possibility of forgiveness in an instance such as that of Simon Magus is left in a state of awful uncertainty : *' repent of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee." ^ In the case of those who op- pose themselves to the testimony of the Lord Jesus, it is but a " peradventure," that " God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." ^ Nay, for the baptized infidel, who receives not the love of the truth that he may be saved, we may well stand in fear lest a righteous God should send him a strong delusion that he should believe a lie to his irretrievable dam- nation.7 Although, too, apostasy from the Christian faith appears to be the unpardonable sin against which the Apostle warns the Hebrews, yet apos- tacy from Christian holiness, which is practical 5 Actd viii. 22. s xim. ii. 25. ? 2 Thes*. ii 10-12. 40 PRESUMPTUOUS SIN PERILOUS. apostasy from the faith, may be next to unpar- donable, and repentance next to impossible. For do not they " put " the Lord Jesus " to an open shame " who renounce His fellowship for the pleasures of sin, and thus virtually deny the suit- ableness and sufficiency of His gracious presence ? Is not this to tread Him under foot? to stigma- tize Him as an impostor in having promised more than He is able to fulfil ? Is it not to offer insult to His Spirit of grace and give occasion to His enemies to blaspheme ? Certain it is that for presumptuous sins no atonement was provided under the Law.^ And the Gospel does not bring greater liberty to sin ; but the contrary. " If the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobe- dience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation ; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him?" 9 "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses ; of how 7nuch sorer punisJunentt supi^ose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith ho was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hatli done despite to the Spirit 8 Numb. XV. 30, 31. 9 Heb. ii. 2, 3. PRESUMPTUOUS SIN PERILOUS. 41 of grace." ^ It is a rule and maxim in divinity, that sins against the Gospel are most heinous and of greatest provocation. It is, indeed, too true that " in many things we offend all." Alas, " who can tell how oft he offendeth !'' who can number up his omissions of duty and commissions of sin ! Of how many trans- gressions have we been guilty without even a passing thought! or we have forgotten them the next moment ! How many times have we che- rished unholy desires; coveted forbidden objects ; murmured in heart at the divine dispensations; questioned the divine love ! In how many instances have we betrayed jealousy, moroseness, envy, resentment, passion, intemperateness, pride! We have awaked, perhaps, as from a dream, and found that our reverie has been a visionary indul^ gence of levity and sin. Or, again, how indolent and imperfect has been the discharge of our known duty ! how irreverent our wanderings in prayer! we have set out, perhaps, with the best intentions, but have been suddenly becalmed, or tossed to and fro with every breeze. How unthankful have we proved for benefits received ! how remiss in asking His guidance and His blessing in the work which we had in hand ; or thoughtless as to its accordance with, or opposition to, His re- 1 Heb. X. 28, 29. 42 PRESUMPTUOUS SIN PERILOUf^. vealed will ? In how many instances, moreover, have we been partakers of other men's sins, as having prompted or fostered them by our influence, our example, or our encouragement ! Who can tell what effect an inadvertent act of ours, com- mitted, perhaps, some years since, may at this moment be producing upon one now removed, it may be, for ever from our eyes, placed for ever beyond our power of recal ! And who shall define the aggravations of these several sins ; the circumstances which heightened their wilfulness ; the warnings vouchsafed before ; the opportunities of escape presented at the time • Alas, " who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou" us " from secret faults." (Ps. xix. 12.) These particulars may be spread over a large surface ; but when concentrated how vast is their amount ! And God hath set our iniquities before Him ; our secret sins in the light of His counte- nance. (Ps. xc. 8.) We have need enough, then, of the blood of Christ, without adding to our provocations pre- sumptuous sins. Our sins of infirmity, if such they be regarded in the eyes of a gracious God, involve in them a sufficient demand on His long- suffering and grace. We may not imagine that the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness flows in vain unless we draw upon it for deliberate PRESUMPTUOUS SIN PERILOUS. 43 violations of our known duty, for opposition to the dictates of our conscience. These are sins of which the Christian is not supposed to be guilty : nay, they exclude from the kingdom of heaven. Where mention is made of presumptuous sins in the New Testament, it is with respect to the heathen. After his enumeration of carnal sinners* the Apostle thus addresses the Corinthian con- verts from heathenism; " Such were some of you" io the days of your heathenish ignorance; '* but," now that ye are Christians, " ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."'^ It was in their dark state of heathenism that the Ephesians, also, were led captive by the lusts of the flesh. 3 When men became Christians, they no more " wrought the will of the Gentiles."* And it was in the conviction which was enter- tained, in the early ages of Christianity, of the danger of sin after baptism, that instances are on record (misguided, indeed, and mistaken were the men) where baptism was deferred to the death- bed. Privileges bring with them proportionate res- ponsibility. Where much is given, nmch is re- quired. And this is one principle on which the 2 1 Cor. vi. 11. 3 Eph. ii. 1—3. v. 8. * 1 Pet. iv. 3, 4. 44 PRESUMPTUOUS SIN PERILOUS. danger of sin after baptism proceeds. The pro- vocation is aggravated by its wilfulness ; and the Lord may swear in His wrath that the offender shall not enter into His rest. The result, in such a case, is that the Holy Spirit withdraws His gracious influence, and the sinner is " let alone. "^ The conscience, too, by a natural process, becomes seared, as with a hot iron, by every repulse of its dictates. Every violation of its precepts is a blow which deadens its sensibility; and soon a spiritual torpor ensues. To all which is to be added, that to sin deliberately is to give place to the devil, and yield up our freedom to the tyranny of lust.^ Herein lies the peril of sin under the Gospel. Where there is a real repentance, a penitent return in the name of Jesus to the God of all grace, there there exist no longer these incentives to despair. The danger lies in the probable absence of this repentance, where privileges have been forfeited. 5 Hos. iv. 17. 6 Ps. xix. 13. BAPTISMAL HOLINESS. 45 CHAPTER XL BAPTISMAL HOLINESS. Far be it from the ministers of Christ to depre- ciate the responsibility, unspeakable as it is, attached to Church-membership. Nay, when we reflect upon the vast prerogative reserved for our dispensation, it becomes a momentous subject for consideration whether the character of our paro- chial preaching generally accords with the nature of our privileges. Would not those ministrations become a missionary station rather than the pulpit of a Christian Church, which address the baptized as without the pale of Christianity, and not as partakers of, and therefore responsible for, peculiar privileges ? But, further, is not the standard W'hich we prescribe to our people's aspirations unworthy of their high vocation, suitable rather to the patriarchal economy, or that of the Law ? We are living under a dispensation of the Spirit. The privileges which are our birthright are such as no longing patriarch nor prophet was permitted to enjoy. So awfully grand is our charter, that into it the angels desire to look. Well, then, might an inspired Apostle avow, " though we 46 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. have known Christ after the flesh, yet now hence- forth know we Him no more ;"i for the visible presence of Christ would avail little to our sanc- tification, as compared with the invisible, but inward, presence of the Holy Spirit. The promise to the Christian is, " Sin shall not have dominion over you ;" his experience should be, " I can do all things through Christ who strength - eneth me." A faithful God has promised that He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able f and has described the character of the Christian in such terms as these ; he walks " not after the flesh but after the Spirit -."