THE 
 
 WITNESS OF THE EUCHARIST, 
 
 OE 
 
 THE INSTITUTION AND EARLY 
 CELEBKATION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 
 
 CONSIDEEED AS AN EVIDENCB OF THE HISTOEICAL TRUTH OF THE 
 GOSPEL NAEEATIVE AND OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 BEING THE NOREISIAN PRIZE ESSAY 
 FOE THE YEAR 1863. 
 
 THE REV. G. f/mACLEAR, M.A. 
 
 LATE SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 CLASSICAL MASTER AT KING'S COLLEGE SCHOOL, LONDON, 
 AHD ASSISTANT MINISTER AT CURZON CHAPEL . MAYFAIR. 
 AND ST MARK'S. NOTTINQ HILU 
 
 CTamlitiDge atiD Sont)on. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 1864. 
 
CamiriDgt: 
 
 IINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PliESS. 
 
TO THE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D. 
 
 M.\STEE OP TEINITY COLLEGE ; 
 TO THE 
 
 EEV. RICHARD ORES, D.D. 
 
 PEOVOST OF KING'S COLLEGE; 
 
 AND TO 
 
 EDWIN GUEST, LL.D. ^ 
 
 MASTEE OF GONVILLE AJJD CAI0S COLLEGE; 
 
 EXAMINERS FOR THE NORRISIAN PRIZE; 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
"JOHN NOREIS, Esq., the Founder of the Divinity Professorship, 
 by liis Will bequeathed a premium of 12/. per annum, 7?. 4S. of whicli 
 is to be expended upon a gold medal, the residue in books, to the author 
 of the best prose Essay on a sacred subject, which is to be proposed by 
 the Norrisian Professor." 
 
 By a Statute approved by Her Majesty by order in Council, April 
 6, 1858, the Prize is now "given once in five years only, and shall be 
 the aura of the annuities of the five years preceding the adjudication. 
 Tlie Candidates are required to be Graduates of the University of 
 Cambridge, and af not more than thirteen years' standing from admis- 
 sion to their first degrees when the Essays are sent in." 
 
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Phenomena of Christian Worship. 
 
 I. Cessation of the sacrifice of piacular victims i, 2 
 
 II. Celebration during the last 1800 years of a single Rite 
 
 which alone approximates to the ancient sacrificial 
 
 ritual 4 — 7 
 
 HI. The origin of this Rite nowhere explained except in 
 
 the Gospel Narrative 7 
 
 The Account there given 8 — 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Religious Revolution thus Attested. 
 
 I. The most powerful emotion of which the ancient 
 
 sacrifices were the expression was a sense of sin ... 13 
 
 II. During the last 1800 years this sense of sin instead 
 
 of being obliterated has gained a stronger hold of 
 
 the minds of men 13 — 15 
 
vm 
 
 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS, 
 
 III. And yet the ancient sacrificial ritual has never been 
 
 revived ! i6, 17 
 
 IV. And a Eite presenting a mysterious simplicity in its 
 
 outward symbols has absorljed the old sacrificial 
 
 terms, and claims to embody their fulfilment! 18 — 2r 
 
 V. And this it has done though its Institutor, by the 
 
 testimony of friends and enemies, died the death of 
 
 the malefactor and the slave 22, 2j 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Alleged ExPL.t^^ATIOxs op this Religious Revolution. 
 
 This Revolution imperatively caUs for some explanation ... 15 
 
 I. Can it be ascribed to /(jyjosiure.? 26 — 28 
 
 II. Can it be ascribed to EiUhmiasm? 28 
 
 Popular expectations of the Messiah developed in 
 
 (1) The Apocalyptic literature of the pre-Chris- 
 
 tian era 29, 30 
 
 (2) The Gospel Narrative 30, 31 
 
 (3) The writings of Josephus 3:, 33 
 
 III. Can it be ascribed to a gradually developed J/y- 
 
 tJiologyf 
 
 Difficulties of this view 34 — 37 
 
 Total and overmastering change of religious opinion 
 
 which the Eucharist pre-supposes 38 — 43 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 Ex.VMraATIOX OF THE GoSPEL XaERATIVE. 
 
 I. The conditions on which alone the celebration of the 
 
 Eucharist by Jews can be accounted for 45 — 47 
 
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. ix 
 
 FACE 
 
 II. Does the Gospel Karrative supply these conditions?... 48 
 
 III. Harmony and consistency of the Intimation of the 
 
 49 
 
 (a) Tlie Name Jesus as announced to Joseph 50 
 
 Inferences therefrom n i 
 
 (5) The words of Simeon 52 
 
 (c) The witness of the Baptist, Bdiold the Lamb 
 
 of God 54—60 
 
 IV. Eetrospect of the predictions of a Suffering Messiah 
 
 in the Old Testament 61, 62 
 
 Their gradual and progressive character 62 
 
 A gradual revelation of the same in the New is not, 
 therefore, to be ascribed to an aftcriliovf/ht or change 
 of plan 63 6^ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Early Public Mimstkt. 
 
 I. The First Passover. 
 
 (o) First Visit to the Temple 66, 67 
 
 Sign given to the Jews, Destroy this Temple 
 and in three days I will raise it vp 68, 69 
 
 (b) The Visit of Nicodemus -o 71 
 
 As Hoses lifted itp the Serpent in the u ikler- 
 
 ness, so must the Son of Man he lifted up 72—74 
 
 II. The Second Passover. 
 
 (c) Feeding of the Five Thousand 75—77 
 
 The Discourse in the Synagogue of Caper- 
 naum 78—83 
 
 III. Congi-uity of these Intimations with on& another 84 — 86 
 
X SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Later Ministry. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Change in the Intimations now made 87 
 
 (a) The Conversation near Cssarea Philippi ... 88,89 
 
 (b) The Transfiguration 91 — 94 
 
 II. Further Intimations 96, 97 
 
 III. The last Journey to Jerusalem 100 
 
 (a) The Anointing at Bethany loi, loj 
 
 (6) The Triumphal Entry 104 
 
 (c) The Enquiring Greeks 105—108 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 The Institution of the Eucharist. 
 
 I. Characteristics of the Paschal Festival in — 113 
 
 II. Mode of celebration in our Lord's time 113 — Ii6 
 
 III. The Preparations for the Last Supper 117 — 120 
 
 IV. The Institution of the Eucharist 120 — 122 
 
 Its harmony with all previous announcements of the 
 
 Passion 123, 124 
 
 V. Reflections on the demeanour of the Saviour at the 
 
 Institution 124—128 
 
 VI. Conduct of the Apostles during the Crucifixion 128 
 
 The Resurrection alone (i) explains their subsequent 
 
 conduct 129—134 
 
 (2) gives an adequate ac- 
 count of the celebration 
 
 of the Eucharist 1 35— 138 
 
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Eucharist a Sacrificial Feast. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Eucharist a witness to the sacrificial character of 
 
 the death of Christ 139 — 141 
 
 II. Unaccountable if that death was merely a martyrdom 14 1, 142 
 
 III. Reflections on the Institutional Words 142 — 145 
 
 Their sacrificial character 145 — I47 
 
 IV. The Eucharist regarded as a Feast on a Sacrifice by 
 
 the Early Christians 1 48 
 
 The doctrine of St Paul in i Cor. x. 14 — 21 149— 152 
 
 Necessary inferences therefrom 153 — 158 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Eucharist a Sacrament op our Redemption. 
 
 Spirit in which the consideration of the Sacrifice of Christ 
 
 ought to be approached 1 60 
 
 I. The various prophetic intimations of the Messiah in 
 
 the Old Testament 160, 161 
 
 II. The varied images employed in the Gospel Narrative 
 
 to unfold the purport of His death l6i 
 
 III. And again in the teaching of the Apostles 162, 163 
 
di SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 IV. Similar wise variety in the language of the Church of 
 
 England 164-166 
 
 V. The Eucharist an effectual sign of God's goodwill ... 167 
 
 VI. Man's need of external symbols 168—172 
 
 VII. Adaptation of the Eucharist to human wants i74— '77 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN AVORSHIP. 
 
 napT^i'ovyyiip.. KaTa^po,'u,> P^^/xup, oi)t oi ^ar^pes airwv ko.1 ol Tphyovoi. 
 TrdfTcs idepaTrevaay. 
 
 S. CUETSOSIOil. 
 
 A LATE writer' has made some striking observations 
 on the emotions with which a Hebrew of the days of 
 Aaron, Solomon, or Herod would regard the mode of 
 religious worship which now obtains aiiKiug all Christian 
 nations. Of the many i:)eculiarities v. hich wuuld arrest 
 his attention, none, we may be certain, would be more 
 striking than the entire absence of all such sacrifices as 
 those with which he had been familiar from earliest 
 childhood; in the midst of which he had lived, and 
 moved, and had his being; and without which he could 
 not even conceive the possibility of religious worship 
 at all. Nor would the same peculiarity be less per- 
 plexing to a Gentile of the days of Pericles or Alex- 
 ander, of Cato or Augustus. 
 
 To ourselves, indeed, living in a Christian land, the 
 phenomenon is one which presents no difficulty or sin- 
 gularity. On the contrary, during the last eighteen 
 ' Professor Wilson in his Five Galewajs of Knoidcdr/e. 
 
 1 
 
2 
 
 PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, 
 
 hundred years, the world has put on such an altered 
 appearance in reference to the sacrificial ritual that 
 once so universally prevailed, that it actually requires 
 no inconsiderable effort to realize the idea of those 
 sacrifices, which for long ages was in all nations the 
 accepted method of approaching the Supreme Being, 
 under whatever form He was conceived, and with 
 whatever attributes He was clothed. 
 
 It is true that the traveller in distant lands will 
 behold relics of this once universal ritual, will see the 
 stricken victim laid upon the altar, the blood poured 
 out, and the worshippers feeding on a portion of the 
 sacrifice. But in all countries calling themselves 
 Chi-istian, that is to say, amongst all the most en- 
 lightened and cultivated nations of the present day, 
 such rites have not only ceased, but, in spite of all the 
 violent religious reactions that have since occurred, have 
 never, as a form of national worship, been even par- 
 tially revived \ 
 
 Now it requires but the slenderest acquaintance 
 with human nature to be aware how long and how 
 pertinaciously old ideas, habits, and associations retain 
 their ascendancy over the mind ; and of all ideas, of all 
 
 No peculiarity of early Christian worship offended the heathens 
 more than this absence of sacrifice. Comp. Origeu, c. Cehum, Tin. 17; 
 Arnobius, adv. Nat. vi. i ; Minucius Felix, x. i. The constant source 
 of surprise was "Cur nullas aras habent, templa nulla?" In this 
 lespect they contrast Christianity with Judaism: " Judaeorum sola et 
 inisera gentilitas unum et ipsi Deum, sed palam, sed templis, Bed aris, 
 vietimis, csereraoniisque coluernnt." See also S, Chrysostom, contr. 
 Jud. a Cent. i. 703 d. 
 
PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, 
 
 3 
 
 habits, of all associations, none more than those which 
 affect man as a religious being. And yet we have only 
 to look around us to find ourselves confronted with one 
 of the most remarkable religious revolutions that his- 
 tory recoi-ds. An institution has ceased which the 
 oldest Book in the world reveals as prevailing in the 
 very infancy of the human race, and which was equally 
 accepted by the sweet Psalmist of Israel, the Greek 
 philosopher, and the Roman magistrate ; whicli was once 
 inextricably entwined^ with all the more solemn epochs 
 in man's domestic life, birth, and marriage ^ and death ; 
 with all the most momentous acts in his national and 
 political life, the foundation of cities, the ratification of 
 treaties, the declaration of war; with all the most 
 powerful emotions of his personal and religious life, 
 his hopes and fears, his seasons of joy and sorrow, his 
 hours of despondency, his sense of guilt, his craving 
 after restoration to the Divine favour. An institution 
 has ceased which was once celebrated with all the 
 pomp of ceremonial ritual, and gave employment to 
 thousands and tens of thousands of the priestly order 
 in the Mosaic Tabernacle, in the statelier structures of 
 Solomon and Herod, in the graceful shrines of classic 
 Greece, in the massive temples of imperial Rome, 
 amidst the stone circles of the Celtic Druid, and under 
 
 1 See Archbp. Thomson's Bampton Lectures, p. 43; Dollinger's 
 Gentile and Jew, 11. 80. 
 
 ^ For the sacrifices at Greek marriages, see Becker's Charicles, 
 p. 353, and the passages there quoted; Dollinger's Gentile and Jew, 
 u. 80. 
 
 1—2 
 
4 PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 the solemn oak -groves of the Saxon and the Northman ; 
 in fact, amongst all nations and peoples, though in weU- 
 nigh every other respect — habits, institutions, ideas, 
 and modes of life — sundered from one another as widely 
 as the poles \ 
 
 Til at a system once so universal, once so potent, 
 has utterly ceased among Christian nations, is an his- 
 torical fact brought home to us by our daily experience. 
 The sacrifice of 'bulls and goats,' the confession over 
 them of guilt and shortcoming, the slaughtering of them 
 before the altar, the sprinkling of the offerers with 
 the blood, these ceremonies once of daily, hourly oc- 
 currence throughout the whole world, are with us en- 
 tirely matters of the past, and when they meet us in 
 Jewish history, the poems of Homer, or the nan-ative 
 of Livy, are so alien from anything we now see around 
 us, that we have a difficulty in even satisfactorily and 
 
 ^ "'The Mahometan religion,' says Gibbon, as if in praise of its 
 purity, 'has no Priest and no Sacrifice.' This statement must be con- 
 siderably qualified. Sacrifice, though it forms no part of the daily wor- 
 ship in the mosque, yet on solemn occasions is an essential eleme;.t of 
 the Mussulman ritual. It is generally, if not universally, of the nature 
 of a thank-offering, and, as in the case of most ancient sacrifices, is com- 
 bined with an act of benevolence to the poor. To the Bedouin Arabs it 
 i-i almost their only act of devotion. It was only under tlie pretext of 
 sacrificing on the tomb of Aaron that Burckhardt was able to enter 
 Petra. The railroad, recently o|)ened from the Danube to the Black 
 Sea, was inaugurated by the sacrifice of two sheep. The vast slaughter 
 of victims at Mecca is the only scene now existing in the world that 
 recalls the ancient sacrifices of Jew or Payan. In short, it might be said 
 that, so far from Mahometanism being the only religion without a sacri- 
 fice, it is the only civilized religion that retains a sacrifice, not spiritually 
 or mystically, but in the literal ancient sense." Dean Stanley "s Eastern 
 Church, p. 276, also Lectures on Jewish History, 168. 
 
PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, 5 
 
 clearly realizing the fact that they ever obtained among 
 men. 
 
 This singular revolution in the religious life of the 
 most civilized nations of the present day is a fact which 
 none can gainsay or dispute, and of itself claims some 
 adequate and consistent explanation. 
 
 But side by side with this cessation of a system once 
 so universal, there is another no less striking peculiarity 
 of Christian worship. In the place of a complex sacri- 
 ficial ritual hallowed by the associations of centuries, and 
 the memories of man since the infancy of the human 
 race, a single Rite has been received and uninterruptedly 
 celebrated during the last eighteen hundred years, which 
 alone approximates in the slightest degree to that sys- 
 tem which has passed away. Though, to the outward 
 senses at least, this rite is of the simplest possible charac- 
 ter, it is yet celebrated in every part of Europe, and 
 amongst all Christian nations whether in Asia, Africa, or 
 America ; it has survived the most numerous and diverse 
 changes of manners, habits, and modes of thought; it 
 has seen the rise, progress, and decay of countless 
 theories, opinions, and philosophies; it is observed by 
 Churches differing from one another, and that some- 
 times with the greatest bitterness, not only in respect 
 to other rites and ceremonies, but also in 'matters of 
 faith;' and whether it be celebrated with an almost 
 rude simplicity, or with all the accessories of pomp 
 and ceremony, it has not only absorbed all the terms 
 and expressions once employed in reference to the old 
 sacrificial system, but has met and satisfied all those 
 
6 
 
 PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 deep emotions of the human breast which that system 
 once attracted. 
 
 And what are 'the outward and visible signs' of this 
 Rite? Bread and wine, which are eaten and drunk by 
 the worshippers. Now it is true that the reception of 
 these elements accompanied and formed part of Jewish, 
 and, in a certain sense, of Gentile sacrifices^, but such 
 reception always presupposed the offering of some vic- 
 tim. And the mere fact that these elements should 
 now be received separately and detached from what 
 always accompanied them, and gave them their dis- 
 tinctive value, is, to say the least, a very striking cir- 
 cumstance, and lends a peculiar interest to our inquiry 
 into the origin of this Rite. 
 
 Now of its origin all the Christian Churches, differ- 
 ing as they do from one another in other respects, 
 have agreed to receive one single account and no other; 
 they have from the beginning referred its institution to 
 one and the same period of time, to one and the same 
 Person. Nor is their testimony contradicted by heathen 
 
 ' ' Simple breaking of bread with sacrificial intent and gesture was 
 a sufficient "immolation," simple pouring out of wine with that intent 
 was effective "mactation" of the yet living victim.' Freeman's Princi- 
 ples of Divine Service, II. 8i. 'The victim though itself the eflBcaciouB 
 element of the sacrifice, was offered by means of the bread and wine. 
 The bread was broken and sprinkled on the head of the animal while yet 
 alive; and again wine, with frankincense, was poured between its horns. 
 This done, the sacrifice was conceived to have been duly offered, so far 
 as concerned the gift and dedication of it on man's part, and the accept- 
 ance of it by the Deity. This is proved by the fact that immolare, to 
 sprinkle with the broken imla, or cake, was used, as is well known, to 
 express the entire action of sacrifice, the slaying and burning included.' 
 Ibid. p. 76. 
 
PHENOMENA OF CHKISTIAN WOKSHIP. 
 
 7 
 
 writers who lived about or shortly after the time of 
 its institution. The brief and incidental notices of the 
 life of the Institutor which occur in Tacitus^ or Jo- 
 sephus", in Suetonius'' or Pliny*, so far as they go, en- 
 tirely bear out the account which all the Christian 
 Churches from the first day until now with one voice 
 have agreed to accept. And what are the facts thus 
 mutually corroborated? 
 
 That the Institutor of this Rite appeared about 
 1864) years ago, during the reigns of the Emperors 
 Augustus and Tiberius, in Judsea, a comparatively un- 
 known and obscure corner of the vast Roman Empire ; 
 that He was of the humblest origin, and drew around 
 Him a small body of equally humble disciples, by whom 
 He was looked up to as their Teacher; that by the great 
 body of His nation He was rejected and despised, and 
 His teaching regarded as blasphemous; that He was 
 put to death at the instigation of that nation by the 
 procurator Pontius Pilate, and underwent the punish- 
 ment of crucifixion, the ignominious doom of the male- 
 factor and the slave °. 
 
 ' Annal. XV. 44. 
 
 ' Antiq. XVIII. 3. 3 ; F. H. Schoedel (Vindicice Flaviance, Lips. 
 1840) contends for the genuineness of the whole passage in Josephus. 
 See Kurtz's Church History, p. 6r. 
 
 ^ In CUtudio, c. xxv. Comp. Juv. SaL l. 155. 
 
 * Letter to Trajan. Compare also the letter of Mara to Sera- 
 pion, Cureton, Spicil. Syriaewn, Lond. 1855; Milman's Baniptoii Lec- 
 tures, 20. 
 
 ^ ' We have the plain testimonies of the greatest enemies of Christi- 
 anity, that there was such a person as Christ, who suffered according to 
 the Scripture story. For Tacitus not only mentions the Christians as 
 
8 
 
 PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN AVORSHIP. 
 
 About these facts there never has been any dispute. 
 There exists no trace or vestige of any record either 
 contemporary with the institution of this Rite, or which 
 has come to hght since, that gives a substantially dif- 
 ferent account of the life and death of the Institutor. 
 
 It appears, then, not only that a time-honoured 
 system of religioiis worship has utterly disappeared 
 among all civilized nations; not only that the single 
 Rite which in the slightest degree approximates to that 
 system is, to the outward sense, of the most mysterious 
 simplicity, as compared with the elaborate and multi- 
 form ceremonies it has displaced; but that it was insti- 
 tuted by One, who died a most degrading death, and 
 that it commemorates, or 'shows forth' that death, a-s 
 often as it is celebrated. 
 
 For not only are the elements of Bread and Wine 
 eaten and drunk by the worshippers, but, in spite of 
 the degradation they involve, the circumstances of the 
 original institution are every time rehearsed in their 
 ears. Every time they receive these elements, they hear 
 in the language of the only account of the Institution 
 which the Universal Church has agreed to accejjt, that, 
 
 suiFering at Rome for their religion in the time of Nero, but saith, That 
 the Author of this religion was one Christ, who suffered under Pontius 
 Pilate, Procurator of Judea, in the time of Tiberius, ^^hich is an irre- 
 fragable testimony of the truth of the story concerning Christ, in an age. 
 when, if it had been false, nothing could have been more easily detected 
 than such a fiction, by the number of Jews which were continually at 
 Rome ; and neither Julian, nor Celsus, nor Porphyry, nor Lucian did 
 ever question the truth of the story itself, but only upbraided the Chris- 
 tians for attributing too much to Christ.' Stillingfleet's Letter to a Deist, 
 Woi-ks, Vol. II. 1 30. 
 
PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 9 
 
 on the night before He died, and in the certain pro- 
 spect of that death, so cruel and so shameful, the Insti- 
 tutor, so far from being perturbed or alarmed thereat, 
 at a Paschal Supper in company with twelve of His 
 immediate followers, ' Took Bread, blessed it, brake it, 
 and distrihited it to them, saying. Take, eat, this is 
 Ml/ Body, which is given for you; likeiuise He took a 
 Cup of Wine, and when He had given thanks He gave 
 it unto them, saying. This is My Blood of the neio 
 Covenant, which is shed for you and for many, for the 
 remission of sins; Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, 
 in remembrance of Me! 
 
 And yet, though the Institutor of this Rite did die on 
 the day after by this ignominious death \ though during 
 His life His Name was not known beyond the limits of 
 the obscurest corner of the Roman Empire, though He 
 had 'no victories, no conquests, no revolutions, no sur- 
 prising elevation of fortune, no achievements of valour, 
 of strength, or of policy, to appeal to, no discoveries in 
 any art or science, no great efforts of genius or learning 
 to produce^,' though He lived and moved in the hum- 
 blest station, and save to very few was known only as 
 the son of a carpenter of Nazareth; though His fol- 
 lowers were for many years regarded as the scum and 
 offscouring of the earth, were reviled, mocked, perse- 
 
 1 'Hominem summo supplicio perclitum.' Minucius Felix, chap. ix. 
 Comp. Tac. Ann. xv. 44; Arnob. adv. Gentes, I. 20; Lactantius, Dir. 
 Inst. IV. 26, ?9; S. Chrysostom, contra Jud. et Gentiles, I. 683 a; 696 a; 
 698 c ; 702 0. 
 
 2 Paley's Evidences, chap. vi. 
 
10 PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
 cuted, and in many instances put to death with revolt- 
 ing barbarity ; in spite of all this, they not only never 
 concealed the fact that He, from whom they were called 
 Christians, died a violent and ignominious death, but 
 preached it openly, wherever they could find men to 
 listen to the story, and celebrated this Rite with feel- 
 ings of the deepest reverence and adoration, and with 
 emotions such as they had never felt before, save when 
 they were present at the most august ceremonies of that 
 sacrificial ritual under which they had been brought 
 up from earliest childhood. 
 