^ " he is a new creature ; old things are passed away ; behold all things are become new;"* he has " crucified the flesh with the affectionsand lusts ;"^ he is " dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord."^ Now it is evident that a rooted conviction on this topic is most important to us as Christians, for our real strength is ever proportioned to our faith. Jesus came not to destroy the law, nor the Prophets, who explained and enforced it, but to fulfil, or to fill up, the outline of righteousness there sketched for our observance. And, — oh solemn thought to those of us who are His minis- » 2 Cor. V. IG. 2 1 Cor. x. 13. 3 Rom. viii. 1. * 2 Cor. v. 17. 5 Gal. V. 24. 6 Rom. vi. 11. THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 47 ters, — He has warned us that " whosoever shall break," shall loose, that is, or untie the obligation of, " one of the least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven."^ CHAPTER XII. THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. By his transgression of the divine behest, Adam passed over to the ranks of Satan. He took up his stand with the rebellious host of hell. To this alliance with the kingdom and power of darkness the Lord makes reference in the threat denounced against the serpent, " I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ;" intimating by this expression that league and amity were now subsisting there. In Adam's loins we became outcasts from the paradise of God and inheritors of his fallen nature ; and the whole world is now represented in Scripture as lying under the dominion of the devil. He is called the prince, nay even the god, of this world. It is by him that the appetites and ' Matt. V. 17, 19. 48 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. passions of our unrenewed nature are controlled and swayed. Its ruling principles are " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life." Now by the same sacrifice of Himself whereby Jesus justified God in the remission of our sins, He paid down the ransom which was, in the divine counsels, ordained for our exemption from the power of Satan. He cancelled the bond by which we were bound to the God of this world. He nailed it to His cross, and thus spoiled prin- cipalities and powers, asserting our freedom from the infernal 3'oke. The Church, which is founded on His atonement, is therefore the kingdom of heaven set up in the midst of the kingdom of Satan. It is a kingdom of light in the midst of the reign of darkness. To be brought into the Church is to be delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.^ Whereas, to remain in the world, as do the unbaptized hea- then, is to be without Christ and without God f to be cast out of the Church is to be delivered over to Satan ;^ practically to apostatize, as did Demas, is to reduce one's self again under the rulers of the darkness of this world. The world is a waste and howling wilderness, J Col. i. 31. » Eph. ii. 12. ' 1 Cor. v. 5. 1 Tim. i.20. THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 49 in which Satan and his angels, as wild beasts of the forest, range abroad at pleasure, and hold undisputed sway. The Church is Christ's fold which the Holy Spirit protects, and where the infernal host are deprived of power to destroy, although, for wise purposes, they are permitted to intrude aniono-st the flock and exercise their powers of temptation. By baptism we are rescued from the tyranny of Satan. He has no authority over us ; he can exercise no dominion except as the result of our own wilful sin. At baptism we explicitly and solemnly renounced his yoke, and having thus submitted ourselves to God, having taken up our stand under His banner, if we resist the devil he will flee from us. (James iv. 7.) The adversary's efforts are ever directed towards the seduction of the members of the Church into the world from which they have been delivered. And he succeeds in his endeavours wherever he persuades the baptized prodigal to live as do the heathen, and to yield themselves up habitually, or in signal instances, to the lusts of the flesh or the pride of unenlightened reason. " His ser- vants ye are to whom ye obey." " Here," says Bishop Brownrig,* " is the differ- ence 'twixt a saint and a wicked sinner. Satan * Vol. I. p. 415. D 50 CONCLUSION. is . . . but a borderer on a saint, bat a dweller in a wicked man. He may busy himself about a good man, as an assailant ; but he hath the full possession of a wicked man, as an inhabitant. It may be, he may surprise the heart of a good Christian, sometimes, steal in by some temptation ; but he is there like a thief in a true man's house : but he is in the soul of a wicked man, like a thief in his own harbour ; the soul of such a man, 'tis a den of thieves." CHAPTER XIII. CONCLUSION. Our estimate of baptism may now be set down in the foUowino- conclusions. It is, on the one hand, no idolatry of the oj)us oj)eratum in baptism, to assert that its effect is, in all cases, both adoption in Christ into the family of God, and also, as its attendant blessing, the presence of the Holy Spirit, as the Guide and Guardian of the infant, the superintendent of its growing powers. It is not unscriptural to assert that this adoption may be forfeited, since Christ CONCLUSION. 51 has Himself affirmed " every branch in me that beareth not fruit my Father taketh away." And it is clear that a continual resistance of the unseen Monitor may provoke the withdrawal of His grace. On the other hand, it is no disparagement of holy^baptism to regard it as the gate of admittance into " the city of the living God ;" a birth, analo- gous to physical parturition, whereby the baptized is delivered from the womb of darkness into the realms of eternal light ; is placed in the invigo- rating beams of the Sun of righteousness, intro- duced into a new world, where he is bidden to inhale a divine element, to be filled with the Spirit, to live and walk in the Spirit, — privileges all which, without baptism, he must ordinarily forego. D 2 THE LOED'S SUPPER. PREFACE. The object of the present inquiry, is to ascertain the purpose of our Lord Jesus Christ in His institution of the Eucharist. If the investigation result in a conviction that the elements of bread and wine are not designed by Him to be the vehicles (as some have called them) of His body and blood, let it not be objected that we are questioning His power to achieve this or any similar purpose; we deny only that we are justified in calling in His omnipotence to effect that which He has no where promised in His word. The real design of this Sacrament will be found in the last chapter of this Treatise, where the conclusion is set down to which we are led by the previous investigation. . CHAPTER I. THE INSTITUTION. We commence our inquiry with the words of institution, as they are recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew, xxvi. 26—28 : " As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it ; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." It is evident that if the real presence of the body and blood of Christ was not, in this instance, in the elements of the bread and wine, the argu- ment drawn from the words, " this is my body," " this is my blood," fails in its application to the D 5 58 THE INSTITUTION. Sacrament in our day. It is not pretended that the grace now conveyed to us by those elements is superior to that which was enjoyed by the Apostles. Now the words, in their literal acceptation, imply a fact already consummated. But the real body was not yet broken, nor the real blood yet poured forth. The elements, therefore, could in no sense become vehicles of a crucified Saviour, however vividly they might represent His death. Again, to interpret these words of a real pre- sence, is to affirm that the Saviour was at that moment personally subsisting in two distinct substances, the one His human body, the other the elements of bread and wine. It is to repre- sent Him as holding Himself in His hand ; as retaining His body visible, entire, and external to His disciples, after it was eaten by them ; and, in short, involves difficulties such as it were scarcely reverent to pursue. And if we compare the inquisitiveness of the Apostles, and especially of St. Peter, on other occasions, with their silent acquiescence in the present instance, the natural inference appears to be, that they at least understood His words in their figurative acceptation,— an error, if so it be, which we can hardly imagine that Jesus would have left uncorrected on so momentous a point. THE INSTITUTION. 59 It is true, their silence has been coiistriied by Hooker into a depth of fearful admiration and joy at the supernatural gift conveyed to them by these mysterious words.^ But the opposite conclusion has been more reasonably drawn by Grindal," by Faber,^ and even by Alexander Knox." It would, indeed, be a rash and unjustifiable system of interpretation wiiich has now been advocated, were there no examples in Holy Writ of similar expressions conveyed in as definite terms, yet allowed on all hands to be capable of no other than a figurative signification. Such, however, are the following : Matt. V. 13. Ye are the salt of the earth. Matt. V. 14. Ye are the light of the world. Matt. xi. 14. This (John the Baptist) is Elias. Matt. xii. 49. Behold my mother and my brethren. (His disciples are so called.) Matt. xiii. 38, 39. The field is the world. The reapers are the angels. Matt. xiii. 19. This is he which received seed by the way side. Luke xxii. 20. This cup is the New Testament in my blood. (In this one sentence there are two figures. One in the word " cup" which is 1 E. P. b. V. § 67. ' " Fruitful dialogue, &c." 3 On Transubstantiation, c iv. § 4. 4 Vol. ii. p. 206. 60 THE INSTITUTION. not taken for the cup itself, but for the thing con- tained in the cup. The other in the word " Tes- tament," for neither the cup, nor the wine (or, if the Papists will have it so, the blood) contained in the cup, is Christ's testament ; but it is a token, sign, and figure, whereby is represented unto us His testament, confirmed by His blood. See Archbishop Cranmer, Book on the Sacrament HI. xii. John i. 29, 36. Behold, the Lamb of God. John ii. 19. Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. John iii. 3. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John iv. 14. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. John iv. 32 — 34. He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought Him ought to eat ? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work. John vi. 35. I am the bread of life. John vi. 70. One of you is a devil. John vii. 37, 38. If any man thirst, let him THE INSTITUTION. 61 come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as tlie Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living' water. John X. 7. 1 am the door. John X. 1 1. I am the good Shepherd. John XV. 1, 5. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Ye are the bran- ches. John xix. 26, 27. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple standing by whom He loved. He saith unto His mother, woman, behold thy Son ! Then saith He to the disciple, behold thy mother. 1 Cor. X. 4. That rock was Christ. 1 Cor. X. 17. We being many are one bread. Gal. ii. 20. I am crucified with Christ. Gal. iii. 27. As many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. Gal. iv. 24. These are the two covenants ; the one is Agar. For this Agar is Mount Sinai. Eph. i. 22, 23. The Church ... is His body. Eph. V. 8. Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Heb. vi. 6. They crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh. 1 Pet. ii. 4. A living stone. (The as in our version is not in the original). 62 THE INSTITUTION. ] Pet. ii. 6. A chief corner stone. (Jesus is so called, as elsewhere.) Rev. i. 8. I am Alpha and Omega. Rev. i. 20. The seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches : and the seven candlesticks, which thou sawest, are the seven Churches. And in the Old Testament we have the fol- lowing : Gen. xl. 12. The three branches are three days. Gen. xli. 26. The seven good kine are seven years. Exod. xii. 11. It is the Lord's pass-over. Lev. xvii. 17. The life of all flesh is the blood thereof. Dan. ii. 38. Thou art this head of gold. In each of the last five instances, the auxiliary verb is clearly understood, although not expressed, in the original ; and it is accordingly inserted in the Septuagint, (the language of the New Testa- ment,) the Vulgate, and our version. In 2 Sam. xxiii. 17, David calls the water which was procured at the imminent peril of his three mighty men, " the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives." The interpretation which has been now ad- vanced, sanctioned, as it is, not by one or two only, but by a numerous array of similar passages, THE INSTITUTION. 63 of which the above are but a portion, is also cor- roborated by many statements of the Fathers. As, however, their testimony refers not only to the passage before us, but also to the subject at large, it is reserved for the sixth chapter. On the words, " this is my body," Bishop Je- remy Taylor has the following observations:^ " We must know, that as the Eucharist itself was, in the external and ritual part, an imitation of a custom, and a sacramental, already in use among the Jews, for the ' major domo ' to break bread and distribute wine, at the passover, after supper, to the eldest according to his age, to the youngest according to his youth, as it is notorious and known in the practice of the Jews;^ — so also were the very words, which Christ spake in this changed subject, an imitation of the words which were then used ; ' This is the bread of sorrow which our fathers ate in Egypt ; this is the passover ;' and this passover was called ' the body of the paschal lamb :' nay, it was called the body of our Saviour, and our Saviour Himself; Kol etTrev 'Eo-Spas tw Xaa, rovro Tra(T)(a 6 "^(DTyjp ■Y]fxoiVi said Justin Martyr ; 7 ' And Esdras said to the Jews, This passover is our Saviour, and this is 5 '» Of the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament.'* Sect. iii. No. 10. 6 Scaliger de Emend. Temp. lib. vi. "^ Dial, cum Tryph. 8 6*4 John vi. 53. the body of our Saviour,' — as it is noted by others. So that here the words were made ready for Christ, and made His by appropriation, by * meum' (' my ') : He was * the Lamb slain from the be- ginning of the world ;' He ' the true Passover ;' which He then affirming, called that which was the antitype of the passover, ' the Lamb of God,' ' His body,' the body of the true passover, to wit, in the same sacramental sense, in which the like words were affirmed in the Mosaical passover." CHAPTER 11. John vi. 53. The next passage, which in point of time is prior to the subject of the former chapter, is John vi. 53 : " Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." We cannot argue against the supposition of a reference being here intended to the Eucharist on the ground that that Sacrament was not yet instituted ; for the same argument would prove that in the assertion " Verily, verily, I say unto John vi. 53. 65 thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,"^ no reference was intended to baptism, inasmuch as " the Holy Ghost was not yet given." 9 But that in this warning, the Saviour's primary reference was not to the Sacrament, but to a hearty reception (to be afterwards testified by a bodily act) of a crucified Redeemer as the true manna, is evident from the context.^ The language applies to those who " feed on Him in their hearts by faith, with thanksgiving," as our Liturgy expresses it ; or who, in the words of Hooker, on a subject unconnected with this Sacrament, " in their hearts, arms, and very bowels embrace Him."^ It refers to a true and lively faith in Him whose body was broken and blood shed for the remission of our sins, — a faith whose earnest love and desire can be fitly de- scribed by no weaker similitude than that of feeding on Him in the inmost soul, — expressed by no act short of eating and drinking the symbols of his body and blood. That a true and lively faith in Christ should be represented as feeding on His flesh and blood will awaken no surprise when considered in re- « iii. 5, 9 vii. 37—39. Acts i. 5. » See Dr. (now Bishop), Turton, and Mr. Faber on Transub- stantiation, 2 ^ p_ jj^ ^ § ^q 66 John vi. 53. fereiice to the early denial of the reality of His human nature and the existing prejudices against His crucifixion. The latter truth especially was to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness ; which nevertheless must be inwardly digested by all who would attain eternal life. Be it, however, admitted that the primary al- lusion, in the words before us, is to the Sacrament, the real presence of His Body and Blood would not follow as the consequence of this admission.^ For no one denies that the bread and wine are vivid emblems of His real body and blood ; and therefore to receive them in the Eucharist is to confess a lively faith in the reality of both His humanity and crucifixion. These truths are, in- deed, nowhere so fully realized by the faithful as in this Sacrament, and we accordingly find, as we might have expected, that Ignatius, having made mention of certain " beasts in men's shape" who denied the reality of Christ's humanity and crucifixion, proceeds to relate, " they abstain from the Eucharist and prayer because they con- fess not that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, that suffered for our sins, which the Father raised in his goodness." * ^ See some cogent Remarks on Dr, Wiseman's Lectures, by Philalethes Cantabrigiensis. Rivington. * Epist. ad Smyrn. c. vii. John vi. 53. 67 The following quotations are from Archbishop Cranmer in his book on the Sacrament. " In those places which the adversaries of the truth allege of him, concerning the true eating of Christ's very flesh and drinking of his blood, . . Cyprian spake of no gross and carnal eating with the mouth, but of an inward spiritual and pure eating with heart and mind ; which is to believe in our hearts that His flesh was rent and torn for us upon the cross, and His blood shed for our re- demption ; and that the same flesh and blood now sitteth at the right hand of the Father, making continual intercession for us: and to im- print and digest this in our minds, putting our whole affiance and trust in Him, as touching our salvation, and offering ourselves clearly unto Him, to love and serve Him all the days of our life ; this is truly, sincerely, and spiritually to eat His flesh, and to drink His blood." ^ " In his book, de doctrina Christiana, St. Au- gustine saith, as before is at length declared, ' that to eat Christ's flesh, and to drink His blood, is a figurative speech signifying the participation of His passion, and the delectable remembrance to our benefit and profit, that His flesh was cru- cified and wounded for us.' " ^ 5 B. HI. c. xiv. ; IV. iv. 6 B. IV. c. iv. See also Bishop Jeremy Taylor, " Of the Real resence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament." Sect. iii. 68 CHAPTER IIL 1 Cur. X. 16. The next passage which comes under conside- ration is 1 Cor. X. 16 : " The cnp of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ V And these words are by some writers thought to be so conclusive as to the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the elements, as to preclude the necessity for any extrinsic aid. In the Remains of Alexander Knox, an earnest ad- vocate of this doctrine, we find the above passage asserted to be the main prop of his system. " Many," he writes, " will doubtless still ask, if these things are so, why has not this view of the Eucharist been expressly given in Holy Scrip- ture ? If such had been the judgment of the apostles, might we not expect to find an explicit declaration of it in some part of the aj^ostolic writings ? " This question would be reasonable ; but the answer is easy ; since, through the wisdom of 1 Cor. X. 16. 69 Heaven, St. Paul has been led, by certain irregu- larities among the Corinthians, so to speak of the Eucharist in his first Epistle to that Church, as to place the apostolic doctrine beyond possibility of doubt." He then refers to the passage before ns, and gives what he considers its true meaning and the circumstances under which it was written, (vol. ii. p. 212.) In p 216, he makes what many will consider an important admission ; he urges the necessity of allowing to the apostle's words all their due import, as they " contain (he says) the only direct definition of the Eucharist in the sa- cred writings." And in p. 225, he observes " it has pleased the divine wisdom that these passages of the 10th and 1 1th chapters of the first of Co- rinthians should be the sole instance in which the doctrine of the Eucharist is infallibly stated and explained." Now a careful inspection of the passage will show that the communion of which the apostle here speaks is not, as it is understood popularly and by Alexander Knox, with the sacrifice but with the Deity to whom the sacrifice is offered and the altar consecrated, and also with the joint partakers in one common sacrifice. The context evinces that this is the true inter- pretation. In ver. 18, (" behold Israel after the 70 1 Cor. x. 16. llesh : are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar ?") the Israelites are sup- posed to have union not with their sacrifices, part of which was burnt in the fire, but with the God at whose altar they presented their offerings. In ver. 20, (" the things which the Gentiles sacri- fice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God : and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils,") the Gentiles are asserted to have com- munion, not with their sacrifice, but with the demons to whom the sacrifice was offered. And it is to prove the sin and danger of communion with these Gentiles in their idolatrous feasts, that the apostle instances both the case of the Israelites, as above mentioned, and that of the communi- cants in the Lord's supper. He argues from the acknowledofed tenet of their Christian faith re- specting this sacrament, and concludes that to participate in the sacrifices offered to idols by others would identify the Christians with them in their idolatry, just as to partake of the same loaf was a bond of union with the rest of the Christian communicants and with the Holy God at whose table they were entertained as his guests. The Apostle's main object is not to expound to them the mystery of the Lord's table : he is deriving an argument from the communion ac- 1 Cor. X. 16. 