 Nay, more ; in spite of every adverse influence 
 which their own obscurity or the open hostility of the 
 whole power of the Roman Empire could bring to bear 
 upon them, the first disciples of the Institutor of this 
 Rite succeeded in obtaining its observance wherever they 
 went. Their tenets spread with unexampled rapidity' 
 throughout the Roman Empire, and in spite of con- 
 tempt and outrage commended themselves to the hearts 
 of men. Philosophers might scoff at the first believers; 
 politicians might suspect them; the populace might 
 pursue them with ferocious yells; successive emperors 
 might pour upon them the fury of their anger, but 
 the new Faith won its way; what at first had been 
 the consolation of the slave or the fugitive in the cata- 
 combs, became the creed of the statesman and the 
 
 ^ 'AvaXS-yijat, wbcroL hbyfiara riPov\-qBr)(Tav elaayayeiv irap 'EXXijirt, 
 Kol TToXiTeiav ivaTTjuaadixL ^evqii, olov Ztjvoiv, XiXaruiv, XbiKpdrrjs, Aia- 
 ydpas, IlvOayopas, Kal Irepm /j-vptof a\X ofuii! roaovrov &ire<Txov irtpiy&>- 
 €<x6ai, lis fn]5i 6v6p.aTo% dvai rots ttoWms yvwpifioi, S. Chrysostom 
 adv. Judmos, Op. I. 770 a. 
 
PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIAN WOESHIP. 11 
 
 magistrate, and from that day to this a Rite, which, 
 under its simplest and most obvious aspect, ' sets forth ' 
 and commemorates the cruel and ignominious death of 
 its Institutor, has been uninterruptedly celebrated, and 
 regarded as the most solemn ordinance of their religion 
 by all orders and degrees of men. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 
 Ttjc yai-qixnv Tov fieyaXov dujUiTOS. 
 
 EnsEBiua. 
 
 Before proceeding to an examination of the causes that 
 can be assigned for this unparalleled revolution in the 
 religious history of mankind, there are one or two addi- 
 tional points bearing on what has been said in the pre- 
 ceding Chapter which are deserving of attention. 
 
 Without opening the controverted question as to 
 the origin of the sacrificial ritual which once so univer- 
 sally obtained throughout the world, or attempting any 
 precise analysis of the motives that led to its observance, 
 it may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that 
 in their most general acceptation sacrifices were 'gifts 
 by means of which man strove to make good his imper- 
 fect consecration of himself to God, who is his lawful 
 Lord They were based on a sense, more or less vivid, 
 of imperfection, of a gulf fixed between the oflferer and 
 God; and their general prevalence over the heathen 
 1 See Archbp. Thomson's Bampton Lcctura, p. 31. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 13 
 
 world, proves, in the language of Bishop Butler, that 
 'the idea of repentance being sufficient to expiate guilt, 
 is contrary to the general sense of mankind'.' 
 
 Now, no one will venture to account for the cessa- 
 tion of the ancient sacrificial system on the ground that 
 man's sense of personal imperfection, and his conscious- 
 ness of sin have ceased also, or disappeared like the 
 phantoms of a troubled dreaml So far is this from 
 being so, that it may be safely affirmed that there never 
 was a time when these emotions have more powerfully 
 and more generally affected the human heart than 
 during the last eighteen hundred years. 
 
 The very words 'sin and 'transgression have ac- 
 qiiired a meaning infinitely deeper and more searching 
 than they ever bore in the mouths of the wisest of the 
 great moral teachers of Greece and Rome I A code of 
 morality has been promulgated, and has been accepted 
 by the most civilized nations, which deepens and in- 
 tensifies the sternest demands of the Mosaic law, and 
 brings out as was never brought out before, the in- 
 finite distance between the creature and an all-pure 
 Creator. Words such as were certainly never before 
 spoken by man have been reverberating through the 
 last eighteen centuries, demanding the obedience not 
 
 1 Butler's Analogy, Part il. cbap. 5. 
 
 2 The great exception to the practice of sacrifice is in the system of 
 Buddhism, ' but along with sacrifice, Buddhism rejects the notion that 
 lay at the root of it, namely, that past sin presents any objective ob- 
 stacle to the sinner's return to God.' See Macdonnel's Donnellan 
 Lectures, p. 90 and DOte xxiv. Archbp. Thomson's Hampton Lectures, 
 note 30, p. -264. 
 
 * See Archbp. Trench's New Testament Synonyms, Part 11. p. 63. 
 
14 THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 
 
 merely of the hand or the head but of the heart, and 
 tracing all shortcoming to the inmost recesses of the 
 conscience. A Voice has been heard, saying, 
 
 It was said hy them of old time, Thou shalt not 
 kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of 
 the judgment: but I say unto you. That whosoever 
 is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in 
 danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his 
 brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council, but 
 whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of 
 hell-fire^. 
 
 It was said by them of old time. Thou shalt not 
 commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever 
 looketh on a woman to lust after her has committed 
 adultery already with her in his ficart'. 
 
 It hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, 
 and hate thine enemy: but I say \mto you. Love your 
 enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them 
 that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use 
 you and persecute you ^ 
 
 There is nothing from without a man, that entering 
 into him can defile him: but the things which come out 
 of him, those are they that defile the 'man., for from 
 within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, 
 adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, 
 wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, 
 pride, foolishness: all these things come from within, 
 and defile the man*. 
 
 1 Matt. V. 21, 22. 
 
 s Matt. V. 43, 44. 
 
 3 Matt. T. 2-i, 28. 
 
 * Mark vii. 15, •21—23. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS EEVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 15 
 
 This Voice has not only been heard, but it has con- 
 vinced successive generations of men of their short- 
 comings, of the great gulf between them and that 
 righteousness which alone can be acceptable in the 
 sight of the All-holy. They have agreed to listen to 
 that Voice, and however much in actual fact they may 
 fail to conform to its requirements, it has been ever 
 accepted as exhibiting the standard of morality to which 
 they feel bound to aspire. 
 
 On the authority, morever, of the same Voice, it has 
 been the universal belief of mankind in all Christian 
 countries, that life has an awful and mysterious im- 
 portance, that it is but the portal of another life, that 
 at the close of the present order of things mankind are 
 to be judged according to the deeds done in the body, 
 whether they be good or whether they be evil, and that 
 on this judgment depend the most tremendous issues 
 whether of happiness or of misery for all time to come. 
 We do not affirm that this article of the faith, for it is 
 to be found in every Christian creed, has had anything 
 like that due and adequate effect on the lives and actions 
 of men which it ought to have had. But an influence 
 such as was never seen before the Christian era it cer- 
 tainly has exerted. In combination with other causes it 
 has gone far to foster a national conscience, and to deepen 
 the sense of individual responsibility for sins not merely 
 of the hand and mouth, but of the heart and thoughts, 
 so that there never was a time when sin was less 
 generally regarded with indifference, or the conscious- 
 ness thereof deemed an illusion and an infirmity. There 
 
16 THE KELIGIOUS REVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 
 
 never was a time when, in spite of his best actions, the 
 utter inability of man alone and unaided to satisfy the 
 just requirements of his Maker was more generally felt. 
 Martyrs, the most noble and heroic, have borne all the 
 agonies of the most refined torture with unflinching 
 fortitude, and holy men and women, in poverty and 
 obscurity, have yielded up their lives to death, and 
 with their latest breath have declared that in them- 
 selves 'dwelt no good thing,' that they were after all 
 but ' unprofitable servants.' 'God be merciful to me a 
 sinner' is the leading idea of the inscriptions on thou- 
 sands of gravestones in the stately cathedral and the 
 village churchyard, and bears silent testimony to the 
 deepest convictions of mankind. 
 
 And yet, though this is the case, those propitiatory 
 sacrifices once multiplied by the sons of men, especially 
 in seasons of national or domestic calamity, with frightful 
 prodigality \ have utterly ceased. Though the sense of 
 guilt, which prompted so many sacrifices, and in the 
 case of the Jewish nation called forth a peculiar and 
 
 1 Thus Augustus and Marcus Aurelius required so great a number 
 of beasts for their sacrifices that it was said A II oxen and calves hoped 
 and prayed that they miijht never return from their journeys, or cam- 
 paigns, eis othericise they iicre infullihli/ lost. Seneca, de Bene/, in. 2, At 
 the accession of Caligula 160,000 victims were slaughtered, and the same 
 Emperor had innocent men dressed out as victims, and then thrown 
 down precipices, as an atonement for his life. Suet. Cal. xiv. In the 
 time of Domitian the cities of the Hellespont being alanned by an 
 earthquake, public and private resources were drained to offer a very 
 special and secret sacrifice to Poseidon. Dullinger, II. 176, I So. The 
 annual sprinkling of the image of Jupiter Latiaris was of regular occur- 
 rence even in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. Minucius Felix, XXI. 30. 
 
THE KELIGIOUS REVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 17 
 
 special class of sacrifices', viz. sin and trespass offerings, 
 has been deepened and intensified to a degree even 
 Mosaism scarcely knew, yet the ancient sacrificial ritual 
 has never succeeded in regaining its hold ■ Though in 
 the main, man is now what he was during the ages 
 anterior to Christianity, though he is still a being 
 subject to all the vicissitudes of earthly existence, 
 though he still 'cometh up, and is cut down like a 
 flower,' has 'still but a short time to live, and is full of 
 misery,' though he is still sensible of all the profound 
 emotions which once called forth the ancient sacrifices, 
 and even prompted man to give the fruit of his body 
 for tJie sin of his soul, though in his efforts to rid him- 
 self of the consciousness of personal shortcoming he has 
 from time to time resorted to the wildest religious 
 extravagances and voluntarily submitted to the most 
 painful self-torture — yet he has never sought relief in a 
 system which for four thousand years was universally 
 recognised as the proper external means for making 
 good man's imperfect consecration of himself to God. 
 
 Now it will not be denied that this constitutes the 
 most singular feature of the religious revolution which 
 has taken place. If sacrificial observances formed, as 
 we know they did, an invariable part of ancient reli- 
 gious worship, when the sense of sin was confessedly 
 weak, how is it that when it has been so deepened and 
 intensified the old sacrificial ritual has not revived? If 
 it be said that legislative decrees repressed them, that 
 the sentiment of mankind was gradually alienated from 
 1 See Kurtz'3 Sacuficial System, p. 197, E.T. 
 
 2 
 
18 THE EELIGIOUS REVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 
 
 them, we reply by asking not only how comes it to pass 
 that legislation', in religious matters so notoriously weak 
 and incompetent, has succeeded in banishing so effectually 
 such a time-honoured system, but whence came the 
 spirit that inspired that legislation, what povjerful 
 causes, and they must certainly have been very powerful, 
 which were able to produce such a surprising revolution 
 in the sentiment of mankind? 
 
 But if the ancient sacrificial system has disappeared, 
 in spite of the deeper sense of individual responsibility 
 for sins even of the thoughts which has taken hold of 
 the world, and in spite, too, of the belief which has 
 grown up of a tenible and just judgment to be meted 
 out to every man hereafter 'according to the deeds done 
 in the bod}^' what has become of the old sacrificial 
 phraseology, of the words and phrases which for genera- 
 tion and generation men were wont to use when speak- 
 ing of the objects at which they aimed when presenting 
 their various sacrifices? Have such expressions as 
 'victim' and 'offering,' 'oblation ' and 'satisfaction,' 'pro- 
 pitiation' and 'atonement' vanished from the language 
 of Christian nations? Do we find them like fossils in 
 the Mosaic law, or trace them only in the pages of the 
 great heathen writers ] Have they fallen out of the 
 Christian vocabulary, or retired from it as expressive of 
 worn-out and useless ideas and conceptions? Or have 
 they found a centre to which to attach themselves, an 
 historical fact with which to associate? 
 
 ^ On the decree of TheoJosiiis, a.d. 381, ajainst sacrifice, see Gib- 
 on, ur. 413. Smitli's EJ. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 19 
 
 From the first hour of its institution to the present, 
 they have never failed to be associated with that ordi- 
 nance to which reference has been made in the preced- 
 ing Chapter, and with the death it 'sets forth' and com- 
 memorates'. For though they who first celebrated tliis 
 Rite, and handed it down to us, were not only not philo- 
 sophers, or men of great mental attainments, but poor 
 and illiterate ; though they had from their earliest child- 
 hood lived and moved amidst the old sacrificial system ; 
 though from habit, from association, from predilection, 
 they would have been naturally inclined to maintain 
 that system, and vehemently opposed to its abolition; 
 they yet never faltered in their declaration that that 
 system was not so much abolished, as perfectly and 
 completely fulfilled, realized, and accomplished by the 
 death which the Institutor of this Rite underwent ; and 
 they transfer to it, not with careful and elaborate expla- 
 nations, not with doubt and hesitation as to their j^ro- 
 priety, not as though they were using strange language 
 incapable of being understood by their contemporaries, 
 but naturally, unaffectedly, and without strain or effort, 
 words and jArases once exclusively employed in the 
 vocabulary of that sacrificial system which has so mar- 
 vellously disappeared. Thus in a letter, the authenticity 
 of which has never been disputed^ written to the 
 Church of Corinth, in or near the year A.D. 57, that is, 
 
 ^ See Waterland on the Doctrinal Use of the Christian Sacraments, 
 Works, VIII. 130. 
 
 2 Even Strauss admits the genuineness of St Paul's Eijistles. Lcbcn 
 Jesu, E. T. I. 60. 
 
 2—2 
 
20 THE KELIGIOUS KEVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 
 
 only twenty-four years after the death of the Institutor 
 of this Rite, He is called a Paschal Victim^; in the same 
 letter the writer distinctly compares this Rite with the 
 sacrificial feasts of heathen nations^ In another, written 
 in the following year to the same Church, he ascribes 
 to the death thus shown forth the reconciliation of 
 mankind to God^, the very object of the ancient sacri- 
 fices. Similar expressions occur in other letters, written 
 not to prove this especial point but on widely-different 
 subjects; while in one addressed to men who had been 
 brought up all their lives under the Mosaic ritual, the 
 same writer, or at least one deeply imbued with his 
 spirit and mode of thought, devotes several chapters to 
 develope the complete fulfilment of that system by the 
 death of the Institutor of this Rite. Thus he repeatedly 
 applies to Him the title of High-priest* ; he draws out 
 in detail a comparison between Him and the Jewish 
 liigli-priests ; he speaks of Him as entering into the 
 Holy Place with His oiun hlood^; of His offering Him- 
 self without S2wt unto God^, of His being manifested 
 to 2mt away sin by the sacrifice of Himself', of His 
 being once offered to bear the sins of many*; he de- 
 clares that Christians have an altar of which they 
 might not eat who served the Tabernacle^; he exhorts 
 
 ^ I Cor. V. 7. ' I Cor. x. 21. 
 
 2 Cor. V. 18, 19; comp. Eom. v. 10, 11. A more specific refer- 
 ence to these passages will be found below in Chap. IX. 
 
 * Heb. ii. 17 ; iii. i ; iv. 14 ; v. 10; vi. 20; viii. i ; ix. 11. 
 
 5 Heb. i.x. 12. Heb. i.-c. 14. ^ Heb. ix. 26. ^ Heb. ix. 28. 
 
 ^ Heb. xiii. 10. Ou evaia<rTripwv as contrasted with ^unos, see 
 Archbp. Trench's lY. T. Synonyms, 2nd series, pp. 78—80. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED. 21 
 
 his readers to offer continually the sacrifice of thanks- 
 giving to God through Him, Who, that He might sanc- 
 tify the people with His own blood, suffered without the 
 gateK Concurrently with the spontaneous use of this 
 phraseology we find no single precept enjoining the 
 observance of one of the ancient sacrificial ceremonies ; 
 but we discover that this Rite was uninterruptedly cele- 
 brated, in spite of the mysteriously simple and ordinary 
 features it must have presented to men living in a sacri- 
 ficial age, and that not after the lapse of centuries, but 
 from the first it gathered to itself and the death it com- 
 memorates, the varied conceptions of the old sacrificial 
 terminology. Thus to say nothing of the formal Liturgies 
 which it inspired, we find in the age immediately suc- 
 ceeding that of the first disciples, one writer, about 
 A.D. 95, applying to it the name Upoa-^opa, or 'oblation^;' 
 another, about A.D. 107, calls it Evxapto'rla, 'a sacrifice 
 of thanksgiving';' another of fifty years afterwards, or 
 A.D. 150, calls it a @u<Tia, or 'sacrifice*;' another, about 
 A.D. 250, calls it a U.acrj(a, or 'Paschal Feast^' 
 
 Now no one will deny that these names have a clear 
 and distinct reference to sacrificial ideas and concep- 
 tions; they are no new names coined now for the first 
 
 ^ Heb. xiii. 15, 12. 
 
 ^ Clemens Romanus, Eiy. I. ad Cor. c. 44. See Waterland on the 
 Eucharist, VII. 26 ; Guericke's AiUiquities of the Christian Church, 
 p. ^5.V 
 
 ^ Ignatius, Ep. ad Smyrn. vn. viiL XX. See Domer on the Person 
 of Christ, I. 99. 
 
 Justin Martyr, Dial, cum Tiijph. p. 137. 
 " Origen, contr. Celsum, vill. 759, Ed. Ben. ; see Waterland, vii. 41. 
 
22 THE KELIGIOUS REVOLUTION THUS ATTESTED, 
 
 time to express thoughts hitlierto unknown; they 
 'belong to a vocabulary of sacrificial language, familiar 
 alike to Jew and Gentile',' they are not elaborately and 
 anxiously explained, justified, or defended, as though 
 those who heard them were likely to stand aghast at 
 their appropriation to tliis Eite ; they are enunciated 
 boldly, fearlessly, without dread of the consequences. 
 And who, we ask again, were they that first so applied 
 them ? Who were they that initiated this astonishing 
 revolution in the religious observances of mankind? 
 Tliey were not dreamy philosophers elaborating in some 
 calm retreat a scheme to reconcile different religious 
 systems. They were not Jewish priests learned in the 
 ritual of the Law, or prominent members of any great 
 sacerdotal order of the Gentiles. They were twelve 
 humble men, of slender literary attainments, whose 
 lives were all, more or less, one long-continued 
 martyrdom, who had no time for philosophical dreaming 
 or speculation, who from the very first day that they 
 began to proclaim their tenets were exposed to the 
 frown of the magistrate and the bigotry of their nation. 
 And their preaching, so far from being regarded as the 
 ravings of enthusiastic dreamers, 'has overcome the 
 world;' has been accepted as containing the 'highest 
 pliilosophy' by some of the greatest intellects that the 
 world has seen ; has brought about the greatest religious 
 revolution of any age ; has succeeded in obtaining for a 
 Kite, vthich, under its first and most obvious aspect, 
 
 ' See Freeman's Princijilcs of Didne Service, II. 91. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS RKVOLUTIOX THUS ATTESTED. 23 
 
 commemorates an ignominious and cruel death, an 
 unintcrruj^ted celebration for eighteen hundred years, 
 and an attachment so strong that multitudes would 
 rather part with their lives than lose the benefits which 
 the}^ beheve to be therein signed and sealed to them. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLANATIONS OF THIS RELIGIOUS 
 REVOLUTION. 
 
 "Orav yap \(yovai, TroSev S^Xox Sri hiBri 6 Xpioris ; nfra tCiv iWoiv, 
 Kal iirb fivaTT/plwv airrovs iiruTTOixi^oixev, el yap firj arridavtv o 'ItjcoOs, 
 rlyos aifi^oKa rk Ttkovniva ;■ — S. Chbtsostoji. 
 
 From what has been advanced, then, in the preceding 
 Chapter, it appears that amongst all Christian nations, 
 that is, among the most civilized nations of the present 
 day, a marvellous revolution in their religious ob- 
 servances has taken place, (i.) For upwards of 4000 
 years, to adopt the common chronology, there existed 
 among all nations a peculiar mode of approaching the 
 Supreme Being, namely, with the sacrifice of piacular 
 victims. These sacrifices have entirely disappeared. 
 (ii.) The most powerful emotion on which they were 
 based was man's sense of imperfection, his consciousness 
 of shortcoming, and a felt necessity for something more 
 than personal repentance to expiate guilt. During the 
 last eighteen hundred years this sense of guilt, instead 
 of being obliterated, has gained a deeper and stronger 
 hold of the minds of men, and that to a greater extent 
 than ever was known before; and yet, though this is the 
 
ALLEGED EXPLANATIONS, &C. 
 
 25 
 
 case, the ancient sacrificial system has never been revived. 
 (iii.) During the same period a Rite has been uninter- 
 ruptedly celebrated, presenting in the mysterious sim- 
 plicity of its 'outward and visible signs' the strongest 
 possible contrast to the ancient sacrificial system, and 
 yet associating with itself the terminology of that sys- 
 tem, and claiming to embody its fulfilment, (iv.) It 
 has obtained this uninterrupted and universal celebra- 
 tion, though its Institutor, on the testimony both of 
 friends and enemies, appeared in an obscure corner of 
 the Roman empire, was born in the humblest circum- 
 stances, attracted to Himself during His lifetime a few 
 equally humble followers, and having achieved no vic- 
 tories, having conciliated no prejudices, ivas, at the insti- 
 gation of its rulers, put to death, and did actually die the 
 death of the malefactor and the slave. 
 
 For this unparalleled revolution we now seek an 
 adequate and consistent explanation, one, that is, which 
 will harmonise its otherwise startling and contradictory 
 phenomena, and explain how it originated, not, it is to 
 be remembered, at a period so distant as to be lost in a 
 fabulous antiquity, but at ' a period of which we know a 
 great deal, and within historic times\' 
 
 These data, then, at once supply us with a test 
 whereby we may measure the adequacy of certain ex- 
 planations of this revolution which have found more or 
 less numerous advocates. 
 
 i. It has been held, then, that it originated in impos- 
 
 ' See Aids to Faith, p. 71 ; Rawlinson's Bampton Lectures, p. 221. 
 
23 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLANATIOXS 
 
 tare. To the Christian the mere mention of such an 
 opinion is revolting, but it is necessary to revert to it 
 for a few moments. And here it will not be necessary 
 to repeat what has been urged again and again ever 
 since the days of the opponents of Celsus and Juhan, or 
 to ask how it is possible that the character of an impostor 
 can be attributed to One whom unbelievers themselves 
 have agreed to recognise as the purest and holiest being 
 that ever lived; whose words and teaching have been 
 regarded as the most exalted and superhuman that the 
 world has ever heard ^ ; whose morality has incorporated 
 itself with the civil polity and domestic relations of the 
 most civilized nations of the present day; whose example 
 has covered a considerable portion of the globe with 
 beneficent and philanthropic institutions utterly un- 
 known before He came? Nor, if the charge be shifted 
 to His first disciples, need we ask how it is possible that 
 twelve poor illiterate men can be believed to have 
 leagued themselves together to proclaim to the world a 
 story which they knew to be false; that they should all 
 have unanimously resolved to maintain the same story, 
 and that too based upon the same evidence ; that they 
 should have further done this though they had not a 
 single particle of worldly interest therein, and by pro- 
 claiming it voluntarily and knowingly exposed them- 
 selves to the hostility, the odium, the contempt of their 
 o^vn nation, and brought upon themselves continual 
 
 ' See S. Chrysostora, nrfc. Judceos, Op. I. 772 A. Ed. Ben. Also a 
 f.trikiug quotation from J. J. Kousseau on the character of Jesus, quoted 
 by Hoine in his Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures, 1. 422. 
 