71 knovvledged here, thence to conclude against par- ticipation with idolaters. The nature of the communion intended in this 16th verse has been strangely misinterpreted by some, by others even mistranslated, as the corn- munication of the body and blood of Christ ; whereas it is the same word which is found in ver. 20, to denote the fellowship of idolaters with the demons to whom they offered their sacrifice, and with reference to the Israelites in ver. 18. It is also further explained by the consequential" for," which occurs in the 17th verse, ^^ for we, being many, are one bread and one body ; for we are all partakers of that one bread." The argument for a real presence in the elements derived by Alexander Knox and others from the " blessing " here spoken of by the Apo- stle, is annihilated by a comparison of Mark viii. 6, 7 ; Luke ix. 16. In confirmation of the view now taken of the passage under consideration, it shall suffice to quote the words of Outram, Mede, and Arch- bishop Potter. The first writes as follows, in his Dissertations on Sacrifices ;7 " The feasting of the offerers on the flesh of the peace offerings was a token of mutual friendship between them and God. For ' D. I. c. xvii. § 5. 72 1 Cor. x. 16. as a common table generally indicates mutual concord between men, whence it became cus- tomary for persons who formed mutual covenants to eat and drink together; a ceremony which we find to have been employed in the covenants between Isaac and Abimelech, Jacob and Laban, the Israelites and Gibeonites : ^ so those who fed on the sacrifices were considered as partaking of the altar, and using one and the same table with God. Hence the altar is called " the table of the Lord, and the fruit thereof His meat ;"9 implying that those whom God made partakers of His altar, were connected with Him by the ties of friendship. For the same reason, those who ate things that had been sacrificed to demons, which was the custom of the heathens, were considered as having fellowship with demons."^ Mede has the following observations, in his Discourse on the Christian Sacrifice : " It was the universal custom of mankind, and still remains in use, to contract covenants and make league of friendship by eating and drinking together. . . . " Such, now, as were these covenant feastings and eatings and drinkings, in token of league and amity between man and man, such are the sacri- fices between man and his God ; epulce fa'derales, 8 Gen. xxvi. 28—30. xxxi. 46. Josh ix 14, 15 9 Mai. i. 12. 1 1 Cor. x. 20. 1 Cor. X. 16. 73 federal feasts, wherein God deigneth to entertain man to eat and drink with or before Him, in token of favour and reconcilement " That the Lord's Supper is a * federal feast," we all grant, and our Saviour expressly affirms it of the cup in the institution ; ' this cup is the rite of the New Covenant (StaOriKr)) in my blood, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins,' evidently implying that the bloody sacrifices of the Law, with their meat and drink offerings, were rites of an old covenant, and that this suc- ceeded them as the rite of the new: that that was contracted with the blood of beeves, sheep, and goats ; but this founded in the blood of Christ. This parallel is so plain, as I think none will deny it. There is nothing then remains to make this sacred epulum a full sacrifice, but that the viands thereof should be first offered unto God, that he may be the convivator, we the convivce.y or the guests. ... * " This oblation of the bread and wine is implied in St. Paul's parallel of the Lord's Supper and the sacrifice of the Gentiles ; ^ " Ye cannot (saith he) be partakers of the table of the Lord, and the table of devils ;" namely, because they imply contrary covenants, incompatible one with the other ; a sacrifice (as I told you) being epulum ' 1 Cor. X. 21. 74 1 Cor. x. 16. federale, a federal feast. Now here it is manifest that the table of devils is so called because it consisted of viands offered to devils, (for so St. Paul expressly tells us,) whereby those that eat thereof eat of the devil's meat ; ergo, the table of the Lord is likewise called His table, not because He ordained it, but because it consisted of viands offered unto Him." Archbishop Potter, in his Discourse of Church Government, writes thus : " In the ancient sacri- fices, both among the Jews and heathens, one part of the victim was offered upon the altar, and another reserved to be eaten by those persons in whose name the sacrifice was made. This was accounted a sort of partaking of God's table, and was a federal rite, whereby He owned the guests to be in His favour and under His protection, as they by offering sacrifices acknowledged Him to be their God In the Christian Church there is only one proper sacrifice, which our Lord offered upon the cross ; and consequently Chris- tians cannot partake of any sacrifice in a literal and strict sense, without allowing transubstantia- tion. Lest, therefore, they should want the same pledge, to assure them of the divine favour, which the Jews enjoyed, our Lord appointed the elements of bread and wine to signify His body and blood ofiered in sacrifice ; whence they are expressly 1 Cor. X. 16. 75 called His body and blood ; it being common for representatives to bear the name of those things or persons which they represent : ' And as they were eating, Jesus took bread/ &:c. The elements were not His real body and blood, nor understood to be so by the apostles, or any primitive Father : but they were the symbols of His body and blood, the partaking whereof is all one to the receivers, and does as much assure them of the favour of God, as if they should eat and drink the real body and blood of Christ offered upon the cross. To this purpose is the following discourse of St. Paul (1 Cor. X. 16 — 21,) ' the cup of blessing,' &;c. Where it may be observed : 1. That eating the Lord's supper is the same rite, in the Christian Church, with eating the things offered in sacrifice among the Jews and heathens. 2. That it is an act of communion or fellowship with God, at whose table we are said to be entertained ; and therefore it is declared to be inconsistent with eating the Gentile sacrifices, which is an act of communion with devils, to whom those sacrifices are offered. 3. That it is an act of communion between Christians, who eat at the same table, and by that means are owned to be members of the same Evangelical covenant under Christ. Whence the apostle declares, in another place, that the Jews, who are not within the Christian E 2 76 1 Cor. xi. 29. covenant, and consequently not in communion with Christ and his Church, have no ri^ht to partake of the Christian altar. (Heb. xiii. 10.) Hence it is manifest that to eat the Lord's supper is to partake of the sacrifice of Christ which is there commemorated and represented." Such, then, being the communion really meant by the apostle, it is evident that the main sup- port is withdrawn from the system which regards the elements as the vehicles of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ. CHAPTEE IV. 1 Cor. xi. 29. " He that eateth unworthily, eateth and drink- eth judgment 3 to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." The expression " not discerning the Lord's body," refers to the irreverence of those Corinthians who neglected to discriminate between the elements consecrated in the Eucharist and the meats of which they partook in their ■^ Marginal translation, i.e. temporal judgment as explained in the next verse. HYPERBOLICAL EXPRESSIONS, &;C. 77 ordinary repasts. Reverence was due to the bread and wine which had once been sanctified for the solemn