OF THIS RELIGIOUS EEVOLUTIOX. 
 
 27 
 
 peril and the constant expectation of a violent death'? 
 We need not dwell upon these points, for, besides other 
 reasons, they lie outside the limits of our present argu- 
 ment. We will rather ask Avhether it is credible that 
 One conscious of such imposture could, a few hours 
 before undergoing a cruel and ignominious death, have 
 not only been exempt from all natural apprehensions 
 respecting it, but have calmly and deliberately insti- 
 tuted a Eite to commemorate and 'shew forth' that 
 death for all future time? We will ask whether it is 
 credible even for a moment that the first disciples could 
 have observed a Rite so instituted in spite of the shame 
 and degradation it implied, and have transferred to the 
 Death it symbolized all those sacrificial expressions and 
 conceptions which they had been wont to connect with 
 an august and elaborate ritual consecrated by the vene- 
 ration of ages? We will ask whether it is credible 
 that before a Rite so instituted, a time-honoured sacri- 
 ficial ritual should have gradually disappeared, as his- 
 tory proves it has; and that Christian Churches, though 
 differing from one another in many particulars, and made 
 by their very differences the more jealous guardians of 
 their traditions and ceremonies, should have nnani- 
 mously agreed to celebrate it, and at the same time 
 proclaim with one voice, not that man's consciousness 
 of sin and imperfection is an idle dream, but the stern- 
 
 ^ See StiHingfleet's Orir;. Sacra:, Book II. chap. 9 ; Milman'a Bampton 
 Lectures, p. 51. On the contrary arsjument, that all religions have had 
 their martyrs, see Sherlock's Trial of the Witnesses, Works, Vol. iv. 
 
28 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLANATIONS 
 
 est reality — aye, infinitely more real than the greatest 
 moral teachers of Greece and Rome even conceived? 
 When an authenticated instance of men conscious of 
 imposture requiring of their disciples the most exalted 
 morality, and willingly devoting themselves to odium, 
 contempt, danger, and death, can be adduced, then it 
 will be time to consider the opinion that the institution 
 of this mysterious Rite can have originated in impos- 
 ture, as deserving even of a moment's attention. 
 
 ii. But, secondly, it has been held that this revolu- 
 tion originated in the popular imagination of the era of 
 the Advent, excited hy Messianic hopes. It is asserted 
 that the countrymen and followers of the Institutor of 
 this Rite were strongly prepossessed by the national 
 expectations of a coming Messiah, and that His appear- 
 ance. His teaching. His spotless life so won upon them, 
 that after His death they believed Him to be the pro- 
 mised Messiah, and celebrated His memory accordingly*. 
 
 It may be well, therefore, in dealing with this 
 opinion, to inquire briefly what were the expectations of 
 the person or work of the Messiah at the time when the 
 Institutor of this Rite appeared. That from the ear- 
 liest period of their national history the Jews had been, 
 pre-eminently ' the people of the future,' that they were 
 at the period in question filled with the hope that an 
 extraordinary Being should appear and realize the idea 
 of a Messiah or Deliverer, is conceded on all sides. Now 
 the characteristics they chiefly attributed to Him were 
 
 1 See Mill's Pantheism, p. S5 ; Ebrard's Gospel Xarrative, p. •24. 
 
OF THIS KELIGIOUS KEVOLUTION. 
 
 29 
 
 regal, and prophetic. They looked for a great Con- 
 queror, whom God would send; they invested Him 
 with the attributes of majesty and humanity; they 
 described Him as the ' Elect One,' ' the Anointed,' the 
 ' Son of Man,' the ' King from the sons of Jesse,' who 
 ' should execute a terrible vengeance on the enemies of 
 His people,' who should 'go forth from them, and be 
 revealed from the midst of them, and teach them the 
 worship of the Lord'.' But we search the Apocalyptic 
 literature of the pre-Cliristiau era, and the Targums^ 
 contemporary with that era, alike in vain for any clear 
 recognition of the fact that the work of the Messiah 
 would have any definite relation to the ancient sacrificial 
 system, or prepare for its cessation. A single fragment 
 of the popular literature, though 'distinguished from 
 the Apocalyptic writings by a clearer recognition of the 
 sins of the joeople,' and exhibiting more fully the spi- 
 ritual character of the reign of the Messiah, betrays an 
 expectation that ' he will bruise unjust rulers,' 'cleanse 
 Jerusalem,' ' remove sinners,' ' shake the earth with his 
 word,' ' bless His people,' and ' rule over the Gentiles ;' 
 but the idea that He will die does not once occur; 
 and so far from there being any trace in early Jewish 
 writings of a belief in ' the substitution of a spiritual for 
 a ritual lawV the object of their highest hopes is the 
 
 ^ See Westcott's Introduclion to the New Testament, pp. 92, 95, and 
 the quotations from the ' Book of Henoch,' and the ' Sibylline Oracks;' 
 Ebrard, p. 486. 
 
 ' On the ideas of the JleSsiah'a Person and Work in the Targums, 
 see Ebrard, 487. 
 
 Weatcutt, p. 123, n. 
 
30 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLANATIONS 
 
 ' permanent establishment of the Law as the rule of the 
 whole earth \' The idea of a temporal king, fighting 
 and conquering, and exalting the nation above all other 
 nations, recurs again and again in the literature of this 
 era, ' and perfectly coincides with what we know of the 
 disposition of the Jewish people at this period, with the 
 material character of their hopes, with their exclusive 
 preoccupation about the temporal and political work of 
 the Messiah, and finally with their immoderate predi- 
 lection for the doctrine of angels and demons ^' 
 
 Exactly similar are the inferences we gather from 
 the popular expectations of the Messiah, so far as we 
 obtain glimpses of them in the Gospel narrative and 
 the writings of Josephus. Everywhere, we learn, there 
 was a feverish anxiety respecting the coming of the 
 Messiah. The appearance of the Baptist at the banks 
 of Jordan, recalling by his garb and preaching the old 
 prophets, was the signal for all J erusalem, Judea, and 
 the country round about to flock to His baptism, mus- 
 intr whether he were the Messiah or no^ It was the 
 opinion of the national teachers that His coming would 
 be heralded by Elias, and the belief was shared by the 
 
 1 'It was a common and generally received opinion among the 
 Jewish nation, that ]\Iessiah when He came should no whit alter, much 
 less abolish any of their Mosaic ordinances, but should enliance them to 
 a "reater glory. That Be should make their sacrifices, purifications, 
 sabbaths, festivals, and all other usances, far more resplendent and 
 glorious than ever they had been.' Lightfoofs Sermons, W(/rks, p. 
 JO45, folio edition. 
 
 Pressense's RcUyions before Clirht, 235, 6. 
 
 3 John i. 41 ; Matt. iii. 5 ; Luke iii. 15 ; John iii. 26; Luke xvii. 20. 
 
OF THIS EELIGIOUS KEVOLUTIOX. 
 
 31 
 
 common people'; but there was considerable uncer- 
 tainty as to the manner of His appearance, tt7ie/i 
 Christ Cometh, said the people of Jerusalem, no man 
 knoiveth tuhence He is''. It was, however, regarded as 
 certain that He should be born at Bethlehem, the city 
 of David^; that He should be David's son*, and should 
 sit on David's throne; that He should abide for ever, 
 and set up a kingdom in which He would dispense 
 honours on His right hand and on His left''. With 
 these regal characteristics of His person and work 
 others combined prophetic functions, and looked for 
 the Prophet that should come into the ivorld^, ex- 
 pecting from Him signs not unlike the giving of the 
 manna in the wilderness, and instruction in all tilings''. 
 But whether their anticipations fastened most fondly 
 on His regal or prophetic characteristics, the idea that 
 He would ever suffer or die never once occurs. Though 
 in the Temple of Prophecy there had from the begin- 
 ning ever been heard two Voices mysteriously blended, 
 one jubilant and glad, telling of victory and of triumph, 
 and the other mournful and subdued, whispering of 
 shame and suffering, yet to one of these Voices only 
 had attention ever been paid; and it was resolutely 
 maintained that these prophecies of a suffering ' servant 
 
 1 Jlatt. xvii. lo and the parallels; conip. also xvi. 14. 
 
 2 John vii. 27. 
 
 ' Matt. ii. 5 ; comp. Jolm vii. 4r, 4?. 
 
 * Comp. Matt. xxii. 42; xii. 23; ix. 27; xx. 30; xv. 22; xxi. 9. 
 ^ Matt. XX. 2 I ; Mark x. 37. 
 
 ° Comp. John vi. 14, with which comp. John i. 21, 46; vii. 40 ; 
 
 I Mace. xiv. 4 1 . 
 ' John iv. 25. 
 
32 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLANATIONS 
 
 of God' applied to the nation or the heathen \ or that 
 there would be two Messiahs, the one to suffer, the 
 other to triumj^h. In complete harmony with this we 
 find that during His lifetime, the disciples of the Insti- 
 tutor of this Rite shrunk with horror and amazeinent 
 from the idea that He ever could die'^, up to the last 
 moment could not bring themselves to believe that such 
 an event ever would come to pass, and, when it did come 
 to pass, deemed every hope lost, and every expectation 
 disappointed'. As for the idea that by His death He 
 would inaugurate a new cycle of history, or that the old 
 sacrificial system would pass away, we do not find a 
 single trace of anything approaching to it in the Gospel 
 narrative as forming part of the national expectation of 
 the Messiah's work. On the contrary, if there was a 
 zealous determination to maintain one thing more than 
 another, it was the Law with its ritual and its ordi- 
 nances. The true popular idea of the Messiah receives 
 illustration from the writings of Josephus, and is realized 
 in such men as the Sorcerer, who, during the procu- 
 ratorship of Fadus, persuaded the great mass of the 
 people to take up their property and follow him to the 
 river Jordan, saying that he would divide the river by 
 his command, and give them an easy passage, and 
 thereby deceiving many*; or the Egyptian, who like- 
 
 ^ See Bishop Browne's Sermons on The Messiah as Expected, pp. 
 86, 87. Ebrard's Gospel History, p. 487. 
 
 - Comp. Matt. xvii. 22, 1^ with the parallels. 
 
 ' Luke xxiv. 21 ; John xx. 9. Comp. Milman's Bampton Lectures, 
 p. 47. 
 
 * Josephus, Antiq. XX. 5, i. See Westcott's Introduction to the 
 Gospd Narrative, p. 125; Ebrard's Gospel Uistory, 491. 
 
OF THIS RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION. 
 
 33 
 
 wise persuaded the people that he was a prophet, and 
 led thirty thousand from the wilderness to the Mount 
 of Olives, promising to show them the walls of Jeru- 
 salem falling prostrate at his command'. Such, Josej^hus 
 tells us, were but a few out of many who persuaded the 
 people to indulge rash hopes, and led them forth into 
 the wilderness under the idea that they should witness 
 signs and prodigies, the precursors of their deliverance 
 and restoration to independence ^ ' Some of these men,' 
 remarks Paley, ' it is probable might be impostors, who 
 thought that an advantage was to be taken of the state 
 of public opinion. Others, perhaps, were enthusiasts, 
 whose imagination had been drawn to this particular 
 object by the language and sentiments which prevailed 
 around them. But, whether impostors or enthusiasts, 
 they concurred in producing themselves in the character 
 which their countrymen looked fur, that is to say, as 
 the restorers and deliverers of the nation, in that sense 
 in which restoration and deliverance were expected by 
 the Jewsl' 
 
 Such, then, were the popular anticipations of the 
 character and work of the Messiah at the era of the 
 Advent. Neither in the early Jewish literature, nor 
 in the writings of Hillel, of Philo, of Josephus, do we 
 
 1 Joseph. B. J. II. 134, 135; Anllq. xs. 8. 6. Tliese in.^tances are 
 a sufficient indicatiou of the kind of miracles which the nation expected 
 from tile Messiah. 
 
 2 ' In all of these we find not merely that they pretended to be or- 
 dlnary prophets, but that they declare themselves to be filled with the 
 Spirit of God, and to be commissioned in a miraculous way to secure for 
 the people poUlical freedom.' Ebrard, 491. 
 
 ^ Paley's Evidences, Part 11. chap. 11. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLANATIONS 
 
 trace any expectation that the Messiah would sustain 
 any relation to the Jewish sacrificial system ; that the 
 ancient ritual would disappear in consequence of His 
 work\ And the fact that from the beginning the Jews 
 were the most inveterate enemies with whom the Chris- 
 tians had to contend, that till this day they have re- 
 jected the claims of Christ to be the true Messiah, that 
 His teaching offended the great men of His nation and 
 its leaders, that by the course He took He disappointed 
 His brethren and His disciples, and every hope and 
 predilection of the people, must be a suflScient proof 
 that the origin of the most extraordinary rehgious revo- 
 lution the world has seen cannot be ascribed to the 
 popular imagination of the age excited by Messianic 
 hopes. 
 
 iii. But, thirdly, it has been maintained that this 
 religious revolution had its origin in a gradually de- 
 veloped mytliology. It is affirmed that after the death 
 of the Institutor of this Rite, His disciples were fiUed 
 T,'ith a vehement desire to reconcile His fate with the 
 hopes respecting His person and work they had so 
 fondly nurtured, and in some way to harmonise His 
 sufferings and death with their Messianic ideas. Ap- 
 plying to His sufferings the numerous passages in the 
 Old Testament in which men of God are described as 
 suffering and put to death, they 'modified their pre- 
 
 1 ' All who were zealous for the law, and they then included nine- 
 tenths of the nation, were resolyed to recognise no one as the true 
 Messias unless he equalled and surpassed themselves in its observance 
 with .all its definitions, and in all its in'nutis, and with the whole "hedge" 
 of interpretation around it.' DbUinger's Jew and Gentile, U. 331. 
 
OF THIS KELIGIOUS REVOLUTION. 
 
 35 
 
 vious notions of the Messiah so as to suit such facts of 
 His history as could not be denied,' and then, pressed 
 by the objection that the true Messiah would work 
 miracles, they ascribed miracles to Him suggested 
 partly by well-known sayings of His, and partly by 
 incidents of the Old Testament*. 
 
 As to this extraordinary theory it may be observed 
 first, that it raises ten times more difficulties than it 
 explains. For, first of all, it requires of us to believe that, 
 not at a period lost in a fabulous antiquity, but during 
 one of which we know a great deal, and within historic 
 times ^, illiterate men, as we know the early disciples 
 were, could weave together such an extraordinary story 
 and persuade many of their countrymen to accept it. 
 It requires of us to receive this as the origin of the 
 most extraordinary revolution the world has seen, 
 though 'there is no known instance of a mythic his- 
 tory having grown up in such an age, under such 
 circumstances, or with such i-apidity' as is postulated 
 in this case. The age was a historical age, being that 
 of Dionysius, Diodorus, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, 
 
 1 See Ebrard's Gospel History, 475 ; Mill's Panlheism, p. 85. 
 
 2 ' A period as historical as any that the ancient world presents to 
 view ; in which the transactions of every province within the limits of 
 the late Macedonian and tlien Roman empire, — the barbarian, so termed, 
 as well as the Grecian, and the acts of Herod among the number, — were 
 the objects of research and careful narration, by natives of the soil as 
 well as by strangers.' MiU's Pantheism, Part 11. Sect. 2, p. 1 1 ; Eclipse 
 of Faith, p. 2 10. 
 
 3 ' For in A. D. i we find, by all remains of antiquity, that both Jews 
 and Gentiles were reposing in the shadow of their ancient superstitions; 
 and in A.D. 60, multitudes among different races had become the bigoted 
 adherents of this novel mytholor/y /' Eclipse of Faith, p. 210. 
 
 3—2 
 
36 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLANATIONS 
 
 Plutarch, Valerius Maximus, and Tacitus ; the country 
 was one where written records were kept, and historical 
 literature had long flourished; it produced, at the very 
 time when the New Testament documents were being 
 written, an historian of good repute, Josephus, whose 
 nan-ative of the events of his own time is universally 
 accepted as authentic and trustworthy. To suppose 
 that a mythology could be formed in such an age and 
 country, is to confuse the characteristics of the most 
 opposite periods— to ascribe to a time of luxury, over- 
 civilization, and decay, a phase of thought which only 
 belongs to the rude vigour and early infancy of nations'.' 
 
 But, secondly, if He who instituted this Rite did 
 not fulfil the national expectations of the Messiah, if 
 He disappointed every predilection and falsified every 
 hope they had entertained, whence the anxiety to 
 harmonise His fate with their previous ideas? my 
 did His disciples believe in Him any further? Why 
 did they not go back to their homes and decline to 
 trouble themselves with the matter, instead of courting 
 certain danger by proclaiming Him in the very city 
 where He had suffered a disgraceful end, as the Messiah 
 and Hope of the nation? It is credible that a convic- 
 tion that He was the Messiah may have attached them 
 to Him in the first instance as disciples, but when His 
 ignominious death gave the He to that conviction, it is 
 
 1 Rawlinson's Bampton Lecture,,^. 123; C<iutwnB for the Times. 
 
 cii- Sherlock's Trial of the Witnesses, Discourses, Vol. iv. p. 360. 
 'The idea of men writing mythic histories between the time of Livy and 
 Tacitus, and St Paul mistakmg such for realities !' Dr Arnold, Life, II. 
 p. 58. 
 
OF THIS RELIGIOUS KEVOLUTION. 
 
 37 
 
 simply incredible that a belief in Him should still have 
 survived. 
 
 But, again, on this supposition, what conceivable 
 motive can be assigned for their detaching themselves 
 more and more from the religious observances of their 
 forefathers, and in place of the ancient sacrificial ritual 
 inculcating upon their followers the observance of a 
 Rite which at every observance only proclaimed afresh 
 the disappointment of their former hopes'? "With what 
 object did they celebrate this Rite, and abstain from 
 imposing the celebration of any other? They had joined 
 in the sacrificial ritual of their foreftxthers for a clear 
 and intelligible purpose'. Handed down from genera- 
 tion to generation, consecrated by the associations of 
 the patriarchal age, and still more by the ordinances 
 of their great Lawgiver, it had held a momentous place 
 in tlieir religious life, and they had ever been taught to 
 beheve that thereby they made good the imperfect con- 
 secration of themselves to God. But if He who insti- 
 tuted this Rite neither really wrought the miracles they 
 ascribed to Him, nor satisfied their conceptions of the 
 person and work of the Messiah, how came they to 
 ap23ly to Him the most august terms of a system con- 
 secrated by so many memories? how came they to see 
 in His death tlie fulfilment of all previous sacrificial 
 observances? What motive could have influenced them 
 to isolate themselves from the religious views of the 
 entire body of the nation, to forget their national zeal 
 for the law and the traditions of the fathers, and, in 
 
 1 See Butler's Analogy, Part n. chap. vi. 
 
38 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLANATIONS 
 
 place of tBe varied and multiform ceremonies of ritual 
 sanctioned by the command of God Himself, to receive 
 themselves, and urge upon their followers, the celebra- 
 tion of a Rite so mysteriously simple as that of the 
 Reception of Bread and Wine, in memory of an igno- 
 minious death upon the cross ? 
 
 The force of this argument will be made apparent 
 by a few additional considerations. Not only were 
 they who first celebrated this Rite predisposed by every 
 association of their previous history to maintain the 
 existing sacrificial system, but, like that of the rest of 
 their nation, their religion was an unbending Mono- 
 theism ; they were opposed, with an intensity we can 
 hardly conceive, to anything that even seemed to de- 
 tract from the honour of Jehovah, the Lord of heaven 
 and earth. Since the day that their forefathers re- 
 turned from captivity, the Jewish people had not ceased 
 to evince the utmost possible repugnance to idolatry 
 in any form or shape. Oppressed and degraded as the 
 nation was, the slightest tendency on the part of their 
 rulers to enforce on them customs in the least degree 
 savouring of idolatry was the signal for an outbreak 
 of religious zeal which bore down everything before it. 
 Herod the Great could not adorn his theatre with re- 
 presentations of the victories of Caesar, or set up suits 
 of armour in token of it, without incurring the charge 
 of insulting the religious scruples of the people, and 
 provoking a furious tumult \ The Roman governors 
 
 1 Joseph. Antiq. IV. 8. 2. 'His attempt to place the Roman eagle 
 on one of his new buildings produced n violent outbreak, and the at- 
 
OF THIS RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION. 
 
 39 
 
 dared not introduce into the Holy City the military 
 standards, which were deemed idolatrous, not only as 
 bearing the symbol of the eagle, but also the image of 
 CiEsar. Nay, when Pilate ventured to break through 
 this rule, and introduced the obnoxious emblems during 
 the night, his prcetorium at Cajsarea was crowded for 
 six days by numbers clamouring for their removal, 
 upon whom threats of death were wasted, and who 
 declared their perfect readiness to die rather than see 
 their Law violated, so that the Procurator was utterly 
 unable to withstand their importunity', and was obliged 
 to remove the hated insignia. And later still the edict 
 of Caligula, demanding that divine honour should be 
 paid to himself, produced such a scene of tumult and 
 bloodshed that even the Emperor was fain to yield I 
 
 But what were these infringements of the Law 
 compared with the conduct of the disciples of the 
 Institutor of this mysterious Rite? What was the 
 unwitting caprice of a Herod, a Pilate, or a Caligula, 
 compared with the strange and unprecedented teach- 
 ing of this body of Jews, all zealous for the traditions 
 of the fathers, and one a Pharisee and former pupil 
 of the great Gamaliel ? For the Rite which they 
 observed, and which they inculcated on their followers, 
 
 tempt was not repeated. The extent to which the scruples of the Jews 
 on thi.s point were resspected by the Roman governors, is shewn by the 
 fact that no effigy of either God or emperor is found on the money coined 
 by them in Judea beforAthe war under Nero.' Ewald, Gcscliichte, v, 
 33, quoted in note on article Pontius Pilate in Smith's Bib. Dicliouary. 
 
 1 Joseph. Antiq. xviii. 3, 1.1; B.J. 11. 9, § 2, 4. 
 
 " Milman's Uislory of the Jews, 11. 133, &c. 
 
40 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLANATIONS 
 
 ascribed to the Institutor attributes before deemed to 
 belong exclusively to Jehovah. The words, Take, eat: 
 this is My Body, broken for you; This Cup is the New 
 Covenant in My Blood, which is shed for many for the 
 remission of sins, embodied in a palpable form the 
 idea that the Being here commemorated could forgive 
 sins, could exercise therefore the most awful and pecu- 
 liar prerogative of Deity; 'for who,' to quote an objec- 
 tion of the teachers of the age, 'could forgive sins, 
 but God only'?' Fearful of contamination with even 
 the semblance of idolatry, shrinking with horror even 
 from meat sold in the market that had been offered 
 to idols, jealous of the least thing that threatened to 
 derogate from the honour of their Law and the majesty 
 of their God, they yet celebrated a Rite which, while 
 it commemorated the death of One who yielded up 
 His life upon the cross, ascribed to Him those attributes 
 which they had been taught from their earliest years 
 belonged only to God. Bread which before, whether 
 at a solemn Paschal Feast, or at a Passover-Eve ser- 
 vice, or at an ordinary meaP, the "head of the family 
 
 ^ Mk ii. 7. ' The fact that men strictly trained in Jutlaisra, like 
 St Paul, give in their writings to Christ such high Divine predicates, 
 which stand in direct contradiction with Jewish monotheism, remains in- 
 explicahle, unless we presume a total and overmastering change of their 
 religious views.' Domer's Person of Ckrid, Vol. i. p. 47. E. T. 
 