commemoration of the Redeemer's body and blood. CHAPTER V. HYPERBOLICAL EXPRESSIONS OF THE FATHERS. The Fathers have sometimes spoken of this mystery in terms which, among Protestants, are generally allowed to be hyperbolical, and which, indeed, themselves have modified at other times. The design of their burning expressions was to inflame the affections of their auditors or readers ; and they hesitated not to promulge the most glowing description of a sacrament where, in a more vivid exhibition than was attainable by preaching, " Jesus Christ was evidently set forth crucified among" them. Nor will the fervour of their language be re- garded with surprise when it is remembered that no heresy or dispute had arisen in their day which should compel chem to a cautious and guarded phraseology in representing the blessedness of a 78 HYPERBOLICAL EXPRESSIONS faithful participation in this sacrament. The mode of Christ's presence was not agitated before the ninth century, and it remained undefined until the fourth council of Lateran, a. d. 1215. It is admitted by Johnson, that " we are not to suppose that the simplicity of the Primitive Fathers dis- posed them to make such nice and subtle distinc- tions as later ages have done." "^ The following are some of the passages which, in their literal acceptation, represent nothing short of, — nay, something more than, — transub- stantiation. Cyprian writes : ^ **That bread which the Lord held forth to His disciples, being changed, not in shape, but in nature, was by the omnipotence of the Word made flesh." Again : " We stick close to the cross, we suck His blood, and fasten our tongue between the very wounds of our Re- deemer." Chrysostom,^ on the words, " The cup which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ V writes thus : " The apostle speaks very /aithfully and terribly : for what he says is this, that this which is in the cup is that very thing 4 Unbloody Sacrifice, c. ii. §. 1. ' De Coena Domini, p. 468. Paris, 1574. ^ Horn. 24 in 1 Cor. Tom. x. p. 255. OF THE FATHERS. 79 which flowed from His side." Again : 7 " Thou seest Him, thou touchest Him, thou eatest Him, and thy tongue is made bloody by this admirable blood, thy teeth are fastened in His flesh, thy teeth are made red with His blood." His sublime conceptions in the Treatise on the Priesthood (Lib. iii. c. iv. ed. Hughes) are equally hyper- bolical : " If any man will examine the ordinances of grace, he will find that those fearful and most terrific sights (under the Old Testament dispen- sation) are but trivial in comparison with these, and that what has been said respecting the Law is here verily true, ' For that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.' For when thou seest the Lord sacrificed, and lying (on the altar), and the priest standing over the sacrifice and praying, and all present reddened with that precious blood, I ask, dost thou think thyself any longer among men and standing on the earth? Art thou not immediately translated to the heavens, and casting off all fleshly-mindedness from the soul, dost thou not with thy soul unclothed and thy mind pure, gaze around on the things in heaven? O the prodigy ! the philanthropy of God ! He that is sitting with the Father above, is in that hour held in the hands of all, and giveth Himself to 7 Horn. 83. in S. Mat. Horn. GO, et 6 ad Antioch. pop. 80 HYPERBOLICAL EXPRESSIONS those who desire to infold Him in their arms, and embrace Him. And all see this by the eyes of faith." Gaudentius remarks:^ " The Creator Himself and Lord of natural things who produces bread from the earth, does again out of bread (because He is able and promised to do so) make his own body; and He who, of water, made wine, makes also of wine His own blood." St. Jerome says, 9 that the successors of the apostles " make the body and blood of Christ with their sacred mouth." Elsewhere he says ^ *' they make the flesh of the Lamb." St. Ambrose affirms " that " the sacred things are transfigured into the flesh of Christ by the mystery of the sacred prayer." Again ^ he states that, in the Eucharist, Christ " changes the species of the elements ;" and that " the nature is changed." St. Gregory Nyssen * declares his belief that " the bread, being sanctified by the word of God, is changed into the body of God the Word." St. Hilary affirms:^ " both by the declaration of the Lord Himself, and by our faith it is truly 8 De Exod. 2. p. 806. ^ Tom I. ad Heliodorum, p. 3' ' Ad Febriolam. ' Tom. iv. De fide, ad Gratianum. ' De his qui militantur, c. ix. p. 313. ♦ Oratio 37. 5 De Trinitate, lib. 8. ed. Lutet. 1652. p. 166. OP THE FATHERS. 81 flesh and truly blood.'* And he asserts that, in the Eucharist, we have, in some sense, " the nature of Christ's flesh." Let these few passages suflace in attestation of the hyperbolical language sometimes adopted by the Fathers respecting a sacrament concerning which no controversy had as yet arisen to compel them to a careful and chastened declaration of their faith in its privileges. CHAPTER Vr SOBER STATEMENTS OF THE FATHERS. That much weight cannot be attached to those expressions wherein the Fathers expatiate on the sacredness of the elements as being the very body and blood of Christ, will appear from a recital of some passages where they undertake to define their own terms. The following quotations are extracted from the Apology, and Defence of the Apology, of the learned Bishop Jewell. TertuUian's words are as follow : " Christ taking the bread and distributing it to His disci- ples, made it His body, (a strong expression, but 82 SOBER STATEMENTS OF THE FATHERS. mark how lie proceeds) saying, This is my body, that is to say, this is a figure of my body." St. Chrysostom says: " The very body of Christ itself is not in the holy vessels, but the mystery or sacrament thereof is there contained." St. Augustine, against the heretic Adimantus, writes : " Our Lord doubted not to say. This is my body, when He gave a token of His body." And in another place: " Christ took Judas unto His table, whereat He gave to His disciples the figure of His body." St. Jerome says : " Christ represented the verity of His body." St. Ambrose says: " Before consecration it is called another kind ; after consecration the body of Christ is signified : in eating and drinking we signify the body and blood that were offered for us. Thou receivest the sacrament for a similitude, or for a likeness. It is a figure of the body and blood of our Lord. Thou drinkest the likeness of the precious blood." Gelasius says : " The image and similitude of His body and blood is shewed in the action of the mysteries." After citing the above authorities, Bishop Jewell attests, that " it would be over-long to lay forth unto you what other reverend old fathers have written to like effect, and have expounded SOBER STATEMENTS OF THE FATHERS. 83 those words of Christ by sucli terms as you have heard, of sign, figure, token, image, and likeness." And he adds, " The gloss upon the canons joineth herein with the Fathers. ' It is called the body of Christ, but improperly ; the meaning thereof may be this: it is called Christ's body, that is to say, it signifieth Chrisfs body.* " Therefore doth St. Augustine give us good and wholesome advertisements. Thus hewriteth to Bonifacius: ' Unless Sacraments had a certain likeness of the things of which they be Sacraments, then indeed were they no Sacraments; and of this likeness oftentimes they bear the names of the things themselves that are rejiresented by the Sacraments.' And again, ' In Sacraments we must consider not what they be (in substance and nature), but what they signify.' Again he saith, ' It is a dangerous matter, and a servitude of the soul, to take the signs instead of the thing that is signified.' And again, ' If it be a speech that commandeth, either by forbidding an horrible wickedness, or requiring that which is profitable, it is not figurative; but if it seem to require horrible wickedness, and to forbid that which is good and profitable, it is spoken figuratively. Except ye eat (saith Christ) the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. He seemeth to require the doing of that 84 THE REAL PRESENCE which is horrible, or most wicked ; it is a figure, therefore, commanding us to communicate with the passion of Christ, and comfortably and pro- fitably to lay up in our remembrance, that His flesh was crucified and wounded for us.' " This canon of interpretation, however, must be received with some qualification, or it would require us to consider the command given to Abraham, to offer up his son Isaac, as merely a figurative expression. The reader who would see additional quotations on the subject of this chapter, may profitably consult Archbishop Cranmer's " Book on the Sacrament,"^ and Bishop Jeremy Taylor.^ CHAPTER VII. THE REAL PRESENCE NOT IN THE ELEMENTS. It is not on account of his general orthodoxy, which cannot be advocated, but for his known research, that the following alleged matter of fact, not of opinion, is adduced from the Tracts 1 B. III. c, ix — xiv. ' " Of the real presence, &c. Sect. xii. Nos. 1 6 — 32. " Dissua- sive from popery." c, i. sect. v. 5 KOT IN THE ELEMENTS. 85 of J. Hales.3 " Some Protestants," says he, " and that of chief note, stick not to say, that the words of consecration are not a mere trope ; and from hence it must needs follow, that in some sense they must needs be taken literally But that which they preach concerning a real presence and participation of Christ's body in the sacra- ment, they expound not by a supposal that the bread becomes God's body, but that, together with the sacramental elements, there is conveyed into the soul of the worthy receiver the very body and blood of God ; but after a secret, ineffable, and wonderful manner. From hence, as I take it, have proceeded those crude speeches of the leartied of the reformed parts, some dead, some living, wherein they take upon them to assure the Divines of Rome that we acknowledge a real Presence as well as they ; but for the manner how, con, or trans, or suh, or in, iirixofj'^^, we play the Sceptics, and determine not. This conceit, besides the falsehood of it, is a mere novelty, neither is it to be found in the books of any of the ancients, till Martin Bucer arose. He, out of an unreasonable bashfulness and fear to seem to recede too far from the Church of Rome, taught to the purpose now related, concerning the doctrine of Christ's presence in the sacrament; ' p, 51. 86 THE REAL PRESENCE and from him it descended into the writings of Calvin and Beza, whose authority have well-near spread it over the face of the reformed Churches/' By ascribing the original exposition of this doctrine to Bucer and not to Bertram, Hales appears to have coincided with Mosheim in his judgment of the latter. The historian accuses him of self-contradiction : and states :* " He appears to follow in general, the doctrine of those who deny that the body and blood of Christ are really present in the holy sacrament, and to affirm, on the contrary, that they are only represented by the bread and wine as their signs or symbols. There are, however, several passages in his book which seem inconsistent with this just and rational notion of the Eucharist, or at least are susceptible of different interpretations, and have therefore given rise to various disputes." Turrian, cer- tainly, asks, " to cite Bertram, what is it else but to say that Calvin's heresy is not new ?"^ But his words may refer merely to Bertram's denial of transubstantiation. Archbisho^D Cranmer^ concludes, that" Christis not in it (the bread) neither S23iritually (as He is in man,) nor corporally (as He is in heaven,) 4 History of the Church, cent. IX. li. ii. c. 3. 5 Jeremy Taylor, " Of the real presence/' &c., Sect. xii. No. 32. ^ Book on the Sacrament, B, iv. c. xi. NOT IN THE ELEMENTS. 87 but only sacramentally, as a thing may be said to be in a figure, whereby it is signified." Bradford'' asserts : " I believe a presence, and a true presence, but to the faith of the receiver •' even of whole Christ, God, and mam, to feed the faith of him that receiveth it." Whitgift^ affirms: " The outward signs of the sacraments do not contain in them grace." Hooker 9 observes: "As for the sacraments, they really exhibit, but for aught we can gather out of that which is written of them, they are not I'eally, nor do really contain in themselves, that grace, which with them, or by them, it pleaseth God to bestow." In accordance with the above testimonies, we have seen that the passages of Scripture which refer to this sacrament contain no hint of the communication of Christ's body and blood in or through the elements of bread and wine. And, as Bishop Gardiner, in his reply to Archbishop Cranmer (on B. iii. c. xv.) in this instance justly observes, " if the words of the institution be but in figure, man cannot add of his device any other substance or effect than the words of Christ purport." It is admitted, too, that there is no traditionary interpretation on this point. And f Foxe, vol. vi. p. 173. ^ Defence against Cartwright, p. 738. .» E. P. b. V. § 67. 88 INVOCATION OP THE where neither Scripture nor recognized tra* dition affirm the presence of the Redeemer's body in the elements, we have no inducement in reason to infer such a conclusion. The real Presence which is vouchsafed to every faithful communicant, not in the elements, as vehicles or conduits, but in connexion with their right reception, is set forth in the last chapter of this Tract. CHAPTER VIII. INVOCATION OF THE HOLY GHOST UPON THE ELEMENTS. Against the assertion of J. Hales, and the ob- servations made above on the sober statements of the Fathers, it may be objected, that in many of the ancient Liturgies there is extant an invocation of the Holy Spirit to descend upou the elements and make them the body and blood of Christ, which prayer was part of our comumnion ser- vice in the first Liturgy of King Edward VI. But this invocation might have implied nothing more than a solemn consecration of the elements to the sacred office of commemorating the body HOLY GHOST UPON THE ELEMENTS. 89 and blood of Christ. In the benediction " Re- ceive ye the Holy Ghost," ^ this gift is interpreted by both Hooker^ and Bishop Andrews^ as con- veying only the plenitude of the apostolic office and authority to the recipients. " It is," says the latter, " the grace of their calling (this), whereby they Vi^ere sacred and made persons public, and their acts authentical ; and they en- abled to do somewhat about the remission of sins, that is not (of like avail) done by others.'* We know that the ground where Moses stood was consecrated by the special presence of the Angel of God '^ and a far higher dignity is conferred on the elements whereby the body of the Redeemer is represented and His death shown forth. And that the invocation of the Holy Spirit is befitting so holy a service is testified by Origen,^ when he says, " We must receive the sacred mysteries in a holy place, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, by which every thing that is holy is sanctified." And elsewhere^ he observes, that " the Holy Ghost is thefoundation of allsanctification or consecration/ Ephrsem Syrus^ says, our Saviour blessed the cup into a figure of His precious blood." The synod ' John XX. 22. « E. P. b. v. $ 77. ^ Sermon in loco, p. (iQ5. * Ex. iii. 5. 5 Horn. 13 in Levit. 6 L. 10 in Rom. ' De natura Dei incomprehensibili, p. 681. 