 ^ The point here indicated will he more fully handled below ; mean- 
 while it will be sufijcient to refer in proof to Buxtorf 3 St/na^a ; to the 
 translation of the Mishna by Baphall, pp. 7,* 8; Godwyn's Moses and 
 Aaron; Stuckius de Convh iis; Freeman's Principles of IHrine Seii-ice, 
 pp. 294, 5, &c. ; and the Boole of Eeliyion, Ceremonies, and Prayers of the 
 Jews, by Gamaliel Ben Pedahzur, London, 1738. 
 
OF THIS RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION. 41 
 
 had broken, distributed, and eaten in remembrance of 
 the One Sujireme Jehovah, 'who had created the 
 fruit of the ground,' they now broke, distributed, and 
 ate in remembrance of One who had died upon 'the 
 accursed tree !' The cup of wine which on every 
 similar occasion they had drunk with special remem- 
 brance of the Lord their God ' who created the fruit of 
 the vine,' they now drank in memory of One whom, 
 ' a very scorn of men,' and ' an outcast from the 
 people,' they had seen suspended between two thieves; 
 nay, they drank it as symbolizing the blood ratifying a 
 new Covenant, and shed not for them only, but — marvel- 
 lous contrast to the exclusiveness of Judaism! — for 
 'many,' for the whole world, for 'the remission of 
 sins !' And this they did, though the whole genius 
 of Judaism was utterly opposed to human sacrifices; 
 though their past history suggested nothing analogous 
 to this Rite, for, herein differing from Gentile nations, 
 they had feasts indeed in 'memory of some great and 
 rare passage of Divine Providence,' but no single feast 
 in honour of any particular person, however high, how- 
 ever holy, Abraham, or Moses, or David' ! What pow- 
 erful and constraining motive can have induced plain 
 
 ^ ' yVe find among the Greeks their AiaKda in honour of yEacus, 
 their Kiavrda in honour of Ajax, and in later times ihtir' kvTi-yovda, 
 and such lilse, in remembrance of the merits of such persons, and how 
 highly they deserved of the places where their feasts were celebrated. 
 In like sort the Jews had their feasts in memory of some great and rare 
 passage of Divine Providence, though not of any particular persons, lest 
 they should be tempted to worship them as their Saviours, accordinr/ 
 as the custom of the heathen was. ' Patrick's Mensa Mystica, Works, i. 
 98, Ed. 1858. 
 
42 
 
 ALLEGED EXPLAKATIONS 
 
 unsophisticated men to celebrate themselves, and to in- 
 culcate on others, the celebration of a Rite so strange 
 and utterly unprecedented ? Whence this extraordi- 
 nary change of feeling towards the Law and the Ritual 
 of their fathers, consecrated by a thousand memories, 
 hallowed by the approval of God Himself? Whence, 
 almost at the same period, a readiness to rise in fren- 
 zied rebellion against the introduction into the Holy 
 City of the standards and image of the Emperor, and a 
 readiness to celebrate an ordinance which claimed for a 
 crucified Man the incommunicable attributes of Deity ? 
 And, still more, how comes it to pass that when the 
 followers of the lustitutor of this Rite carry it with 
 them into other lauds, and proclaim the story it 'shews 
 forth,' the same extraordinary change of feeling respect- 
 ing the ancient sacrificial ritual is found operating in 
 heathen nations, so that, to quote a single instance out 
 of many that might be adduced, a Roman governor 
 of Pontus and Bithynia could complain to the Emperor 
 Trajan, that, in consequence of the spread of the tenets 
 first jDreached by these plain unsophisticated men, the 
 temples of the gods were forsaken, the sacred solemni- 
 ties intermitted, and the victims found few pwcha-sers^ ? 
 
 ^ See C. Plin. Trajano Imp. Lib. x. Ep. xcvii. ' No evidence re- 
 mains,' remarks Paley, 'by which it can be proved that the Christiana 
 were more numerous in Pontus and Bithynia than in other ]iarts of the 
 Roman Empire ; nor lias any reason been offered to show why they should 
 be so. Christianity did not begin in these countries, nor near them. I 
 do not know, therefore, that we ought to confine the description in 
 Pliny's letter to the state of Christianity in those provinces, even if no 
 Other account of the same subject had come down to us.' Evidences, 
 Part II. chap. 9. 
 
OF THIS RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION. 
 
 43 
 
 From these considerations, then, it is apparent 
 that, if the Institutor of this Rite, while He claimed 
 to be the Messiah, passed away without doing any- 
 thing more than disappoint every Messianic hope and 
 predilection, no conceivable reason can be assigned 
 for their believing in Him at all after His death ; 
 for their voluntarily exposing themselves to labours, 
 dangers and sufferings, as believers in Him ; for the 
 unprecedented position, which, considering they were 
 Jews, they take up in reference to the Mosaic law ; 
 for their detaching themselves more and more from 
 the ancient sacrificial ritual, while they intensified the 
 feeling of guilt and individual shortcoming, of which 
 all sacrifice was the expression; for their receiving and 
 celebrating a Rite not only utterly alien to any simi- 
 lar institution of Judaism, not only recalling at each 
 celebration the disappointment of their former Mes- 
 sianic hopes, but ascribing to Him whose death was 
 therein symbolized the incommunicable prerogative of 
 Deity — the remission of sins; for their being able, on 
 proclaiming the story of His life and death in other 
 lands, to produce instinctively, and not hy force or 
 violence, an effect on the heathen sacrificial ritual which 
 has lasted from that day to this, and has obliterated 
 from the recollections of successive genei-ations a form 
 of religious worship once universal throughout the 
 world. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EXAMINATIOX OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 
 
 'n T/5007) avT-rj KoXe'rai vap' ijfuv EvxapiaTla' o65evl /icra- 
 cx^^" ^iov i(TTiv, fj Tip inaTcvovTi. dXTjBrj eivai to. deSioay/iiva i^' 7)nwy. 
 
 Jdstin SLvbttb. 
 
 These theories being utterly insufficient to account 
 for the reception of this Rite, or to explain the extraor- 
 dinary effect upon the ancient Jewish and Gentile 
 sacrificial customs which has instinctively accompanied 
 its reception, we turn to the Gospel Narrative, and pro- 
 ceed to enquire whether it can supply that adequate 
 and consistent explanation which we are seeking. 
 
 And before actually doing so, let us briefly reca- 
 pitulate the chief points which require explanation. 
 
 From the only account of the origin of this Rite 
 which has come down to us, we leam that its Insti- 
 tutor enjoined its celebration upon His followers be- 
 fore His death. 
 
 That death — the ignominious death of the male- 
 factor and the slave — which the concurrent testimony 
 of Christian and heathen writers declares that He un- 
 derwent, was the culminating point of the disappoint- 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARKATIVE. 45 
 
 ment His whole life had been to the hopes, the 
 anticipations, the predilections of His disciples. His 
 relatives and His nation. 
 
 His first disciples lived in a sacrificial age, and 
 had been trained in sacrificial habits from their earliest 
 years; in common with the rest of their nation they 
 were attached, with a devotion we can hardly realize, 
 to their ancestral faith, to its ordinances, its ceremonial, 
 and its traditions; they were intensely jealous of any 
 even the least interference -with their religion, and 
 were ready to die rather than see the least of its pecu- 
 liar institutions disregarded. 
 
 And yet they did not scruple to proclaim the fulfil- 
 ment of all the ordinances and ceremonies of their 
 ancient faith in the death of their Master; though they 
 had been brought up vinder a rigid monotheism they from 
 the first transferred to Him the attributes of the one 
 true God; wherever they went they succeeded in per- 
 suading men to accept and celebrate a Rite which 
 commemorated His death ; and wherever this Rite has 
 been accepted the ancient sacrificial ritual has entirely 
 disappeared. 
 
 These are facts of histoiy. 
 
 i. Now it is inconceivable that they could have 
 done this, and at the same time proclaimed the worth- 
 lessness of the prevailing sacrificial ritual, unless the 
 death commemorated in the Eucharist could he regarded 
 not onhj as a propitiatory sacrifice, hut one ivhich, in 
 a far higher and more efficacious degree than they had 
 ever known before, realized to them that j)ardon of sin, 
 
46 EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 
 
 and that restoration to the Divine favour which they 
 had ever believed to he in some mysterious way secured 
 to them by the offering of the ancient sacrifices. We 
 repeat in a far higher and more efficacious degree^. For 
 ■we do not find this Rite ever put on equality vnth 
 other sacrificial rites however costly or splendid; the 
 latter are uniformly and unhesitatingly spoken of as 
 ' done away' and ' fulfilled.' 
 
 ii. To be able to speak of the death therein ' shewn 
 forth' as possessing this surpassing efficacy, it is clear 
 that the first observers of this Rite must have had some 
 indubitable -proof of the acceptance of the Sacrifice it 
 symbolized. They must have been able to appeal to 
 some clear attestation of its acceptance as a sacrifice 
 for sin. On a point of this kind imagination was 
 powerless. They must have been able to give some 
 satisfactory account of the matter, before they could 
 persuade multitudes of all nations to lay aside the?^ 
 ancient sacrifices, and adopt a Rite so novel and unpre- 
 cedented 2. 
 
 1 'In writings addressed to those whose religious system was entirely 
 based upon a doctrine of atonement, the point to be shewn was, not that 
 on atonement for sin was necessary, but that the Atonement itself, oi 
 which intelligent Jews must see that the blood of lambs and he-goats 
 could only be a type and a shadow, was to be found in its full substance 
 and reality in the Cross of Jesus Clirist.' Cowie's Huhean Lectures for 
 185s. P- H- 
 
 ^ 'The fact of a Christian Church hevn^ formed at all, notwithstand- 
 ing the shock which the idea of a crucified Messiah must necessarily 
 have given to the mind of every Israelite of that day, can only be ex- 
 plained on the assumption of the Divinity of Christ and the historical 
 reality of His Resurrection.' Ebrard's GospcZ -ffi's^ory, 447. 'We shall, 
 therefore, not say too much if we designate the Supper the climax of the 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 47 
 
 iii. And, further, when we look at the narrative 
 of the Institution of this Rite as it has come down to 
 us, we cannot but be struck with its remarkable brevity 
 and conciseness. Considering all that it was designed 
 to import, considering its utterly unprecedented cha- 
 racter as a Jewish institution, considering the shock 
 which the idea of commemorating the death of a 
 crucified Messiah must necessarily have given to the 
 mind of every Israelite of that day, it is brief to a 
 degi-ee perfectly astonishing. This brevity has been 
 noticed' as a proof of the genuineness of the narra- 
 tive. Had the account been forged, it is said, or had 
 it been introduced in a later age, it would certainlj' 
 have been more full and more formal. This brevity 
 is further worthy of note as proving that the first 
 disciples must have been -prepared for the contempla- 
 tion of the death of their Master in the light of a sacri- 
 fice, otherwise it is unaccountable that, in spite of its 
 unprecedented character, we find nowhere in the Epistles 
 any long, laboured, and special justification of the use 
 of this Rite in place of the ancient sacrificial ritual. 
 
 One main object, then, of our review of the Gospel 
 Narrative will be to shew that the minds of the first 
 disciples were prepared by their Master for this view 
 of His death. We shall try to group together all 
 the passages which bear upon this subject, and to shew 
 
 ancient Christian worship, in which the congregation celebrated its re- 
 conciHation with God in Christ, the Mediator between God and men ; 
 .and find in its uninterrupted celebration the first proof of the stcdfast 
 faith of the Church in the divine nature of Christ.' Dorner, I. 168. E. T. 
 1 Paley's Evidences, 
 
48 EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 
 
 how naturallj- and consistently they conspire together 
 towards this point, and are at the same time replete 
 with ' coincidences which, if ingenuity had been subtle 
 enough to fabricate, that same ingenuity would have 
 been too sagacious to conceal so deep, and which are 
 too numerous and striking to be the effect of acci- 
 dent \' From the beginning to the end, and not in 
 consequence of any after-thought or change of plan, 
 we shall see that the idea of the Saviour's death was 
 ever set forth as a sacrifice for sin ; in the institution 
 •of the Lord's Supper we shall trace the culminating 
 point of all previous revelations on this subject ; and 
 in the fact of the Resurrection we shall see the strongest 
 2)roof of the Divinity of the Saviour, and at the same 
 time of the acceptance of His death as an atonement 
 for the sins of the whole world. 
 
 Now it cannot be denied that the Saviour's public 
 ministry divides itself into two main parts, that the 
 Baptism inaugurates the one, the Transfiguration the 
 other I During the former period His actions and 
 teaching 'are a commentary on the text that Jesus 
 is the Christ of God.' He gathers to Him His dis- 
 ciples, lays down the laws of His kingdom, performs 
 His gi-eat redemptive works, the 'signs' of His Divine 
 mission ; then, not till then, does He begin to intimate 
 clearly and unmistakeably that He must ' suffer many 
 things.' 
 
 But on a somewhat closer examination we shall find 
 
 1 Eclipse of Faith, p. 312. 
 
 ^ Archbp. Thomson's Bamptm Lectures, p. 96. 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 49 
 
 that at sundry times and in divers manners^ iiitima- 
 tioas are given from the very beginning of the End 
 which awaited Him ; that it is the point from first to 
 last to which the Gospel Narrative tends as the fore- 
 appointed source of the blessings which the Saviour * 
 came to bestow upon mankind. 
 
 Let us, then, first consider the intimations made 
 during the period intervening between the Saviour's 
 birth and His visit to Jerusalem at the first Passover 
 of His public ministry. 
 
 And here the first point which claims our attention 
 is the fact that the explanation given by the angel 
 before His birth of His name, Jesus, assumes, from 
 the very commencement as the main purpose of His 
 entrance into the world, a definite connection ivith that 
 which lies at the root of all sacrifice, Jewish or Gentile, 
 namely. Sin, or a state of alienation from God. 
 
 The Name, which is above every name, was twice, as 
 we know, announced before His birth. On the first 
 occasion to the Virgin, on the second in a dream to 
 Joseph. To the Virgin the angel said, Fear not, Mary; 
 for thou -hast found favour tuith God, and behold thou 
 sJialt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son, 
 and thou shalt call His name Jesus. He shall he 
 great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the 
 Lord God shall give Him the throne of His father 
 David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for 
 ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end''. But 
 when the same name was announced to Joseph, 'per- 
 1 Heb. i. I. 2 Lk. i. 30—33. 
 
 4 
 
50 EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL KARKATIVE. 
 
 chance the aged Joseph',' whose spiritual faculties had 
 perhaps long been refined and purified to realise the 
 •deepest needs of men, it was surrounded with a very 
 (different train of associations. Fear not, said the Angel 
 to him, to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which 
 is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost, and she shall 
 hrincj forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus: 
 for He shall save His people from their sins\ He an- 
 nounced to him the birth not of any mere redresser of 
 His country's wrongs, not of any moral teacher, not of 
 any Prophet, not of any King, but of a Saviour, of a 
 Deliverer from sin. The same name J esus, as applied 
 to the successor of Moses and conqueror of Palestine^ 
 had a peculiar significance. He who was first Hoshea, 
 'salvation,' and afterwards Jehoshua, or Joshua, 'God!s- 
 salvation,' was to deliver Israel from literal living 
 enemies, the Canaanites. The same name, as now ap- 
 plied to the true Joshua, equally suggests a deliverance 
 to be effected. He shall deliver His people from their 
 sins. 
 
 Now when we reflect on the position in the Gospel 
 Narrative which this title and its explanation occupy, 
 we see at once that it can never be consistently alleged 
 
 1 See EUicott's Iluhean Lectures, p. 56. 
 
 - Matt. i. 21. 'EnTavOa to irapabo^ov enSeiKvvTai. Oi yap teoKiiuav 
 al<jer,Twv, ovU ^ap^apwv, dXK S -n-oXXy roirav /le^ov v", afiapTriiiATav 
 i.ira\\ay=t}v euayyeXlt^raC 0 irore (p.Tpo<jea> iyivero hvvarbv. 
 
 S. Chrysost. in loc. 
 
 3 For some strildng remarks on the associations connected with the 
 name Joshua, see Pearson on the Creed, Art. II.; also Dean Stanley's 
 Jeicish Church, p. ■227. 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 51 
 
 either that (1) any connection, which may afterwards 
 be more prominently developed, between the life and 
 work of the Saviour and man's sense of sin, or (2) that 
 any relation that may be discerned between His death 
 and the existing sacrificial system, is an afterthought. 
 Coming in where these words do, uttered at a time 
 when the heart of the nation was set upon the realiza- 
 tion of temporal glories as the result of the coming of 
 the Messiah, and was convinced of its spiritual 
 superiority to all other nations, they prove' that no one 
 could have spoken them, who believed the popular 
 Messianic idea to be the true one, and that they could 
 not have proceeded from the popular imagination ex- 
 cited by Messianic hopes. 
 
 Bearing in mind this eai-ly intimation of the spi- 
 ritual nature of the Saviour's work, let us pass on. 
 Made of a woman, horn under the laiu^, at the legal 
 period the Holy Child underwent the Jewish ceremony 
 of circumcision, and was afterwards presented by His 
 jjarents in the Temple'. At the moment that they 
 were entering the sacred precincts, they were met by 
 the aged Symeon, who had long been waiting for the 
 consolation of Israel, and to whom it had been revealed 
 that he should not taste of death till he had seen the 
 
 1 ' Coming in where tliese words do, they outweigh a thousand cavils 
 against the historical reality of the narration. If I mistake not, this 
 announcement readies further into the deliverance to lie wrought by 
 Jesus, than anything mentioned by the Evangelist subsequently.' Dean 
 Alford on S. Matt. i. ii. 
 
 = Gal. iv. 4. 
 
 3 S. Lk. ii. 22-38. 
 
 4—2 
 
52 EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 
 
 Messiah. No sooner, tlien, did he behold the Child than 
 he saw that the long-promised hour was come. He took 
 Him up in his arms, and blessed God, that his eyes had 
 been permitted to see His Salvation, the Light to lighten 
 the Gentiles, and the Glory of His people Israel^. Then 
 while Joseph and Mary were marvelling at his words, 
 he blessed them also, and addressing the Virgin- 
 Mother^, said, Behold, this Child is set {or appointed) for 
 the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a 
 sign tJiat shall be spoken against; yea, a sword shall 
 pierce through thy own soul also, that the tJioughts of 
 many hearts may be revealed. A sword shall pierce 
 through thy own soul also ! Interpret these mysterious 
 words how we will, we cannot deny that there is al- 
 ready a dark shadow flung upon the Virgin's joy, a 
 presentiment of some terrible trial to come upon her. 
 The aged Seer, akeady on the verge of the eternal 
 world, foresees in store for her no gilded pageants, no 
 worldly pomp, no seat on the right hand or on the left 
 in a glorious kingdom, such as would befit the mother 
 of the Messiah whom the nation expected. Her child 
 is destined to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of 
 offence to some, to others a source of exaltation, while 
 for herself — a sword is to pierce through her heart. 
 How strangely is the light and shadow already blended ! 
 How entirely do these presentiments of a chequered 
 future clash with all ideas of the person and work of 
 the Messiah then agitating the popular imagination, 
 
 1 Lk. ii. 32. 
 
 ' A-ai dire irpbs Ma/)ia^i Trjv fi-qripa avrou, Lul.e ii. 34. 
 
EXAJriNATlON OF THE GOSPEL NAERATIVE. 53 
 
 but how perfectly they coincide with the angelic an- 
 nouncement of a Deliverer of His people from Sin! 
 
 Between the Presentation in the Temple, and the 
 commencement of the Saviour's public ministry there is 
 an interval of thirty years. These years, as we cannot 
 but have often remarked, are well-nigh a blank to us. 
 Besides the visit of the Magi to Jerusalem, the cruel 
 decree of Herod, the consequent flight into Egypt, the 
 return of Joseph and Mary into the land of Galilee, 
 their residence at Nazareth, and the visit to the 
 Temple when the Saviour was twelve years of age, 
 there is not a fact recorded respecting this long in- 
 terval. The Evangelists shroud it in a complete 
 silence \ With staid self-constraint, utterly unlike the 
 spirit of sign-seeking characteristic of their age, they 
 dim not the lustre of their pages with any of those 
 premature proofs of superhuman power which the 
 Apocryphal Gospels^ love to record. With a few 
 simple and artless touches they portray a picture 
 which has no parallel in the world, the picture of a 
 spotless and celestial childhood ripening into a perfect 
 manhood'. He went down with His parents to Nazareth, 
 
 ' On this reverent sUence as contrasted with the Apocryphal Gos- 
 pels see EUicott's Lectures, p. 97 ; Birks' Bible and Modern Tkourjht, 
 P- 397- 
 
 ^ See Tischendorf's Evangelia Apocrypha. 
 
 ' Lk. ii. 51. 'The idea of sinlessness was by no means so 
 common an idea, that all that was necessary to lead men like the 
 Apostles to apply it to Christ was an accident or some insufficient occa- 
 sion. Quite the contrary : this idea was never thought of, nor had it 
 entered into the heart of man to conceive it, until it appeared not as an 
 idea merely, but as a reality in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Even now to 
 
54 EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 
 
 to Nazareth, which then enjoyed a reputation so low 
 that the question was put as though it contained its 
 own answer, not by a proud Jew of the South, but by a 
 native of Galilee, Can any good thing come out of Naza- 
 reth^ I and there He grew in wisdom and stature, and in 
 favour with God and man^. 
 
 And now the period of silence and seclusion is over. 
 Jerusalem, Judea, and all the country round about 
 Jordan has been startled by the sudden appearance of 
 a strange and wondrous Preacher, recalling in dress, 
 and garb, and gesture, the expected forerunner of the 
 Messiah, the great Elijah. In striking congruity with 
 the spiritual nature of the Saviour's work, the son of 
 Zacharias proclaims that the kingdom of heaven is at 
 hand, that one was to come after him of surpassing 
 dignity, that he was unworthy to unloose even the 
 latchet of his shoe, but he dwells on no temporal glories 
 to be vouchsafed to the nation. Repentance, deep and 
 real, he demands of all that would receive baptism at 
 his hands, and warns them against the idea that mere 
 descent from Abraham would qualify any for admission 
 into the kingdom of the Messiah. And at length when 
 these announcements, so unlike any of the popular con- 
 ceptions of the Messiah's coming, have prepared hearts 
 
 believe in the realizing of the idea of sinlessness in an individual, is not 
 so very easy a thing for human nature in its present state. Men are 
 not in general much addicted to the weakness of believing too easily in 
 the existence of purity of heart and true greatness: it is a fact, that they 
 are only too prone to doubt them when they reaUy exist.' UUmann's 
 SinJessness of Jesus, p. 91. 
 