90 THE EUCHARIST of Constantinople calls the bread *' the irvLQ image of His natural flesh, sanctified hy the coming of the Holy Ghost.'' And the Liturgy cited by Pseudo-Ambrosius ^ teaches the priest to sujjplicate " that the oblation may be unto us ?l figure of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." CHAPTER IX. THE EUCHARIST TERMED A SACRIFICE. For the deniers of transubstantiation to insist that the elements become, after consecration, a sacrifice, and not merely a commemoration of the sacrifice made once for all, appears, on their own explanation of their meaning, a controversy about words. Against their strenuous advocacy of the primi- tive term " sacrifice" we may oppose the following testimonies. Bishop Beveridge^ after sundry quotations from the Fathers, arrives at this con- clusion : " By this we may see in what sense the ancients called the Eucharist a sacrifice ; not as if it was a true or proper sacrifice itself, but only the commemoration or representation of that one ^ De Sacramentis, 1. iv. c. v. ^ Oii the Articles, vol. ii. p. 299. TERMED A SACRIFICE. 91 and only true and proper sacrifice offered up by Christ Himself." Ridley ^ bears testimony to the same effect. So also do Archbishop Sharp,- Calvin,^ and Archbishop Cranmer/ Hooker^ states that " the Fathers of the church of Christ .... call usually the ministry of the gospel ' Priesthood' in regard of that which the Gospel hath proportion- able to ancient sacrifices ; namely, the commu- nion of the blessed body and blood of Christ, although it hath properly now no sacrifice." And Archbishop Laud, ^ among many other testimo- nies to the same purpose, adduces that of the MasteroftheSentences, who, he observes, "judged truly in this point, saying : That which is offered and consecrated of the Priest is called a sacrifice and oblation, because it is a memory and repre- sentation of the true sacrifice and holy oblation made on the altar of the cross." The warning of the Homily on the sacrament ^ is not super- fluous : " We must take heed, lest, of the memory, it be made a sacrifice.'' 1 Disputation at Oxford. ^ Vol. i. p. 300. ' Inst. IV. xviii. 10. * Book on the Sacrament, B. v. c. xiii. 5 E. P. B. V. § 78. ^ Conference with Fisher, § 35, No. 7, Punct. 3, ^ P. 1. 92 THE DISTINCTIVE BENEFIT CHAPTER X. THE DISTINCTIVE BENEFIT OF THE EUCHARIST. If now we ask, what are the positive benefits which we may look for, and should realize, in the Eucharist, they may be stated thus: In c. iii. we have seen that the Father here welcomes us as His guests to the table where He vouchsafes His gracious presence, as, in the She- chinah, it rested on the mercy-seat. We thus have inefiable communion with Him, being admitted, as it were, into the Holy of Holies, where He lifts up upon us the light of His countenance. In this sacrament He renews and confirms His covenant ■with us to be our God and Father in Christ Jesus, as of old He ratified his covenant with Abraham, when the symbols of His presence, the smoking furnace and burning lamp, passed between the parts of the sacrifice.^ Then, again, since the Lord Jesus has promised that where two or three are gathered together in His name, there He will be present in the midst of them, we may rely on His especial presence at » Gen. XV. 17, 18. OF THE EUCHARIST. 93 this feast, which is ordained by Himself in com- memoration of His sacrifice. As our High Priest He introduces us into the gracious presence of His Father, and commends us to His favour in consideration of the atonement which we solemnly commemorate. ° When, too, we reverently ex- press, in the manner which He has Himself appointed, the lively faith and fervent love where- with we eat His flesh and drink His blood (as explained in c. ii. of this Treatise) we are con- firmed by Him in the union whereby, according to His promise, w^e dwell in Him, and He in us.^ HegivesHimselfto us to be theportion of our soul, to be the strength of our spiritual life, as the bread is of our natural, the cheerer of our heart, as wine is its earthly cordial. It is by His Spirit that He thus imparts Himself to us. The influences of that Holy One are attem- pered to our nature by their mysterious connexion with the body and blood of Christ: for it is as incarnate that Christ is the Head of His body the Church, and diff'uses through- out the members His gracious energies. The Church is the temple of the Holy Ghost, in which He is pleased to dwell, and to testify to our hearts the redemption which is in Jesus. Here, then, we may rely on His special presence to « Bom. V. 1, 2. Heb. iv, 15, 16. x. 19—22. ^ Jq^^ ^^ ^q. 94 THE DISTINCTIVE BENEFIT teach us through the medium of our senses ; to exhibit to the eye of our faith Jesus Christ evi- dently set forth crucified among us ; to impress our hearts with a deep sense of the sinfulness of our sins which called for that sacrifice, and with reverential gratitude for the love which prompted its bestowal. He thus seals to us our pardon, while He purifies our souls. In this sacrament, therefore, as in baptism, we enjoy the special presence of each Person in the blessed Trinity. Here, too, we are privileged to realize the union which exists between the members of Christ's body ; and a heavenly sympathy should circulate among the faithful who feast on one sacri- fice at the table of their common God and Father. To communicate aright, then, is, in a peculiar manner, to realize heaven upon earth ; and thus it is that, as Archbishop Cranmer observes, " in the use of sacramental signs Almighty God in- wardly worketh." And what more can be desired beyond these Scriptural blessings ? We see that the Eucharist is a commemoration before God of the sacrifice of Christ, whereby, with thanksgiving and praise, we plead it afresh and apply to ourselves the be- nefits of His passion. In the words of Water- '» Answer to Gardiner, p. 345. OF THE EUCHARIST. 95 land,^ it " is in its primary intention, and in its certain effect to all worthy communicants, a com- munion of Christ's body broken and blood shed, that is to say, a present partaking of, or having a part in, our Lord's passion, and the reconcile- ment tlierein made, and the benefits thereof." Or, in the words of Bishop Patrick^ " the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed re- ceived of the faithful : that is, they have a real part and portion given them in the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus, whose body was broken and blood shed for the remission of sins. They truly and indeed partake of the virtue of His bloody sacrifice, whereby He hath obtained eternal redemption for us." Or, again to quote the testimony of Archbishop Wake : " that which is given by the priest, in this Sacrament, is, as to its substance, bread and wine : as to its sacra- mental nature and signification, it is the figure or representation of Christ's body and blood, which was broken and shed for us. The very body and blood of Christ, as yet it is not. But being with faith and piety received by the communicant, it becomes to him, by the blessing of God, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, the very body and blood of Christ ; as it entities him to a part in the sa- ^ Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist. *5 Christian Sacrifice. 96 THE DISTINCTIVE BENEFIT, (fec. crifice of His death, and to the benefits thereby- procured to all His faithful and obedient ser- vants." From all which it follows, that the elements are to us, in power and effect, though not in re- ality, the very body and blood of Christ, being by divine appointment consecrated to the purpose of sacramentally representing the death of our Re- deemer, whereby alone we obtain remission of our sins and are made partakers of the kingdom of heaven. THE END. LONDON : PRINTED BT Q. J. PiiLMEK, SAYOr STKEET, STf-AND. jpi-miRsmi -k.. i i 1 1 ' i 1 1 Theological Seminary Speer Library 1 1012 01021 1854