 1 Jn. i. 46. = Lk. ii. 52. 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 55 
 
 to receive Him, the Saviour leaves the seclusion of the 
 Galilean village, and moves southward to the valley of 
 the Jordan. At the hands of His Forerunner He re- 
 ceives the rite of Baptism, and the first of the three 
 voices from heaven is heard attesting His Divine 
 mission, and declaring Him to be in very deed the Son 
 of God, in whom the Father is luell pleasecP. And now 
 that He has been inaugurated to His work, what is the 
 first event of His ministry ? Borne by the motions of 
 the Spirit into the wilderness'', He enters into a conflict 
 with the gi-eat Adversary of His kingdom, and of the 
 race He came to save. Into the details of this conflict 
 we are not concerned to enter now. The single point 
 to which we would invite attention is the singular cou- 
 gruity of this conflict with the avowed purport of the 
 Saviour's mission, a congruity which at once commends 
 it to our minds, and which transcends all powers of 
 imagination, or preconcerted imposition. 
 
 But when the Forty Days of the mysterious Temp- 
 tation were ended, the Saviour again approached the 
 Jordan's banks, and the scene of His Baptism. The 
 Baptist was still there; he was still delivering his 
 message, and exhorting the multitudes to repentance. 
 The day before he had received a formal deputation 
 from the ruling parties at Jerusalem to ask him who 
 he was, and why he baptized'. To them he had spoken 
 plainly and decisively. He had assured them he was 
 neither the Messiah, nor Elias, nor the Proj^het, but 
 
 1 Matt. iii. 13; Mk. i. n ; Lk. iv. 22. 
 
 ^ Matt. iv. I, ami the parallels. ' Ju. i. Ji. 
 
56 EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NAKRATIVE. 
 
 simply the Voice of one crj/ing in the wilderness, Make 
 straight the way of the LorcV. But now again* he 
 saw the lowly One of Nazareth drawing near on His 
 way, we may believe, to Galilee, and no sooner did he 
 behold Him approaching than he exclaimed, Behold 
 the Lamb of God, that taketh axuay^ the sin of the world; 
 he declared that this was He who was to come after 
 him, but who was originally before him*, this was He 
 on whom he had seen the Spirit descending and 
 abiding^, this was He that was to baptize with the 
 Holy Ghost", this was the Son of God\ Nor was it 
 once only that this mysterious title of the Lamb of God 
 fell from his lips. On the very day' after, in the hearing 
 of two of his disciples^ fixing his eye on Jesus as he 
 walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God; and such was 
 the effect upon his hearers, that, drawn as it were by a 
 powerful magnet, they left the Baptist and followed 
 Jesus. 
 
 Now the title here given by the Baptist to the 
 Saviour, whether we consider the time or the occasion 
 
 1 Ju. i. ■23. ' Jn. i. 29. 
 
 ^ Jn. i. 29. * Jn. i. 30. 
 
 5 Jn. i. 32. 6 Jn. i. 33. 
 
 7 Jn. i. 34. 
 
 ' T)7 i-rraipicv. Jn. i. 35. 
 
 ' 'E/j/3\f i/zas {A^pectus efficax, Bengel) tu ^l-q<Tov vepiiraTovim. John 
 i. 36. Aia TOVTO \onrbv m>ayKa^eTai to. avra Xeyeiv rdXiv, KaBdwfp two. 
 (TKXrjpav Kal av^vZoTov '^rjv rrj y€w(T€L fxaKaTTwVy Kal ruj "KSy^) oXov nvi dp6~ 
 rpui veTrCKTiiJ.(vqv aveyeipwv tJ/i- hiavoiav, uare eh rb pdOos to. (Firdp/iaTa 
 Ka-ra^oKuv. Ata 677 tovto ov5^ pLaKpbv ttolcl rhv \byoi', Srt fjL&vov 
 ^ffTTOvbai^e, Trpoffayayetv avToi}% Kcd KoWri<Tai rw XpiOTcp. 'H5et yd.p 6ti 
 TOVTO KaraSe^dfievoi Kal TeKTBivrni, oii Serjcrovrai toO fiapTvpr]i70VT0s aOrip 
 Xoiiric. S. Chrysost. in Joann. Horn, xvill. 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 57 
 
 of its bestowal, is deserving of much attention. Com- 
 mentators, indeed, have often debated what may have 
 been the precise train of thought which suggested it. 
 Some have imagined that a flock of Iambs may have 
 been passing on their way to the coming Passover' at 
 Jerusalem. Others have seen in it an allusion to the 
 lamb of the morning and evening sacrifice at the 
 Temjile. Others, with far greater probability, have re- 
 ferred it to that wonderful chapter in the prophet 
 Isaiah °, which afterwards so powerfully aiTested the 
 attention of the Ethiopian eunuch'. But whatever 
 may have been the precise line of thought which sug- 
 gested the image, whether the reference be special or 
 comprehensive*, the point deserving of notice, is that 
 the work of the Messiah is already viewed in connection 
 toith the ancient sacrificial system, the idea of a perfect 
 Antitj-pe of all the typical lambs of the ancient ritual 
 has already dawned, and sacrificial terms begin, in the 
 hearing of Apostles^ to associate themselves with His 
 
 1 Jn. ii. 13. 'Eyyv! yjv rb Trdax"- "loviaioiv. Milman's Histonj 
 of Christianity, Vol. i. p. 158. See Alford on S. John i. -22, and h s 
 Huhcan Lectures for 1841. 
 
 ^ Isaiah liii. 7. See Tholuck on S. John, p. 84, E. T. ' ktivbv U 
 avTov (caXe?, rrjs irpo(j>r)T(iai dvaiuixv-fiCKUv 'louSai'oi/s t^s 'Ho-afou, ko! ttjs 
 (TKiat T^s Kara rhv Mwi-V^a. S. Chrysost. in Joann. Horn. XVII. 
 
 ' Acts viii. 30 — 34. 
 
 * See Archbp. Trench's Five Sermons before the Uiiiversitij of Cam- 
 bridge, p. •23, Ed. 1857. 
 
 ' Jn. i. 35, S. Andrew, and, according to almost universal belief, 
 S. John. It is not a little striking that it is S. John who transfigures 
 this title of the Lamb of God in the majestic language of the Apocalypse 
 (the term dpyiov as applied to Christ occurs 29 times in the Revelation), 
 and that S. Peter, whom his brother Andrew first 'found' and 'brought 
 
58 EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 
 
 person and office. And who is it that thus associates 
 them? Is it some Levite, whose office obliges him 
 from day to day to wait upon the priests at the altar, 
 and to witness the slaying of 'bulls and goats'? Is it 
 the high-priest of the nation, whose thoughts it may be 
 said were merely borrowed from the mechanical func- 
 tions of his office ? On the contrary, it is one who was 
 pre-eminently a moral teacher and reformer, who, 
 though the son of a priest, yet never in his recorded 
 addresses to the people who flocked to his baptism, 
 dwells on the ritual ordinances of the Law, or bids 
 them obseive days and seasons, and multiply sacrifices. 
 Real, genuine repentance, distrust in the mere posses- 
 sion of privileges^, this was John's message to the 
 woi-ld. On the people, eagerly excited by the anticipa- 
 tion of tlie Messiah's Advent, he inculcates the plain 
 practical duty of mutual charity''; on the hated tax- 
 gatherers, of honesty'; and on the rough and often brutal 
 soldiers, of mercy and contentment*. His language is 
 that of the sternest of the Old Testament Prophets, the 
 language of one as far removed from merely ritual and 
 ceremonial ideas as was ever his great prototype Elijah. 
 No man was more intensely real and practical than the 
 Baptist. From the midst of a corrupt and decaying 
 world he had fled into the deserts, and lived the life of 
 the Nazarite, a life of abstinence and austerity. In 
 
 to Jesus,' (Jn. i. 41), saying, We have 'found the Messias,' alone of the 
 Apostles speaks of the Christian as redeemed by the precious blood of 
 Christ, as of a lamb v:ilhout blemish and without spot, i Pet. i. 19. 
 1 Lk. iii. 8. 2 Lk. iii. 11. ^ Lk. iii. 13. ■» Lk. iii. 14. 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 59 
 
 solitude and silence he had communed with his God, 
 had weighed the things of time and sense in the 
 balances of heaven, and had come forth to demand a 
 radical reformation of his generation, if they would be 
 a people prepared for the Messiah. But no moral 
 Teacher greater than himself does he announce to his 
 disciples, no mere Redresser of the nation's wrongs, no 
 Prophet only like unto Moses, no King like unto David, 
 but One who, though so infinitely his superior that he 
 was not worthy to stoop down and unloose His sandal, 
 though attested as the Soil of God by a Voice from 
 heaven, was yet the Lamb, given by God, or sent by 
 God, or well-pleasing to God, who was to take away the 
 sin of the world. Whatever was the precise import 
 attached to the title by those who heard it and whom 
 it attracted to the Saviour's Person, there is a remark- 
 able congruity between it and the angelic announce- 
 ment on the world's first Christmas morn of the birth 
 of a Saviour^ — the intimation to Joseph of the spiritual 
 nature of the work of the Deliverer from sin, and the 
 mysterious prophetic glance of the aged Simeonl Is 
 it likely that an idealist would have put the intimation 
 of the sacrificial nature of the Saviour's work into the 
 mouth of a moral teacher like the Baptist^? Is it 
 
 1 Comp. 'The glad tidings for you and for all people^ (Luke ii. lo) 
 with the 'sin of the world' in John i. 29. 'Singularis numerus, cum 
 articulo, summa vi, una pestis quae totum corripuit. Peccatum et 
 mundus asque late patent.' Bengel. 
 
 2 Tholuck 071 S. Jolm, p. 85, B. T. 
 
 ' The force of the Baptist's words, considering the time when they 
 were uttered, is strongly felt by rationalistic writers. ' Strauss, Weisse, 
 
60 EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NAEEATIYE. 
 
 credible tliat the harmony of several testimonies to one 
 idea, and that utterly opposed to the prevailing popular 
 belief, can have been the result of a gradual accretion 
 of myths? 
 
 Very shortly after this momentous declaration of 
 the Baptist, the Saviour left the region where he was 
 baptizing, and retired into Galilee. There, on the 
 occasion of the marriage-feast at Cana, He displayed for 
 the first time His miraculous power, and confirmed the 
 faith of the little band of disciples who had already 
 attached themselves to Him, numbering, besides An- 
 drew and John, Simon Peter, Philip, and Nathanael. 
 At the conclusion of the feast, Avith His mother, His 
 brethren, and His newly-gathered followers. He went 
 dowTi to Capernaum. There, however, His stay was of 
 no long duration'. The Passover was nigh at hand'', 
 the pilgrim -companies were already forming to go up 
 to the Holy City, and thither with His disciples, after a 
 short interval. He bent His steps. Before entering, 
 however, on the deeply important revelations respecting 
 His person and work made at this the first Passover of 
 
 and Bruno Bauer declare it impossible that John the Baptist should know 
 anything of tlie pre-existence of Jesus, and of his vicarious sufferings. 
 Galler, Paulus, and Hug endeavour to soften down the meaning of the 
 words aif^iv tt]v atiapriav. Hoffmann tries to explain the matter psycho- 
 logically as a sudden flash of light. But apart from the fact of the con- 
 nection of the Baptist with the mother of our Lord,... the fact that he 
 was a prophet and enlightened by the Lord, is sufficient to set all such 
 questions at rest, as " how can he have obtained a foresight of the suffer- 
 ings of Jesus?" Tlie difficulty is not historical, but purely dogmatical.' 
 Ebrard's Gospel History, p. 209; Tholuck on S. John, p. 85. 
 
 ^ Oil iroWas rin^pas , Jn. ii. 12. - Ju. ii. 13. 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 61 
 
 His public ministry, we would make a few remarks on 
 a point which has given rise to certain objections. We 
 have listened to the words of Angels, we have heard 
 the intimation given to Joseph, the prophetic utterance 
 of Simeon, the last testimony of the Bajjtist ; we are 
 now about to listen to the WoRD Himself, to hear from 
 His own gracious lips of the purport and object of His 
 coming into the world. 
 
 Now believing that His Advent into the world 
 was the Pole-star of the prophecies and revelations of 
 the Old Testament, it will be worth while to look back 
 for a moment and observe what constituted one of their 
 most characteristic features, namely their gradual and 
 progressive development. In this respect they are in 
 complete accord with the Divine operation.s in the 
 natural world; as in nature there is fir.'^t the blade, 
 then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear; first 
 the dawn, then the morning, and then the perfect day; 
 first the child, then the youth, and then the man ; so is 
 it in the gradual unfolding of the person and work 
 of man's Redeemer. The first promise of a Saviour' 
 did, perhaps, little more than assure man of an inter- 
 position in his behalf, and neither informed him 
 whether the promised conqueror of his seducer should 
 be one or many, the collective race or a single deliverer. 
 But of a deliverance he was assured^ and from the 
 time it was first given this promise of ultimate de- 
 
 1 Gen. iii. 15. See Kurtz on the Old Covenant, Vol. I. p. 79, E. T. 
 See Sherlock on the Prophecies, Disc. ill. p. 65, Ed. 1732. 
 " See Davison on Prophecy, p. 55. 
 
62 EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE, 
 
 liverance becomes the goal of Sacred Historj^, the one 
 centre towards which it persistently gravitates. Each 
 crisis in the world's history brings it within narrower 
 limits, and illustrates it with fresh details. Through 
 one of the sons of Noah' the promise is limited to a 
 particular race; through the Call of Abraham", to a 
 particular nation ; through Judah, to a particular tribe'. 
 With the Mosaic period the personality of the Re- 
 deemer begins to be more distinctly developed, and 
 Israel is taught to look forward to a great Prophet*. 
 With the establishment of David's kingdom, the 
 promise is not only still further naiTowed to a single 
 family, but the idea of a king° is associated vdth the 
 person of the destined Deliverer. The later and mourn- 
 ful history, however, of the kingdom serves to correct 
 the national hopes, the captivity refines and purifies 
 the Messianic idea, and the ' Son of David ' gives place 
 in the writings of Daniel to the ' Son of Man®.' Con- 
 currently with the altering fortunes of the nation, 
 another voice begins to be heard in the temple of 
 prophecy, not jubilant and glad, telling of triumph and 
 glory, of the subjugation of nations, and the setting up 
 of an everlasting throne, but subdued and mournful, 
 whispering of suffering and rejection, of the coming of 
 
 1 Gen. ix. 26. - Gen. xii. 1—3. 
 
 3 Gen. xlix. 10. See Westcott on the Jewish Doctrine of Messiah, 
 Inirod. to N. T. p. 86. 
 
 * Dent, xviii. 15 — 18. See Davison, p. 110; Kurtz on the Old 
 Covenant, Vol. 11. 
 
 « 2 Sam. vii. 12 — 17. Comp. Psahnlxxxix; Davison, 142. 
 
 c Dan. vii. 13. Westcott, p. 87; Article 'Son of Man,' in Smith's 
 I)klimiarj of the Bible, in. 1359; Aids to Faith, p. 119. 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 63 
 
 a man of sorrow and acquainted iviih griefs, of His 
 being wounded for transgressions and bruised for ini- 
 quities, of Messiah being cut off'\ but not for Him- 
 self, of His bearing the sin of many, of His being 
 numbered with the transgressors. That these later 
 prophecies were misunderstood by the Jews, or rather 
 that they hid their faces from them, is indisputable. 
 But regarding them as included within their Scriptures, 
 we cannot fail to observe how gradually the idea of 
 a suffering Messiah was permitted to dawn upon the 
 nation. It may be said that it was wrapped up and 
 included in the first promises that irradiated the 
 exile from Eden, for the serpent was to bruise the 
 heel of man's Deliverer. But how could the Jewish 
 nation have been educated at all to become, as they 
 did, 'the people of the future'? how could they have 
 been kept in the attitude of expectation, not pining, 
 like the heathen world, over the departed glories of 
 a former golden age, but looking for 'one to come,' 
 if they had been told, 'the object of all your hopes, 
 He in whom ye trust, shall suffer and shall die'? 
 Abrupt announcements like these are not the methods 
 of teaching employed by Him who knoweth whereof 
 'man is made,' who mercifully hides from him the 
 future of liis life, and only when he can 'bear it' reveals 
 its sorrow or its joy. 
 
 1 Isaiah liii. Comp. Tii. 14; ix. 6; xl. i, 12; xlii. i, 4; xlix. 5, 7; 
 ]ii; liv. On the reference of Isa. liii. to the Messiah even in the 
 Modern Jewish Servioe-ljooks, see Aids to Faith, p. 127. 
 
 ' Dan. ix. 26. 
 
64" EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE. 
 
 Such a gradual revelation, then, of the object of 
 the coming of the Messiah being one of the charac- 
 teristic features of the prophecies of the Old Testament, 
 ■we shall be prepared for the same characteristics in the 
 New; and it will not surprise us if we do not find the 
 Saviour setting forth at the outset of His ministry, fully 
 and clearly and in set terms, a connection between His 
 work and the ancient sacrificial system. We shall not 
 complain if, at this early period, even when He predicts 
 His death, ' He does not put forward with equal clear- 
 ness its atoning virtue,' as some have complained. Con- 
 sidering what human nature is everywhere, considering 
 the extreme difficulty of gaining a lodgment for the 
 idea of a suffering Messiah at all in such an age as that 
 of the Advent, we shall be prepared for its gradual 
 revelation, and shall certainly not be tempted to im- 
 pute such a gradual revelation to an afterthought', 
 to disappointment, or to other irreverent motives, which 
 some have not scrupled to impute to the Holy One. 
 "We shall see in such a course of gradual instruction 
 in unpalatable truths what w^e should expect from a 
 wise human teacher, how much more from Him Who, 
 as we have seen, thus 'spake by the Prophets' of the 
 Old Testament ! 
 
 1 See the quotation in Thomson's Bampton Lectures, from De Wette, 
 de Morte Chriati expiatoria, and UUmann on the Sinlessness of Jesus, 
 p. 151, notes. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 S. John xvi. ii. 
 
 The Passover, then, was nigh at hand, and Jcsns went 
 up to Jerusalem'. Year by year, S. Luke intimates, 
 He had been wont to go thither with His parents, and 
 at this same Festival eighteen years before He had 
 astonished the Jewish doctors by ' His understanding 
 and answers'V He was now in the prime of life, and 
 His public ministry had begun. Knowing what was 
 to take place at this Festival two years afterwards, 
 we observe His actions on this occasion with the 
 utmost interest, and listen to His words with the 
 deepest attention. We tiy to realise the scene which 
 Jerusalem pi-esented at this time ; the multitudes of 
 Jews and proselytes from all quarters of the world that 
 had come up to celebrate the Feast ; the hills around 
 the Holy City whitened with countless flocks of lambs 
 
 1 Jn. ii. 13. 
 
 = Lk. ii. 47. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 and kids'; and then we think of Him, already pointed 
 out as the 'Lamb of God,' appearing in the midst of 
 this moving scene", and celebrating the Festival with 
 the pilgrim-company from Galilee. 
 
 We have no record, indeed, of any actual participa- 
 tion in a Paschal Supper on this occasion, but we have 
 the record of a deeply momentous circumstance which 
 took place during the festival. Entering the Temple', 
 the Saviour was confronted, probably in the court of 
 the Gentiles, with a scene of desecration, which called 
 forth the first display of holy zeal for the dweUing- 
 place of Him, whom He had already declared to be 
 His Father. For the convenience of Jews residing 
 at a distance, who wished to offer sacrifice at the 
 festivals, a kind of market had been established in the 
 outer court, and here ' sacrificial victims, incense, oil, 
 wine, and other things necessary for the ser%ice and 
 the sacrifices, were to be obtained*.' The common 
 money, moreover, circulated in the country not being 
 receivable within the Temple, the money-changers 
 had set up their tables, in the same locality, to ex- 
 change all common and foreign coins for the sacred 
 shekel, alone current in the sacred precincts. But 
 
 Jo^ephus, B. J. VI. 9. 3, estimates the number of lambs s.icrificed 
 at the Passover in the time of Nero at 256,500. 
 
 ^ For some striking remarks suggested by the presence of Jesus at 
 the Jewish festivals, see Arclier Butlers Sermons, ist Series, p. 264. 
 
 ^ Jn. ii. T3 — 22. Of course it is assumed that this purg.ation of 
 the temple is not to be identified with that mentioned in Matt. xxi. 11, 
 &c.;Markxi. 15, &c.; Luke xix. 45, &c. See S. Cbrysost. m J/af<. Horn. 
 LXVli.; Ebrard's Gospel History, p. 379, E. T. 
 
 * See Tholuck's Comm. on S. John, p. 106, E. T. 
 
THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 67 
 
 together -with such money-changing other business 
 appears to have gradually crept in, and in place of 
 the order and decorum that ought to have reigned 
 undisturbed in such a spot, the noisy huckstering of 
 merchants and traders disturbed the devotions of the 
 worshippers, and converted the sanctuary of the Most 
 High into a wrangling mart. 
 
 In the midst of a scene like this the Saviour 
 entered the Temple. Few, perhaps, noticed Him as 
 He entered amidst the train of pilgrims; none knew 
 who was walking amongst them, or recognised in the 
 lowly Stranger from Nazareth the 'Messenger of the 
 Covenant'.' But His eye no sooner rested on this scene 
 of desecration, than, penetrated with holy zeal for the 
 honour of God, He made a ' scourge of small cordsV and 
 with this simple weapon, singly and alone. He drove 
 forth the sheep and oxen, overthrew the tables of the 
 money-changers, poured out their unholy gains, and 
 with a voice of conscious authority bade even those 
 ' who sold doves,' offerings such as His own mother had 
 once presented, to ' take these things hence,' and not 
 'make His Father's House a house of merchandize.' 
 The tone, the look, the bearing of the humble Teacher 
 of Galilee are not described, for the Evangelists aim 
 not at effect, but the desired result was instantaneous. 
 Awed by that Presence', that calm Majesty, the dese- 
 
 ^ jNIalachi iii. i. 
 
 ° On tliis sitfiiificaiit incident wliicb Bauer deems so unsuitable, see 
 Ebrard's Gospel History, p. 219. 
 
 ' For other indio.itions of tbe impression produced at times by the 
 appearance and words of the Saviour, see John vii. 46, Oi'5;';roT€ 
 
 5—2 
 
68 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 crators of the Temple left the scene of their unholy 
 traffic. 
 
 But this was not all. Unable to resist the au- 
 thority wherewith the mysterious Stranger spake, won- 
 dering, it may be, at those deep and marv^ellous words 
 'My Father's House,' now for the first time openly 
 uttered in the ears of the people, the Jews approach- 
 ed Him in the midst of the now deserted Temple, and 
 requested a ' sign,' the performance of some miracle or 
 prodigy, in attestation of His right to ' do these things.' 
 Nor was a ' sign ' withheld ; not, indeed, such a one as 
 they looked for, but one which they never forgot, and 
 which, though the disciples did not understand it at the 
 time in all its deep meaning, was afterwards more 
 plainly revealed. With that perfect calmness which 
 ever distinguished Him, but without a syllable of ex- 
 planation or comment on its meaning, the Holy One 
 spake and said, 
 
 Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise 
 it up^. 
 
 •Perplexed, astonished, the Jews rejDlied, Forty and 
 six years was this Temple in building, and wilt Thou 
 rear it up in three days ? But to this enquiry no 
 answer appears to have been vouchsafed. They had 
 asked for a ' sign,' and a sign had been vouchsafed, a 
 'parable,' a 'dark saying,' for their meditation and 
 reflection. Even if we had not an inspired interpreta- 
 tion of these mysterious words, we might at least claim 
 
 i\a\r}a-ev ovtws HvSpunros, according to reading of LT[Tr]. John xviii. 
 6, Sis oi'c elwev avToh, 'E7C6 eifju, aTrrj\$ay ei'j to oTriVw, Kal lwe<rav xo/^oi'. 
 ^ J a. ii. 19. 
 
THE EAKLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 G9 
 
 them as already shadowing forth a connexion between 
 the speaker and that sacrificial ritual of which the 
 Temple was the one only ordained centre. 
 
 But the interpretation of the Evangelist imparts 
 a still greater importance to these words. 'He spake, 
 we read, of the Temple of His Body,' and then it is 
 added, that when the Saviour arose from the dead, 
 the Apostles recalled it to mind, and believed the 
 Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said^. Now 
 with this inspired interpretation to guide us, we can 
 hardly exaggerate the importance of this ' sign ' given 
 to the Jews at the first Passover of the Saviour's 
 official ministry. 'Destroy' said He, 'tliis Temple.' 
 The words are spoken prophetically and pcruiissively. 
 ' He prophesies in the beginning,' observes Stier, ' con- 
 cerning the End, Ho unveils to the Jews, if perchance 
 they might apprehend it by subsequent reflection, the 
 entire relation of His sanctified Person to them and 
 to their Temple Service ; He tells them, as the Searcher 
 of hearts, ' how well He knows that they themselves, 
 who should be the defenders of the Temple, would be 
 guilty of its destruction, and yet that by the marvellous 
 prearrangement of the counsel of God, the evil which 
 they should do to the Temple of His Body, would 
 subserve at the same time to the removal of all 
 shadows, and the resurrection of the new and abiding 
 out of the death of the old".' But it does not concern 
 
 1 Jn. ii. 17. 
 
 ^ Stier, I. 74 sq. iv. 361. He well observes that the later teaching 
 of the New Testament as fully developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 'is already wrapped up as a germ in this early word of our Lord.' 
 
70 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 US to press any particular interpretation of the words. 
 The distinct connexion between the Saviour's Person 
 and the Temple Ritual, here avowed openly at this 
 first Passover is sufficient for our purpose. How widely 
 this mysterious saying, though misunderstood, was 
 circulated and how deep was the impression it made, 
 is clear from several subsequent incidents. In a dis- 
 torted form it reappeared in the mouths of the false 
 witnesses in the hall of the high priest^; as a taunt and 
 mockery it was flung in the teeth of the Holy One, as 
 He hung upon the Cross ; They that passed by railed on 
 Him, wagging their heads and saying. Ah, Thou that 
 destroyest the Temple, and buildest it in three days, save 
 Thyself, and come down from the Cross'''. 
 
 But this was not the only incident that rendered 
 this Passover memorable. The Saviour prolonged His 
 stay at Jerusalem, and wrought more than one mi- 
 racle', so that they who beheld them believed on His 
 Name. Their faith, however, sprang from imperfect 
 motives, and to them He would not entrust Himself, 
 or unveil the mysteries of His Kingdom. Still even 
 thus early there was one, a Pharisee and member of the 
 Sanhedrim, named Nicodemus, whom a timid but real 
 conscientiousness brought within the circle of his in- 
 fluence. This ruler, it is not improbable, had heard of 
 the marvellous incident which had so lately occurred 
 within the Temple-courts ; he had also, it would seem*, 
 
 1 Matt. xwi. 6 1 ; Mk. xiv. 58. 
 
 ^ Matt, xxvii. 39, 40; Mk. xv. 29. 
 
 ' OeupoO:'T(s avTov to. crjfieia S iiroUi. Jn. ii. 23. 
 
 * Jn. iii. 2. 
 
THE EAELY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 71 
 
 been an eye-witness of one or more of those 'mighty 
 works ' which the Stranger from Nazareth had wrought, 
 and he had come to the conclusion that He could be no 
 ordinary person, that, unassisted by Divine Power, He 
 could not perform such ' signs and wonders.' 
 
 So profound, indeed, was the impression made upon 
 his mind, that in spite of his position, in spite of the 
 risk he ran, in spite of the natural prejudices against so 
 obscure a teacher, he resolved to seek Him out, and 
 obtain an interview with Him, to go Himself, under 
 cover of night indeed, but still to go, and ascertain 
 who and what He was. And he found Him. ' Rabbi,' 
 he began, ' we know that Thou art a teacher come from 
 God; for no man can do these miracles that Thou dost, 
 unless God be with him.' He had come resolved to 
 recognise in the Galilean Stranger ' a Teacher sent from 
 God,' and was prepared to hear, and perhaps accejit His 
 teaching. We all know what followed, we all know 
 how the Holy One received this first enquirer, how in 
 language utterly opposed to every popular pi-edilection 
 respecting the Messianic kingdom. He unfolded to His 
 wondering hearer the mystery of a birth not of the will 
 of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of Water and of 
 the Holy Spirit^. Into these momentous disclosures we 
 are not concerned to enter now. We would only draw 
 attention to the fact how again there fell from the lips 
 of the Saviour words, which clearly prove that He 
 had no dim or uncertain consciousness of the Way and 
 Goal of His life. To the ruler's perplexed enquiry, 
 
72 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 ' how could the things be' of which he had heard ? He 
 replied, 
 
 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe 
 not, hoiu shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? 
 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that 
 came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is 
 in heaven. And as Moses^ lifted uj) the serpent in the 
 wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up: tliat 
 whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
 eternal life. For God so loved the ivorld, that He gave 
 His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
 shoidd not perish, but have everlasting life''. 
 
 A marvellous revelation this to a member of the 
 Sanhedrim, a ' teacher of Israel,' well instructed, doubt- 
 less, in the Law and the Prophets! Did he, in common 
 with his nation, cherish fond hopes of the Messiah's 
 coming? Had these hopes in some measure prompted 
 this secret interview? Was he looking forward to the 
 fulfilment of the prophecies of Daniel, and expecting 
 the days of the 'Son of Man'? He did well. But did 
 not even Daniel speak of a ' Messiah to be cut off^,' and 
 the cessation of the daily sacrifice? Was this inexpli- 
 cable? Let the 'teacher of Israel' recall to mind 
 his own 'Law.' Could he not remember a period 
 when the ancestors of his nation were wanderers in 
 
 ' ' Est heeo prima quae a Domino facta legitur, Mosis mentio.' 
 Btngel. 
 
 ^ Jn. iii. 12 — 16. 
 
 ' Dan. ix. 26. On the attention paid by the Jews In his day to the 
 prophecies, see Josephu.s, AiU. x. ii. 7. 
 
THE EAELY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 73 
 
 the desert, when, denied a passage through the ter- 
 ritory of the Edomites, they were fain to take a long 
 and weary circuit over a sandy, shadeless desert, and, 
 overcome with the trials of the way, brake out into 
 bitter complaints against their leader, their hot toil- 
 some maicli, and their food? Did he not remember 
 how, as a punishment for their faithlessness, the deadly 
 serpents' that infested the neighbourhood were sent 
 amongst them, and destroyed many of them? And 
 then, on the first signs of true repentance, did he not 
 remember how the nation's leader was bidden to con- 
 struct a Brazen Serpent, to set it on a pole, and uplift 
 it before the eyes of the sufferers, and how, as many as 
 looked thereon in the midst of their agonies were 
 healed? Now, 'as Moses,' that Moses whose writings 
 he studied and expounded, ' lifted up^ that Serpent in 
 the wilderness,' as a symbol of deliverance, or pledge of 
 healing, ' so must the Son of Man he lifted wp,' to the 
 end that whoso believeth in Him may have — not the 
 brief life that was restored to the tortured Israelites — 
 but 'life eternal.' 
 
 How far the Jewish ruler entered into the full 
 meaning of this strange unlooked-for intimation, how 
 far it served to stimulate his mind to still deeper en- 
 
 ^ Numb. xxi. 7 — 9. 
 
 ^ ' TLere is even a significance in the word lifted up; the Lord used 
 probably ^\>~\. which in older Hebrew meant to lift up in the widest 
 sense, but began in the Aramaic to have the restricted meaning of lift- 
 ing up for punishment.' Tholuck, quoted in Article on Saviour, Smith's 
 Bib. Diet. III. 1 156; Ebrard's Gospel Historij, p. 222, note. 
 
74 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 quiries into 'the Law and the Prophets',' whether on 
 another memorable evening, when that ' Ufting up' had 
 actually been realized, it recurred to his mind as with 
 another secret disciple he helped to consign the lace- 
 rated Body of the 'Son of Man ' to the tomb", we cannot 
 tell. What we are concerned to notice is the marvel- 
 lous blending of wisdom and love in the intimation here 
 given to the enquiring ruler. To have told him that 
 the 'Son of Man,' with whom he could not fail to 
 identify the ' Messiah,' was destined to be crucified and 
 to die, would have been to tell him what he could then 
 no more 'bear to hear' than the Apostles afterwards. 
 But a ' sign' was given him', a deep prophetic intima- 
 tion, sufficient to stimulate enquiry, and prepare him 
 for the ' offence ' of the Cross. Does this read like a 
 mythical narrative? Do these words so calm, so de- 
 liberate, suggest the idea of an enthusiast ? What have 
 
 ' Corap. "Wisdom xvi. 6, 7. 'The Targura of Jonathan paraphrases 
 Numb. xxi. 8, "He shall be healed, if he direct his heart to the name 
 of the Word of the Lord." If this paraphrase represents as it does the 
 current interpretation of the schools of Jerusalem, the devout Eabbi, to 
 whom the words were spoken, could not have been ignorant of it. The 
 new Te.acher carried the lesson a step further. He led him to identify 
 the "Name of the Word of the Lord " with that of the Son of Man. He 
 prepared him to see in the lifting up of the crucifixion that which should 
 answer in its power to heal and save to the serpent in the wilderness.' 
 Article Brazen Serpent in Smith's Bibl. Did.; see also Kurtz's Old 
 Covenant, nr. 356; Stier, in. 441. 
 
 ' Matt, xxvii. 57 — 61 and the parallels. 
 
 ' T6 n^v naBos ou <r<p6Spa yvfivCi! Tl0r}i7iv, aWa lyweaKiaciiivut. S. 
 Chrysost. Horn, in Joann. xxvil. Quid est serpens exaltatus? Mors 
 Domini in Cruce. Mors Serpentis lethalis, mors Domini vitalis. S. 
 Augustine in Joann. Ecancj. Tract. Xil. 
 
THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 75 
 
 we here thus early in the public life of the Holy One? 
 Thoughts of ti'iumph, of kingdoms, of national glory? 
 None of these — a lifting up of the Son of Man, not 
 which may be, not which peradventicre shall come to 
 pass, but which must be, the must of a foreknotvn and 
 fulli/ understood necessity. 
 
 But from this eventful Passover, so fertile in deep 
 and mysterious teaching, we must now pass on to 
 another even still more momentous foreshadowing of 
 the Passion. A year elapsed, and again the Paschal 
 season drew nigh. During the interval' the fame of the 
 Saviour had spread abroad far and wide. He was no 
 longer the unknown teacher of Nazareth. His sphere 
 of activity had been greatly enlarged. He had called 
 His Apostles, delivered the sermon on the Mount, and 
 laid down the laws of His kingdom. By many infallible 
 signs He had proved that He ' came forth from God.' 
 He had healed the nobleman's son at Capernaum ^ had 
 restored the cripple at the pool of Bethesda', had raised 
 Peter's wife's mother from her fever-stricken bed*, had 
 brought back to life the widow's Son of Nain^ and the 
 daughter of Jairus, had healed the centurion's servant* 
 had stilled the tempest on the lake of Genncsareth', and 
 released many that were possessed with demons. In 
 
 ^ With Anger, Wieseler, Tischenilorf, and other eminent authorities 
 we regard the feast mentioned in S. John v. i as the Feast of Purim. 
 ' Jn. iv. 46 — 54. See Tischendoif's Synopsis Erangelica. 
 3 Jn. V. I— 10. * Mk. i. 29—31 ; Lli. iv. 38. 
 
 ' Lk. vii. 1 1 — 17. 
 
 ' Matt. viii. 5—13; Lk. vii. i — 10. 
 ^ Lk. viii. 22 — 25 and the parallels. 
 
76 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 direct contrast to the mode of a mere Wonder-worker 
 and the prevaiUng 'sign-seeking' of the age\ His Re- 
 demptive ' works ' had displayed an intimate connexion 
 with the deep purpose of His mission". Over disor- 
 dered Nature, over the world of spirits, over disease, 
 over death, He had proved Himself supreme, and at- 
 tested the perfect subjection to Himself of all the evils 
 that had gained a hold of the world since the first in- 
 road of sin I There is a harmony, a congruity about 
 His miracles with His office as a Redeemer, to which 
 the pojxdar Messianic ideas could never have attained. 
 
 But during this year of ceaseless activity no further 
 intimations had been vouchsafed respecting the goal 
 and purport of His life. Now, however, as the fourth 
 Evangelist expressly records, another Passover of His 
 public ministry was 'drawing nigh^' On this occasion 
 the Saviour does not appear to have gone up to Jeru- 
 
 1 Lk. iv. 31 — 37; Lk. viii. t6 — 39, and parallels. 
 
 ^ See -l(W,s' t': Full],, p. 21. And moreover they are exactly the kind 
 of iiiiraclts which tljt- popular imagination would not have attributed to 
 the ^Itbsiali ; there is about tLem a unity of purpose, an absence of all 
 selfislmess and self-di.splay irreconcilable with such an idea. 
 
 ^ 'Among these luiiacles there are no portents — such as are related 
 by classic writers ; there are no exhibitions of things monstrous; there 
 are no contrarieties to the order of nature ; there is nothing prodigious, 
 there is nothing grotesque. Nor among them are there any of that kind 
 that might be called Theatric. There are no displays of super- 
 natural power, made in the presence of thousands of the people sum- 
 moned to witness them. Although claiming to be sent of God into the 
 world, Christ did not, as Elijah had done, convene the people, and then 
 challenge his enemies to dispute with him his mission by help of counter- 
 attestations.' Restoration of Belief , p. 232. 
 
 " Jn. vi. 4- 
 
THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 77 
 
 salem. The determined hostility' of the ruling powers 
 rendered any further activity in Judea dangerous, at 
 least for the present, and He remained in Gahlee. And 
 here, having received inteUigence of the death of His 
 forerunner", and wishing to commune in quiet with 
 His chosen twelve just returned from their first mis- 
 sion^ He left Capernaum, and crossing the lake of 
 Gennesareth, sought the neighbourhood of Bethsaida- 
 Julias*. 
 
 But the desired solitude w^as not to be obtained. 
 Numbers moving about the country in consequence of 
 the near approach of the Paschal Festival 'came on 
 foot from all the towns round about ^ to see and hear 
 Him.' The sight of these multitudes, scattered as sheep 
 without a shepherd, called forth the Saviour's deepest 
 compassion, and He 'taught them many things".' On 
 this occasion, however, He would minister not only 
 to their spiritual but also to their temporal wants, 
 and, as the evening drew on, having, as we ma,j be- 
 lieve', already put a question to one of the Apostles 
 
 ' Jn. vii. I. OvK avTj\$e Se ei't to Hdcrxa vvi>, dW ei's ttiv TaXiXalap, 
 KaKeWtv fis Kavififaoiiix, Tjp(/J.a Xonrby vireKXiioii' tov vhnov, dtpopf^rii/ Xafj.- 
 pdvav awb Tijs TouSaiW^s Trorqplas. Cramer's Catena in Joiinn. 
 
 ^ Matt. xiv. 12. TiscUendorf's <S(/no2)s/s. ^ee Ij-Aiige, Life of Christ, 
 ni. 158, E. T. 
 
 ' Mk. vi. 30, 31 ; Lk. ix. lo. 
 
 < lA. ix. 10. See 'Bethsaida' in Smith's Dielionary of the Bible, 
 and Thomson's Land and the Booh, p. 372. 
 5 Matt. xiv. 13 ; Mk. vi. 32; Lk. ix. 11. 
 " Mk. vi. 34. 
 
 ' Jn. vi. J. See Trench on the Miracles; Cramer's Catena in S. 
 Juann.; Andrews' Life of our Lord upon the Earth, p. 265. 
 
78 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINKSTP.T, 
 
 calculated at once to try his faith', and prepare him 
 for the coming wonder, He bade them marshal the 
 multitudes in companies amid^ the green grass at the 
 north-east comer of the lake, and with the five barley 
 loaves and the two small fishes, which a lad possessed, 
 proceeded to perfonn the ever memorable miracle of 
 'feeding the five thousand^' 
 
 The details of the miracle do not need from us any 
 lengthened notice. The impression it made was pro- 
 found. Not only were the spectators convinced that 
 He, who thus fed them 'in the wilderness,' was in- 
 deed 'the prophet that should come into the world,' 
 but they were ready to ' take him by force, and make 
 Him a King*! To defeat their design, the Saviour bade 
 the Apostles take ship and cross over to the other side 
 of the lake^ while He retired alone 'to prayl' In soli- 
 tary communion with His heavenly Father He remained 
 till near the fourth watch of the night, when walking 
 on the water He drew near to His terrified Apostles, 
 
 ^ Jn. vi. 6. 
 
 ' Jn. vi. 10, rjv 5^ xbpro^ ttoXi'S (v Tip TcJTra'. yap o Kaipot ttJs 
 t6os, ?apos XoiTTov 6vto%' iyyiis yap ijv, <j>r)ai, to Haax"- Cyril Alex, in 
 Cramer's Catena. 
 
 3 If this miracle was, as some suppose, (see TischendorTs Synopsis, 
 xsxill. ; EUicott's Lectures, p. 207), wrought on a Passover eve, the sig- 
 nificance of its conDection with what followed is very striking. 
 
 * Jn. vi. 14, 15. 
 
 ^ For a simple explanation of the difficulties here, see Thomson, Zand 
 and Book, 372, 3. 
 
 * Matt. xiv. 23; Mk. vi. 46. 'The second instance mentioned of 
 a night so spent ; the first being the night prior to the choice of the 
 Apostles (Luke vi. 12, 13), and both mark important points in His life.' 
 Andrews' Life of our Lord upon the Earth, p. 266. 
 
THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 79 
 
 who had been vainly striving to withstand the fury 
 of the sudden storm ' that swept the surface of the lake, 
 and entering their little vessel accompanied them 
 amidst the equally sudden calm to the other side, and 
 the town of Capernaum. 
 
 There on the following day, a Sabbath it would 
 seem'. He repaired to the synagogue', whither He was 
 before long followed by many of those who had beheld 
 the miracle of the preceding evening. Marvelling how 
 He had crossed the lake, they enquired when He had 
 reached Capernaum, but received no direct answer to 
 their question. As in the case of Nicodemus, the Holy 
 One preferred to address Himself to their mental 
 wants*. He knew the superficial character of their 
 enthusiasm. He knew the temporal objects which had 
 brought them in quest of Him. Verily, verily, I say 
 unto you, He replied, Ye seek me, not because ye saw 
 
 ^ For a good description of one of these storms on the lake, see 
 Thomson, Land and Book, pp. 374, 5. 
 
 ' Though this is not absolutely certain. See Viner, Real Wnrterhuch, 
 II. 549. 
 
 ' The 15th of Nisan, according to Wieseler and other harmonists. 
 Die sequenti (rfj eiravpiov, vi. 22) et quidem sabbato loquitur enim 
 in synagoga, (vi. 60) banc disputationem a Je'u in synagoga Caphar- 
 naumi babitam esse dicit. Proficiscitur baud dubie ab eo die quo quin- 
 que miUibus hominum cibum prsebuerat. Est igitur dies sequens de- 
 cimus quintus mensis Nisan, primus Paschatis dies festus. Accedit vero 
 tt lucis et giavitatis aliquid ab ejus diei festi dignitate ad banc de edenda 
 carne bibendo(iue sanguine Cbristi orationem. Tischendorf, fynojw. 
 Evang. xxxiv. ; EUicotl's Hidttean Lectures, p. 210, and rote. For a 
 diverse opinion see Andrews' Life of our Lord upon the Earth, p. 270. 
 
 ■* 'Kon respondet Jesus ad Juda?oruni qnando, et sic sa^pe in ser- 
 nionibus ea, quae series rerum et status auimorum requirit, potius spectat, 
 quam inteipellationes loquentium alienas.' Bengel. 
 
80 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 the miracles, hut because ye did eat of the loaves, and 
 were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, 
 but for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life, 
 which the Son of Man shall give unto you: for Him 
 hath God the Father sealed. 
 
 Apparently understanding the food 'that abideth 
 for ever ' in a literal sense, the people replied by asking 
 how they might work the works of God, whereupon the 
 Saviour declared that the work acceptable to God 
 was^ to believe on Him whom He had sent. To this they 
 rejoined with that^ insatiable craving for miracle after 
 miracle, so characteristic of the merely carnal mind, 
 What sign showest Thou that we may see and believe 
 Thee? wlmt dost Thou work? and then proceeded, as 
 it seems, to suggest ' a work ' and ' a sign from heaven,' 
 such as they desired^ The miracle of the preceding 
 evening had convinced many of them that the Speaker 
 was indeed the Prophet that should come into the world, 
 whose coming had been predicted by Moses. Tlie 
 great Lawgiver, then, they observed, gave their fathers 
 bread from heaven, and that not once only, but during 
 a space of forty years. Could He give them a 'sign 
 from heaven ' like that ? In condescension to the 
 associations they had themselves recalled, the Saviour 
 replied that Moses had not given them the Bread from 
 heaven, but His Father was giving* them the true 
 
 1 Jn. vi. 29. 
 
 - Liicke quoted by Tholuck on S. John, p. 198, E. T. 
 ' In exact correspondence with the jjopular hope of the highest tem- 
 poral prosperity under tlie Messiah's rule. 
 
 * Or ' was about to give '! Oi) Muiiaiis kownev (LTTr) ijiiv Th» 
 
THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 81 
 
 Bread from heaven, for the Bread of Ood is He which 
 Cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. 
 Still understanding Him to speak of some miraculous 
 life-sustaining food, the Jews begged that He would 
 'evermore give them that Bread,' whereupon, passing 
 from indirect to direct assertions. He replied in the 
 ever-memorable words, 
 
 / am the Bread of Life^, 
 and in words majestic in their very simplicity pro- 
 ceeded to vindicate His Divine nature, and His descent 
 from heaven. This last assertion gave great offence to 
 His hearers ; they called to mind the earthly parentage 
 of the Speaker, and marvelled how He could claim a 
 Divine origin. But unmoved, undeterred by the in- 
 creasing discontent, calm and unrufHed, ' as if He felt 
 Himself more truly addressing the ages to come, as if 
 He stood in the presence, not of a few contentious dis- 
 putants, but of the Church He was to found and to 
 redeem,' the Holy One went on, whether they would 
 hear or whether they would forbear : 
 
 I am the Bread of Life; y<mr fathers did eat manna 
 in the wilderness and are dead. This is the Bread tvhich 
 Cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat tliereof 
 and not die. I am the Living Bread which came down 
 from heaven: if any man eat of this Bread, he shall live 
 for ever. And the Bread that I will give is My Flesh, 
 which I will give for the life of the world^. 
 
 UpTov ix ToO ovpavov' dXX' 6 jtottj/d yaou Sihacriv vfiif rbii &pTot> iK tou 
 ovpai/ov rbv a\ri0ip6i>, Jn. vi. 32. For d\-rjOii'6s as contrasted with. 
 a\i]0r]s, see Trench, Sjjmnijiiis, Part I. 28 — 32. 
 
 ' Jn. vi. 35. 2 Jn. vi. 47 — 51. 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 These mysterious words provoked still greater oppo- 
 sition on the part of the Jews; they strove with one 
 another^, saying, how can this man give us His flesh 
 to eat ? But their opposition moved not the calm ma- 
 jesty of the Holy One ; with the same formula'' of 
 solemnity He had already thrice repeated, He resumed 
 in words still more emphatic, 
 
 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the Flesh 
 of the Son of Alan, and drink His Blood, ye have no 
 life in you. Whoso eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My 
 Blood, ' hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at 
 the last day. For My Flesh is meat indeed, and My 
 Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh and 
 drinketh My Blood dwelleth in Me and Tin Him. As the 
 living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father : so 
 he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me. This is that 
 Bread that came doivn from heaven; not as your fathers 
 did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this 
 Bread shall live for ever^. 
 
 Such were the momentous words the Holy One 
 gave utterance to on this solemn occasion, at the 
 season of the second Passover of His pubUc ministry, 
 words such as it is inconceivable any mere man could 
 have spoken, which from the lips of a merely human 
 teacher have no meaning whatsoever, which in their 
 indefinable calmness transcend all possibility of con- 
 fusion with human utterances. Without stirring the 
 
 ^ 'E/idxovTO TTpbi dXX-^Xous. .Tn. vi. 51. 
 - 'A/iV> OA''?'' X^'y'"' v^^v, V. 33. 
 3 Jn. vi. 53—58. 
 
THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 83 
 
 dust of the many controversies they have evoked, we 
 may look at them in their broad and general bearings. 
 
 i. Regard the expressions here used from what point 
 we will, we cannot but recognise their harmony with 
 the intimations that distinguished the first Passover. 
 Addressed to men who, the evening before, had wit- 
 nessed the Speaker's creative power over natural bread, 
 addressed in a sacrificial age to men who lived and 
 moved in the midst of sacrificial scenes, the import of 
 the words here used is of the most momentous cha- 
 racter', ii. Looking at them even from the stand-point 
 of those who first heard them, and not throwing upon 
 them the full light afforded by subsequent events, we can- 
 not fail to recognise in them a progressive development 
 of the revelations touching the innermost purport of the 
 mission of the Holy One I He who, at the first Passover, 
 had intimated to Nicodemus that as Moses lifted up the 
 serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man he 
 lifted up, to the end that all that believe in Him may 
 have everlasting life, now distinctly announces Himself 
 as 'the Bread of Life' as 'the Bread that came down 
 from heaven,' declares that 'the Bread which He will 
 give is His Flesh, which He will give for the life of the 
 world,' and with participation in ' His Flesh and Blood ' 
 He connects the highest spiritual blessings I 
 
 ' See Lange on S. Luke, I. p. ^oi, E. T. 
 
 ^ ' Tota haeo de carne et sanguine J. C. oratio passionem spectat, 
 et cum ea S. Coenam.' Bengel. 
 
 ^ ' Fateor nihil hie dici quod iion in Coena figuretur ac vera prsestetur 
 fidelibus: adeoque S. CoeBam Christus quasi hujus concionis sigillum 
 esse voluit.' Calvin, quoted in Lange'si/fe of Christ, in. 152, n. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 
 
 THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 Taken together these intimations plainly point to 
 something to come, something which though unintel- 
 ligible to a Nicodemus, or the Jews of Capernaum, was 
 quite intelligible to Him who uttered them. Neither 
 the open murmuring of those present in the synagogue, 
 nor the desertion of many of His disciples' which these 
 mysterious expressions provoked, deter Him from re- 
 iterating them. He has a clear prevision of the goal 
 and end of His life, it is no ' afterthought ' with Him, 
 it is distinctly contemplated from the beginning. Dis- 
 ciples may forsake Him, and ' walk no more with Him^' 
 but He cannot conceal the truth. Simon Peter may 
 speak in the name of the Apostles, and in reply to His 
 question, 'Will ye also go away?' answer, Lord, to whom 
 shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and 
 we believe and are sure that Thou art the Christ^, the 
 Son of the living God, but the assurance of their faith- 
 fulness is damped by the thought that there was a 
 traitor* in their midst, who, though now for the first 
 time mentioned, is clearly not now for the first time 
 discovered. 
 
 With this solemn discourse at Capernaum may be 
 said to close the intimations of His end vouchsafed by 
 our Lord during the earlier period of His ministry. 
 The first announcement ,of the mysterious import of the 
 
 1 Jn. vl. 66. = Ibid. 
 
 3 Jn. vi. 69, or, according to the reading approved by LTTr, 6 0710s 
 rov GeoO, ' the Holy One of God.' See Alford, and Scrivener's Greek Test. 
 
 * 'AireKpldrj 0 'I-qtroOt, Ovk eyui ii/xds rovs BuSeKa i^e\€^dfiriy, Kal 
 ifiCiv eXi hid^oKbi Ictlv. ' Did not / (myself), select you twelve, and 
 one of you is a devil ?' John vi. 76. 
 
THE EARLY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 85 
 
 name of the child Jesus has already received a con- 
 sistent and orderly development. 'In sundry times ' 
 and 'in divers manners/ without any trace of con- 
 trivance or logical adaptation, the one idea of a Saviour 
 from sin has been preserved. There is no sign of any 
 change of purpose as we go on. The popular Messianic 
 ideas of glory and triumph are not gradually exchanged 
 for sadder strains'. Already has the deepest purport 
 of His mission been declared to be the delivery of ' His 
 people from their sin;' already has the aged Simeon 
 foreseen sorrow and heart-piercing anguish in store for 
 His mother; already the Baptist has twice pointed 
 Him out as the ' Lamb of God ' who is to ' take away 
 the sin of the world;' already at the first Passover of 
 His public ministry has He given deep prophetic hints 
 of something to befall Himself, of a 'Temple to be de- 
 stroyed and rebuilt in three daj^s,' of a ' lifting up like 
 the serpent in the wilderness;' already every one of 
 His marvellous works is clearly seen to be in complete 
 harmony \vith the revealed purport of His mission; 
 already, on the occasion of the second Passover, He 
 has declared that He is the 'Bread from heaven,' that 
 He is about to give His human flesh ^ 'for the life of 
 
 ^ ' The obscure predictions in John were in perfect correspondence 
 with the situations in which they were uttered, in so far as Jesus uttered 
 them before persons standing at a greater distance from Him, or in 
 larger assemblages, or not in the form of categorical disclosures, but in 
 connection with other disclosures.' Lange, ui. p. 249, E. T. 
 
 " Ka! airodfriffKu, (prjatf, vwkp ndi'Tuv, iVa -ndfTas i'ccoTr oirjcru 61' 
 ifiavTov, Kal avTiKvTpov t^s airavTuv aapKbs ttjv e/xTfy iiroiT]<Tdfj.rjt>. Cyril 
 Alex, in Cramer's Catena. On aap^ here used, see EUicott's Lcctuns, 
 p. 212, u. 
 
86 
 
 THE EAELY PUBLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 the world/ that His flesh is ' meat indeed/ and His 
 blood 'drink indeed.' 
 
 These may be said to be obscure intimations, but 
 they are couched in language too expressive to be for- 
 gotten, and they are consistent from first to last. As 
 we pass on to the later period of the Saviour's life we 
 shall observe the same orderly progress in the reve- 
 lations made, and shall see how with infinite wisdom 
 and love the Apostles, convinced that He whom they 
 had given up everything to follow was the Christ ' the 
 Holy One of God,' were prepared to connect with His 
 death the chief source of the blessings He came to be- 
 stow on them and on the world at large 
 
 ^ 'Evangelium in duas partes potest dividi, ex quibus divina Jesu 
 tnethodus elucet. Prior propositi est, Jesus est Christm ; altera Chrieium 
 oporiet pati mori, et resuryere. Homines ssepe omnia simul decent : 
 non item Sapientia Divina.' Bengel. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 Oi 6<t>6ivT€i if S6Jij IXeyoy tt]v l^oSov airoO -qv ^ixeWe TrXijpovu iv 
 'lepovcaXrifj.. 
 
 S. Luke is. 31. 
 
 Up to this time the intimations of the Saviour re- 
 specting the mournful close of His life had been mainly 
 figurative and metaphorical. They had also been made 
 not so much immediately to the Apostles as in their 
 hearing. But with the commencement of the last year 
 of His public life, there is a perceptible change in the 
 character of the intimations of the End. The Holy 
 One speaks to ' His own,' to those ' He Himself had 
 chosen out of the world,' not in ' figures ' or ' parables,' 
 but clearly and openly. Metaphorical allusions give 
 place to precise statements, and general to special de- 
 clarations. 
 
 The first of these would appear to have been vouch- 
 safed a few weeks after the memorable discourse in the 
 synagogue of Capernaum. During the intervening pe- 
 riod, the Saviour had proceeded with His disciples into 
 the extreme northern parts of GaUlee, had visited the 
 
88 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon', and preached the 
 word in the midst of the half-pagan DecapoHs. Works 
 of mercy had, as always, accompanied Him wherever 
 He went. The demon had been expelled from the 
 daughter 'of the woman of Canaan^;' the tongue of a 
 dumb man bad been loosed, and 'his ears opened';' 
 four thousand men 'besides women and children' had 
 been fed with seven loaves and a few fishes*; and where- 
 ever the Apostles had followed their Master, they had 
 listened to the outpouring of grateful thanks to 'the 
 God of Israel ' from the mouths of many healed by the 
 Holy One of various infirmities \ Pharisees and Sad- 
 ducees had approached Him and requested a ' sign from 
 heaven V and had been bidden to meditate 'on the 
 sign of Jonas ' the prophet', a sign afterwards more fully 
 developed, and singularly in harmony with the tenour 
 of a direct intimation about to be made to the Chosen 
 Twelve. 
 
 For now having travelled in all probabihty along the 
 eastern banks of the Jordan and beyond the lake of 
 Merom, the Apostles reached the confines of Caesarea 
 PhiUppi. Here, on one occasion, they found their 
 Master engaged in solitary prayer* a solemn and sig- 
 
 ' Matt. XV. 21 ; Mk. vii. 24. 
 
 ^ Matt. XV. 21 — 28; Mk. vii. 24 — 30. 
 
 3 Mk. vii. 31—37. 
 Matt. XV. 32 — 38; Mk. viii. i — g. 
 
 5 Matt. XV. 30, 31. 8 Matt. xvi. i. ' Matt. xvi. 4. 
 
 ' Lk. ix. 18, ei> Ti^ eicoi avTov -wpouevx^iKvov Kara ixovas. 'Jesus 
 Patrem rogarat, ut discipulis se revelaret. Nam argumentum precum 
 Jesu colligi potest ex sermonibus actionibusque iasecutis.' Bengel. 
 
THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 89 
 
 nificant actioiij the precursor of not a few important 
 events', as, on tliis occasion, of an important revelation. 
 For, as they resumed their journey"^, He addressed to 
 them the formal enquiry, 'Whom do men say that I 
 am?' This was not an ordinary question. The Holy 
 One was speaking to men who had been now for some 
 time His constant companions, hearers of His words' 
 and spectators of the signs which accompanied them. 
 He seems to have wished to ascertain from, their own 
 lips the result of those labours which now, in one sense, 
 were drawing to a close, and thence to pass on to the 
 second and principal part of His discourses with them'. 
 To this enquiry, then, the Apostles replied, in words 
 reflecting the various opinions then held amongst the 
 people; Some say John the Baptist, others Elias, others 
 Jeremias, or one of the projyhets'^. 'But,' continued the 
 Holy One, whom say ye that I am? To this the 
 Apostle Peter, speaking in the name of the rest, made 
 the ever-memorable reply. Thou art the Christ, the Son 
 of the living God. 
 
 The object for which the question had been put 
 was now partly achieved. By the mouth of one of 
 their number the Apostles had given uttei^nce to their 
 
 1 i. The Baptism (Lk. iii. 21) ; ii. The Election of the Twelve (Lk. 
 vi. 12, 13); iii. The Discourse in the Synagogue of Capernaum (Matt, 
 xiv. 23); see above, p. 78 and note; iv. The Transfiguration (Lk. ix. 
 28); V. The Agony (Lk. xxii. 44). 
 
 2 Kal iv Trj 06^ iirripwra, Mk. viii. 27. 
 
 2 See Stier, II. 329, E. T. ; Lange's Life of Christ, nr. 229, E. T. 
 ^ See Lightfoot on S. John 1. 25 as to the belief of the Jews that 
 the prophets would rise again at the coming of the Messiah. 
 
90 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 own deepest convictions, had expressed the conclusion 
 to wliich they had come after so long enjoying the 
 society of their Master. This outspoken testimony to 
 His Messiahship and Divine Nature, so far exceeding 
 all the common Jewish conceptions, the Saviour ac- 
 cepted; He acknowledged the truth of the Apostle's 
 confession; He declared that it had not been revealed 
 to him by 'flesh and blood,' but by His Father in 
 heaven; He bestowed upon him the promise of peculiar 
 dignity in the Church He was about to establish. But 
 it was now, after strictly charging them not to divulge 
 the fact that He was the Messiah to the world at large', 
 that He began clearly and distinctly to reveal to them 
 the 'things concerning Himself The Son of Man, 
 He declared, must go up to Jerusalem, and there suffer 
 many thinfjs from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, 
 and he ^mt to death, and after three days rise again'. 
 This was the first intimation, clear, distinct, and per- 
 emptory, of what lay before Him. He announces not 
 only who will be the agents in His suflferings, but the 
 form they will take, the place where He will undergo 
 them, and their issue, a resurrection on the thii-d day I 
 These events are not spoken of as a possibility, or a 
 probability, a peradventure, or a chance, He says not 
 the Son of Man ' may ' go, or ' will ' go to Jerusalem ; 
 He says that He ' must ' go. He .speaks of it as a con- 
 dition of His existence weU understood, as the fulfil- 
 ment of an eternal purpose. 
 
 1 Mk. viii. 30. ^ Matt. xvi. 21; Mk. viii. 31; Lk. ix. 21, 22. 
 s See Lange on Lk. ix. 9. 
 
THE LATER MINISTEY. 
 
 91 
 
 How the announcement was received by the Apo- 
 . sties is familiar to every one. The self-same Peter, who 
 a moment before had witnessed so noble and outspoken 
 a confession to His Lord's Divinity, was utterly unable 
 to endure even the thought of His sufferings. That 
 he far from thee, Lord, was his indignant reply. But a 
 solemn rebuke checked at once his untimely expostu- 
 lations, which savoured of the weakness of flesh and 
 blood, not of holy obedience to a heavenly Father's 
 will. The same resolution which had triumphed over 
 the more direct temptations of the wilderness triumphs 
 over this no less subtle temptation. Nay, more, as if 
 to seal the words He had uttered in the presence of 
 many witnesses, the Saviour called to Him' some of 
 the people that were standing near, and in their hearing 
 as well as that of the Apostles, bade all who would 
 come after Him 'take up their Cross,' the symbol of a 
 degi'ading death now for the first time mentioned, and 
 'follow Him;' for through the Gate of Suffering lay 
 the road to Glory not only for Himself, but all His 
 followers. 
 
 Momentous as was the announcement made, cal- 
 culated as it was to cause deep questionings in the 
 hearts of the Apostles, it was followed by a still more 
 remarkable event. To cheer, we may believe, the 
 wounded spirits of the Apostles, to enable them by 
 an outward act to understand the reality of what He 
 had already revealed in speech, the Holy One assured 
 them that there were some standing there who should 
 
 ' Mk. viii. 34, irpoaKaXead.iJ.ei'OS rbv 6x>\ov ci/v rots naOijTats auToO. 
 
92 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 not ' taste of death,' till they had seen the Son of Man, 
 in spite of the sad announcement He had just made, 
 'coming in His kingdom'.' And six days afterwards, 
 with three of the most privileged of their number, who 
 had already in the chamber of Jairus witnessed their 
 Master's power over death, He retired to one of the 
 numerous mountain-ranges in the neighbourhood, not 
 improbably one of the summits of Hermon^ S. Luke 
 informs us that one object of this withdrawal was that He 
 might engage in solitary prayer'. The weariness of the 
 three Apostles seems to indicate that evening was the 
 time of this withdrawal*, the close it may be of a long 
 day spent in 'going about doing good.' While, then, 
 they slept, and He continued engaged in prayer", a 
 marvellous change came over their Lord ^ His raiment 
 suddenly became shining, exceeding white as snoiu ; the 
 fashion also of "His countenance was altered, and shone 
 like the sun. The chosen three, roused, it may be, by 
 the supernatural brightness around them, awoke, and 
 shaking off their slumbers, not only beheld the marvel- 
 lous change which had come over their Lord, but per- 
 
 ^ Matt. xvi. 2&; comp. Mk. ix. i; Lk. ix. 27. 
 2 See however Thomson, 433. 
 ^ Lk. ix. 28, iyi^rj ets rb 6poi Trpo(T(v^aa6ai. 
 * Lk. ix. 3'2. 
 
 ^ Lk. ix. 29, Kal iyh'eTO iv rif irpoire^ixeaBai avT6v. 
 
 ^ The slightest attention to the original Greek proves that the oc- 
 currence here described was no 'waking vision ' or 'dream.' 'Peter and 
 they that were with him had been weighed down by sleep (rja-av ^(^aprj- 
 jxivoL vTTviji), but they thoroughly roused themselves (5iayp7iyopT^<ravTes Se), 
 and saw His glory and the two men standing with Him.' Luke ix. 32. 
 See Alford in loc. and Stier, II. 365. 
 
THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 93 
 
 ceived also that He was no longer alone! He was 
 accompanied by two men, in whom they were enabled 
 to recognise no others than the great pillars and repre- 
 sentatives of the Old Testament Economy, Moses and 
 Elias. Nor did they only see their transfigured Lord 
 attended by these strange visitants from the world of 
 spirits, but they were privileged to overhear the subject 
 of their mutual converse! And on what high theme, 
 or what momentous topic were Moses and Elias thus 
 conversing with their Master? ' They spahe of\ or ' de- 
 scribed,' we read, the decease He was about to accom- 
 plish at Jerusalem. 
 
 Upon the ardent, impulsive Peter, it was the scene 
 itself, and not the topic of mysterious converse that 
 made the most impression. To him it seemed as though 
 ' the kingdom of heaven ' was indeed ' revealed in pow- 
 er;' in the excitement of the moment he would have 
 detained the heavenly visitants; he would have made 
 three tabernacles, one for his Lord, one for Moses, and 
 one for Elias, in order that from thence the laws of the 
 Kingdom should be promulgated, and all men should 
 recognise the true Messiah attended by the Pillars of 
 the old Economy. But it was not to be. While he 
 was yet speaking, there came a cloud, not dark and 
 lowering Uke that on Sinai, but Ught and luminous as 
 
 ^ "E\e7o>' T^iv l^obov avTov, Lk. ix. 31. 'An unusual construction 
 of X^-, fic,' it lias been remarked, 'though it occurs agam in Eom. iv. 6, 
 and in the earliest Ecclesiastical writers, in the sense of "recounting," 
 "relating the details of," "describing."' Westcott's Introd. to the 
 Study of the Gospels, 298, n. 
 
94 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 the Shechinah which filled the Temple, overshadowing 
 them with its glory, and out of it there came a Voice 
 saying, This is My Beloved Son, hear ye Him. And 
 then all was over. While the Apostles lay panic- 
 stricken on their faces, their Master once more joined 
 them, and bade them 'rise and be not afraid,' and, 
 as they descended from the mount. He charged them 
 to reveal to no man what they had seen, till (again the 
 mysterious words recurred) ' He should have risen from 
 the dead\' 
 
 The Transfiguration, which we need hardly remark 
 we regard as a real objective fact, marks an important 
 epoch alike in the history of our Lord, as also in the 
 education of the Apostles. Perplexed and disheartened 
 six days before by the emphatic announcement of their 
 Master's coming sufferings, they had now beheld with 
 then- bodily eyes infallible proofs of His celestial dig- 
 nity. Had they by the mouth of Peter declared that 
 He was indeed the Messiah, 'the Son of the living 
 God'? they had now seen Him clothed awhile in the 
 robe of His heavenly glory, they had heard a Voice 
 from a higher world attesting and confirming that Son- 
 ship in which they had declared their belief But was 
 this all ? They had a few days before shrank from that 
 clear but mournful announcement of degradation and 
 death which He had declared to be in store for Him. 
 But of what had they heard the august representatives 
 of the Law and the Prophets conversing vdth Him? 
 
 ^ Matt. xvii. 9 ; Ilk. ix. 9. 
 
THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 95 
 
 Had they described the glories of a mighty kingdom 
 soon to be established? Had they spoken of a speedy 
 revelation of earthly might and majesty, of the exalta- 
 tion of the 'Israel of God' to a supremacy above all 
 peoples and languages? Nay, the single subject of their 
 mysterious converse was 'the decease^' to be accom- 
 plished at Jerusalem; the very rejection and suffering 
 which had so lately moved their indignation ! The 
 great pillars of the old Economy did not shrink from 
 the contemplation of such a scene; they clearly re- 
 garded it as a subject of the deepest interest, as the 
 fullest manifestation of their Master's glory! A Voice 
 from heaven had emphatically declared This is my 
 beloved Son, hear ye Him, and yet He was to ' accom- 
 plish a decease' at Jerusalem! Little as the chosen 
 three understood the full meaning of these words at the 
 time, we cannot fail to observe how perfectly it was 
 adapted to enable them to connect with their Master's 
 death at J erusalem, when it did occur, an accomplish- 
 ment of all that the Law or the Prophets had pre- 
 figured. One of them, we know, never forgot the scene 
 he had now witnessed ^ Long after the present oc- 
 currence, when the time of his own 'decease' was not 
 far distant, there came back to him the remem- 
 brance of the lonely mountain, and his transfigured 
 Lord; he could declare how with his own eyes he 
 
 1 For the word ^foSos comp. Wisdom vii, 6 ; 2 Pet. i. 5. ' Ees 
 magna; vocabulum valde grave, quo continetur passio, crux, mors, resiir- 
 rectio, ascensio.' Bengal. 
 
 2 2 Pet. i. 14. 
 
96 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 had beheld His majesty, how with his own ears he 
 had heard the heavenly Voice'; he 'knew Him in whom 
 he believed/ and He was not ashamed to seal his faith 
 with his blood. 
 
 And now that the first open intimation of the 
 Passion has been uttered, now that in the presence of the 
 great representatives of the old Economy the Holy One 
 has been consecrated to His sufferings, the difference 
 between the earlier and later communications becomes 
 more and more perceptible. Do the Chosen Three 
 marvelling at the disappearance of Elias enquire how 
 the scribes can affirm that the coming of Elias is to 
 precede that of the Messiah ? He replies by enquiring 
 how it could be written ' of the Son of Man, that He 
 must suffer many things and be set at nought^?' thus 
 directing their attention to the many passages in the 
 Old Testament foretelling a suffering Messiah. Do the 
 Apostles^ marvel at the power wherewith He heals the 
 lunatic youth, whom their own efforts had failed to 
 cure? He calms their excitement by repeating the 
 former announcement of coming sufferings, and bids 
 them let His words* 'sink down into their ears,' for 
 'the Son of Man was about to be betrayed into the 
 hands of men, and be killed, and rise again on the 
 third day.' Though the fuU force of His words were 
 still as much hidden from them, though they feared^ 
 to ask for further information, the fact that He should 
 
 1 1 Pet. i. 17, i8. 2 Mk. ix. 12; Matt. xvii. 10. 
 
 3 Lk. ix. 43, iravTiiiv hi Oavfxaioi'TUv iiri waaiv ofs eiroiei.. 
 
 * Lk. ix. 44. ^ Mk. ix, 31, 32. 
 
TUE LATER MINISTEY. 
 
 97 
 
 suffer does not therefore the less form a part of His 
 distinct teaching. Nor is it in their hearing only that 
 Ke dwells on the same mysterious theme. The season 
 of the Feast of Tabernacles comes round, and He goes 
 up to Jerusalem. In the midst of His teaching in the 
 temple the thought of His coming removal recurs, and 
 in the presence of mai-velliag listeners He declares. Yet 
 a little while am I with you, and then I go unto Him 
 that sent Me. Ye shall seek Me, and shall not Jind Me : 
 and where I am, thither ye cannot come^. These words 
 naturally gave rise to much enquiry and discussion 
 amongst the Jews, and when for the second time during 
 the Feast He expressed Himself to the same effect, they 
 scornfully enquired whether He intended to kill Him- 
 self, when He said, Whither I go, ye cannot come^. But 
 their contempt ruffled not for a moment His unearthly 
 composure. He calmly reiterated what He had already 
 said with the important addition, when ye shall have 
 lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am, 
 and that I do nothing of Myself^. The same expression 
 which had been already used, an expression based upon 
 common phraseology, in the hearing of Nicodemus, 
 is now used publicly in a discourse in the Temple. 
 
 But a few days afterwards the Holy One made a 
 still more striking announcement. Taking occasion from 
 the familiar associations of the shepherd's life, He pro- 
 claimed Himself ' the good' the true, the real Shepherd*. 
 
 1 Jn. vii. 33, 34. ■ Jn. viii. i\, n. ^ Jn. viii. 28. 
 Jn. X. II, 0 Troi.iJ.riv 6 KaXis. Compare the use of /coX6s in I Tim. 
 iv. 6.; I Pet. iv. 10 ; 2 Tim. ii. 3. 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 THE LATEE MINISTRY. 
 
 / am the Good Sliepherd, He declared, and know 
 My sheep, and am known of Mine. As the Fattier 
 knoweth Me, even so know I the Father: and I lay 
 down My life for the sheep : and other sheep I have, 
 which are not of this fold : them also I must bring, and 
 they shall hear My voice, and there sliall he one fold, and 
 one Shepherd. Nay more, He affirmed that because 
 He was about to lay down His life, therefore^ the Father 
 loved Him, but even in the mystery of His voluntary 
 self-sacrifice He and the Father were one, that in laying 
 down His life, He did it of His own free will, uncon- 
 strained by any human compulsion, for He had power 
 to lay it down, and power to take it again". 
 
 We cannot marvel that the calm sublimity of the 
 discourse in which these words occur made a deep 
 impression on those who heard it, that ' the mixed mul- 
 titude, the dwellers at Jerusalem', the officials of the 
 Temple^ and to some extent the hostile Jewish party", 
 bore witness to the more than mortal power of the 
 teaching of Jesus of Nazareth ^' Verily either He who 
 gave utterance to these words was what the Evange- 
 lists declare, and the Cliurch in all ages has believed 
 Him to have been, or they have succeeded not only in 
 giving form and substance to an ideal such as has never 
 been realized before or since, but . in putting into the 
 
 . ^ Jn. X. 17. 5ia TOUTO 6 IlaTrip /xe ayairS, Sri ?-yu rW-qai TTjV 
 ^vxv" A""*- See Stier, V. 482. 'Amor Patrts non modo erga noi, aed 
 etiam cnja ChrUlvm, in Passione Christi spectaiidus est; non solum 
 sevc7-itas ul/rix.' Bengel. 
 
 ^ Jn. X. 17, 18. ' Jn. vii. 25. * Jn. vii. 46. 
 
 ' Ju. viii. 30. ^ Ellicott's Uulsean Lectures, p. 256. 
 
THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 99 
 
 mouth of the Speaker language combining an unutter- 
 able dignity and majesty with a simplicity, to whicli 
 the whole range of literature presents no parallel ; lan- 
 guage which has been read for eighteen hundred years 
 by thousands of all nations and tongues, of all classes 
 and conditions, with an instinctive acknowledgment 
 that 'never man spake like this Man.' 
 
 But from the Feast of Tabernacles let us pass on to 
 the period immediately preceding the last Passover, for 
 our limits forbid us to follow the Holy One during His 
 farewell visits to Galilee and Samaria, or the village.? 
 of Peraja. A solemn earnestness marks every step in 
 this closing period; the Saviour neither sought nor 
 hastened the end which he Had foretold. Hypocritical 
 Pharisees might send Him a friendly warning, that 
 ' Herod is seeking to kill Him*,' but their words 
 ruffle not His spirit; He knows that His hour is not 
 yet come, that ' to-day and to-morrow ' He should cast 
 forth demons, and work miracles, and on the third day 
 ' be perfected,' for ' no prophet could perish out of 
 Jerusalem.' Parables of touching beauty and appro- 
 priateness to this closing period, ' the Lost Sheep,' ' the 
 Lost Coin,' 'the Prodigal Son,' fall from His lips^, while 
 in the restoration of Lazarus to life after being four 
 days in the tomb, the disciples behold the crowning 
 proof of His superhuman power, the last and greatest 
 of His redemptive 'worksV 
 
 1 Lk. xiii. 31—35. 
 
 ^ Lk. XV. 1 — 32. Tischendovl'a Synopsis, p. in. 
 3 Jn. xi. 4-46. 
 
 7—2 
 
100 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 At length the hour draws nigh, and the final 
 journey towards Jerusalem is begun. For the third 
 time, as He advances before His chosen Twelve with 
 a dauntless resolution at which they are awed and 
 amazed'. He recounts to them all things that are to 
 befall Him, with a minuteness exceeding any former 
 revelation. Behold, saith He, we go up to Jerusalem, 
 and the Son of Man shall be delivered unto the chief 
 priests, and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn Him 
 to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles: and they 
 shall mock Him, and shall scourge- Him, and shall spit 
 upon Him, and shall kill Him, and, for the thought of 
 suffering is never dissociated from that of ultimate 
 triumph, the third day He shall rise again'. It is a 
 striking proof how utterly opposed to Jewish ideas was 
 this prediction, that it was this period of all others which 
 two of the Apostles, even two who had witnessed the 
 Transfiguration, selected to request that in the kingdom 
 they believed their Master about to set up they might 
 sit the one on His right hand, and the other on His left'. 
 They seem utterly unable to conceive the realization of 
 His thrice-repeated announcements. Their thoughts are 
 in perfect harmony with the expectations of their nation. 
 Even the assurance that these two should drink of His 
 cup, and be baptized with His baptism, sounds like the 
 concession of some mysterious dignity, and provokes 
 a jealousy on the part of the rest which the Holy One 
 checks by reminding them once more of the true 
 
 ' j\rk. X. 32. Mk. X. 33, 34 and the parallels. 
 
 3 Malt. XX. •20—28; Mk. X. 35—45- 
 
THE LATER MINISTRY, 
 
 101 
 
 nature of His kingdom, that therein He is truly first 
 ■who is the servant of all, even as the Son of Man came 
 not to he ministered wito, hut to minister, and to give 
 His life a ransom for many^. 
 
 With this final proof of the utter inability even 
 of those He had Himself called around Him, to lighten 
 by their sympathy a particle of what lay before Him, 
 the Saviour continued His way, entered Jericho, ac- 
 cepted the hospitality of the publican Zaccheus^ cor- 
 rected, by .delivering the parable of ' the Pounds,' the 
 idea that the kingdom of God was about immediately to 
 apjyear^, and at length, six days before the Passover, 
 reached the safe seclusion of the mountain hamlet of 
 Bethany*, where He spent His last earthly sabbath. 
 
 Here, in the house, it would seem, of one Simon ^ 
 who had been a leper, and had not improbably been 
 restored to health by the Saviour Himself, Mary and 
 Martha provided a festal repast to welcome Him, who 
 had in so signal a manner restored happiness to their 
 little circle. But even this season of seclusion did not 
 pass away without a significant proof how the thought 
 of what was to come was uppermost in His mind. As 
 the feast proceeded Mary approached, and in proof of 
 her deep and overflowing love for Him who had 
 restored her brother to life, anointed His head and feet 
 with precious spikenard. But this act of beautiful 
 
 ^ Kal SoOnai TT]v ^KxV avToO Mrpon avrl ttoWwv, Matt. xx. ; 
 Mk. X. 45. 
 
 - Lk. xix. I — 10. ^ Lk. xix. it. 
 
 Matt. xxvi. 6— 13; IMk. xiv. 3—9; Jn. xii. i — 11. 
 ' Matt. xxvi. 6 ; Mk. xiv. 3. 
 
102' 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 affection won not the approval of all in the room. 
 To some of the Apostles, and especially to Judas, it 
 seemed utterly unbecoming that unguents, which 
 might have fetched so much and have been given to 
 the poor, should be wasted in a useless piece of extra- 
 vagance, and they had mdignation^ , and murmured 
 against her. He, however, to whom she had thus 
 manifested her affectionate adoration, suffered scarcely 
 a moment to elapse before He signified His opinion 
 of her conduct ^ Not only. He declares, had she done 
 nothing wrong, but she had wrought a beautiful and 
 noble deed. The poor, for whom some pretended so 
 much anxiety, they had always with them, but Him- 
 self they would not have alivays, thus reminding them 
 of that speedy removal He had so often already an- 
 nounced. And then He proceeded to declare that what 
 this woman had done, had a special and peculiar 
 significance. In reference to the mysterious Event so 
 soon about to befall Him, wherein He should receive 
 so little assistance or comfort from any human being, 
 she, at least, ' had done what she could Slie hath come 
 before hand, said He, to anoint My Body to the bury- 
 ing; Verily, verily, I say unto you, Wlieresoever this 
 Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, 
 there shall also what this woman hath done be told for 
 a memorial of her^. Thus by a prophetic word He 
 elevated, interpreted, and glorified this proof of affec- 
 tionate love. 
 
 1 Matt. xxvi. 8. 
 
 2 Matt. xxvi. 13 ; Mk. xiv. 9. 
 
 » Mk. xiv. 6. 
 
THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 103 
 
 At length this eventful evening closed, and the next 
 day dawned, the first day of the Holy AVeek. Leaving 
 the seclusion of the quiet mountain-hamlet, attended 
 not only by the little company of His own disciples, 
 but by a constantly increasing crowd of pilgrims to the 
 Festival', whom His fame and the late stupendous 
 miracle at the tomb of Lazarus had attracted, the 
 Saviour entered Jerusalem in meek triumph, sitting on 
 an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass''. The whole city 
 was moved to its very centre ; filled with the conviction 
 that at length Zion's king was truly come, thousands 
 heralded His approach ; garments were plucked off 
 and cast down before Him, palm-branches were strawed 
 in His way, 'Hosannas' rent the air, as in calm majesty 
 He rode onwards recognized by thousands as the long- 
 expected Messiah. 
 
 But how deep must have been the disappointment 
 of all who looked for some great unmistakeable ' sign,' 
 who expected to see Him claim the sceptre and ascend 
 the throne, rewarding the general homage with some 
 certain proof of His true character! Their homage 
 was indeed accei^ted, but did He f5r a single moment, 
 even in this hour of triumph, fall in with the popular 
 expectations? A turn of the road, as He descended the 
 slopes of Olivet, revealed the Holy City rising, ' as it 
 were out of a deep abyss V and presenting itself in all its 
 glory before His eyes and those of His followers, and 
 
 ' .Tn. xii. 12. 
 
 ' MU. xi. I — II and the parallels; Jn. xii. 1-2 — 19. 
 
 ^ Stanley's <S(?iat and Palestine, 193. 
 
104 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY, 
 
 the hour of triumph became the hour of deepest sor- 
 row. The Holy One wept over the beautiful city; 
 foresaw the hour of its desolation, the Roman legions 
 gathered round its fated walls, its proud towers laid 
 low in the dust, and its children within it, because 
 it 'knew not the hour of its visitation!' The proces- 
 sion moved on to the city itself, and entered the Temple. 
 Now at length, perhaps, some ' sign ' will be vouchsafed. 
 For the second time' the Holy Place of the Most High 
 is cleansed of the mercenary crowd of traffickers, who 
 have renewed their unholy occupation, making it a 
 den of thieves; evening came on, and the Saviour 
 retired once more to the little mountain hamlet, to the 
 home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus! Marvellous 
 rebuke, at every step, to the excited expectations of the 
 people! On the assumption that He, who entered 
 Jerusalem in this mysterious triumph, was the product 
 of ' a heated popular imagination,' or a subtle combi- 
 nation of myths, what explanation is to be given of the 
 minuteness which has recorded this significant rebuke 
 of every popular prejudice, of every popular belief? 
 Whence, if He was nothing more than this, the anxiety 
 to embalm in words of unexampled pathos this signal 
 discomfiture of a nation's hopes? 
 
 For a far different end from that Avhich popular 
 imagination could divine had the true Lamb of God 
 
 1 Matt. xxi. 12 — 17; Mk. xi. 15 — 19; Lk. xix. 45 — 48. Many, 
 as Greswell, Alford, Wieseler, see in this visit to the temple on the loth 
 of Nisan a fulfilment of the command (Exod. xii. 3 — 6) to select on this 
 day a lamb for the Paschal sacrifice. 
 
THE LATER MINISTRY, 
 
 105 
 
 come up to this Paschal Festival. The ruling powers 
 might harass Him from day to day with malicious 
 questionings ; Pharisees and Herodians respecting the 
 duty of paying tribute to Ctesar'; the Sadducees with 
 a frivolous objection to the doctrine of the Resurrec- 
 tion'^; the Legalist with a difficulty respecting the 
 relative greatness of the commandments', but while 
 each disputant retired foiled and baffled, nor dared 
 to ask Him any more questions ; His own soul was 
 filled with the thought of the real triumph now so near 
 at hand'*. We have a striking proof of this in a signifi- 
 cant incident, which took place before the first half 
 of the Holy Week' had passed away. 
 
 As He was teaching in one of the courts of the 
 Temple, two of His Apostles, Andrew and Philip, ap- 
 proached Him with what they deemed a strange 
 announcement. Amongst the thousands that crowded 
 the Holy City were 'certain Greeks',' not Grecian Jews, 
 nor even, it would seem, proselytes of righteousness, 
 but heathens, and probably Greeks proper. In common 
 with many others they had heard of the famed Teacher 
 of Nazareth, of the mighty woi'ks He performed, of 
 
 1 Matt. xxii. 15 — 22; Mk. xii. 13 — 17; Lk. xx. 20 — 26. 
 ° Matt. xxii. 23 — 33; Mk. xii. 18 — 27; Lk. xx. 27- — 39. 
 3 Matt. xxii. 34 — 40; Mk. xii. 28—34; Lk. xx. 40. 
 
 * Compare the parable of tiie Wiclced Husbandmen, and Matt. xxi. 
 37; Mk. xii. 6—S ; Lk. xx. 13—15. 
 
 ' Some place this incident on the evening of the triumphal entry ; 
 others, as Robinson, Tischendorf, Wieseler, Ellicott, and Andrews, p. 363, 
 on tlie Tuesday of the Holy Week. 
 
 * Jn. xii. 20. See Stier and Lightfoot, in loc. 
 
106 
 
 THE LATER MINISTRY. 
 
 the marvellous words that fell from His lips, and they 
 wished to do something more than hear, they wished 
 with their own eyes ' to see ' this wondrous Teacher. 
 But shrinking from approaching Him directly, they 
 had applied to the apostle Philip ^ saying, Sir, we would 
 see Jesus. Philip, seemingly perplexed, consulted An- 
 drew, and together the two went and told their Lord 
 
 And what said He, when He heard their announce- 
 ment, when perchance He beheld these enquirers from 
 the West? He instantly broke forth into words of 
 mysterious joy^! 'The Hour,' he declared, 'as if in 
 a transport of holy rapture,' ' the Hour is come, that the 
 Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say 
 unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground 
 and die, it abideth alone : hut if it die, it bringeth forth 
 much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he 
 that hateth his life shall keep it unto life eternal. If 
 any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, 
 there will also My servant be; if any man serve Me, 
 him will My Father honour*. 
 
 But with the thought of the seed-corn cast into the 
 
 ' For the various reasons that liave been assigned for their applica- 
 tion to this Apostle, see Stier, vi. 77; EUicott's Lectures, 316, n. 
 
 ^ Probably in the Court of the Women, into which no Gentiles 
 ■would dare to intrude. 
 
 ^ 'Praeludium regni Dei a Judaeis ad gentes transituri.' Bengel. 
 'These men from the West represent at the end of Christ's life that 
 ■which the wise men from the East represented at its beginning; but 
 those come to the cross of the King, even as these came to His 
 manger, and receive pnsently more full intelligence.' Stier, ■VI. 78. 
 
 * Jn. xii. 24—26. On the applicability of this figure to the 
 Hellenic mind, see Stier, VI. 81; Lange's Life of Christ, 54—56, E. T. 
 
THE LATER MINISTIIY. 
 
 107 
 
 ground and dying, came the thought of all that He 
 must undergo. There fell upon Him the shadow of the 
 dreadful Hour, and a sensible foretaste of Gethsemane^ 
 drew forth two of those deep mysterious exclamations 
 which, unless our perceptions are only given to mock 
 us, carry with them the conviction of the superhuman 
 character of Him who uttered them. Now is My soul 
 troubled, said He, and what shall I say? Father, save 
 Me from this hour. And then, as though a cloud had 
 rolled away, the perfectly willing Spirit spoke again. 
 For this cause came I unto this hour^. Father, glorify 
 Thy name^. But these words expressive of such deep, 
 such infinite resignation were not to pass unheeded, 
 they called forth the last of the Three Heavenly 
 Voices, which, during His life on earth, attested the 
 Divinity of the Saviour's mission. The voice which had 
 been heard on the banks of Jordan, and on the mount 
 of Transfiguration, is now heard in the courts of the 
 Temple itself*, saying responsively to the Saviour's 
 significant utterance, Father, glorify Thy name,... I have 
 both glorified it, and will glorify it again. Various 
 were the interpretations of this mysterious utterance 
 
 ^ 'Concurrebat horror mortis, et ardor oliedientia;.' Bengtl. 
 ^ ' Veni in hanc horam, ut venirem in lianc horam, eamque cxantla- 
 rcm.'' Bangel. See also Stier, VI. 85. 
 ^ Jn. xii. 27, 28. 
 
 ■* 'Tlie third time had Jesus now solemnly announced His destiny of 
 death ; as first in the presence of the Baptist, the second time before the 
 iawgiver and prophet of the Old Testament, so now in tlie holy place of 
 Siicrifice itself, in the tabernacle of God. And the tliird time does tlie 
 Voice like thunder resound, by which the Father accredits the Son, 
 and justifies His work.' Ebrard, quoted by Stier, VI. 89. 
 
108 
 
 THE LATEK MINISTRY. 
 
 by the surrounding crowd. Some thought that it thun- 
 dered, others, that an angel spake to II{m\ But the 
 Holy One Himself set all doubts at rest, saying, 
 This Voice came not because of Me, hut for your 
 sakes. And then returned the same thoughts of tri- 
 umph which the first announcement of the two Apostles 
 and the sight of the enquiring Greeks, had called forth, 
 l^ow is the judgment of this world: now shall the Prince 
 of this wo7-ld be cast out, and I, if I be lifted up'', 
 will dr-aw all men unto Me, signifying, adds the Evan- 
 gelist, by what death He should die. 
 
 With this last significant intimation, recalling by its 
 associations the words addressed to Nicodemus two 
 Passovers before, closes the cycle of announcements of 
 the Passion previous to the institution of the Eucharist. 
 On looking back we can discover no trace of any change 
 of purpose, any alteration of plan, any 'sudden after- 
 thought.' We have seen how the truth included in the 
 first angelic message was gradually developed, how one 
 idea pervades every intimation, every hint, every pro- 
 phecy; how 'little by little' the minds of the Apostles 
 were trained to receive the idea of a suffering Messiah. 
 We have seen how the figurative and metaphorical 
 allusions of the earlier period of the ministry made way 
 for precise statements, and general for special declara- 
 tions. Had the Holy One on the occasion of the fir.^t 
 Paschal Festival of His public ministry spoken of the 
 
 ^ Comp. Acts ix. 4, 7, with xxii. 9 and xxvi. 14. 
 Jn. xii. 32. Thus for the third time we have the figure of lift- 
 ing up. 
 
THE LATEIi MINISTllY. 
 
 109 
 
 destruction and resurrection of the temple of His Body, 
 and intimated to Nicodemus that as Moses lifted up 
 the serpent in the wilderness, so also the Son of Man 
 must be lifted up? Had He, when the same Festival 
 again came round, spoke of Himself in the synagogue 
 of Capernaum as the True Bread from heaven, declared 
 that He was come to give His life for the luorld, and 
 hinted at a mysterious eating of His flesh, and drink- 
 ing of His blood? During the last year of His life we 
 have seen these same announcements expanded and 
 particularized. In the neighbourhood of Csesarea 
 Philippi we heard Him, after an Apostle had nobly 
 declared his conviction of His Divine Nature, intimate 
 for the first time clearly and unmistakeably the future 
 that lay before Him, and the necessity for His going up 
 to Jerusalem, and there being rejected and put to 
 death; six days afterwards we heard the representa- 
 tives of the Law and the Prophets conversing with Him 
 touching 'tJie decease he was about to accomplish at 
 Jerusalem;' from this time we have seen the shadows 
 deepen, and watched the earnestness with which He 
 sought to prepare the Apostles for the End; we have 
 heard Him publicly declare while teaching in the 
 Temple, that the Son of Man must he lifted up), that for 
 a little while He should remain, and then return to the 
 Father ; in various symbols borrowed from the world of 
 men and the world of nature — the true and genuine 
 Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep — the 
 ransom-money paid for the captive— the 'corn of wheat,' 
 which must first be cast into the ground and die before 
 
110 
 
 THE LATER MINISTEY. 
 
 it can bring forth fruit; we have heard Him speak of 
 His death and its relation to the benefits He came to 
 bestow upon the world ; from the beginning to the end 
 we have observed how the Apostles were trained gra- 
 dually and progressively to realize the idea of His death, 
 and prepared for the offence of the Cross. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 ''KinOviJ.lq. i-TTiBiitiricra tovto t6 Jlaaxa. (payciy neO' vfiwv irpb toO 
 fie TTa6tiv. 
 
 S. Luke xxii. 15. 
 
 We have now followed the Saviour wclluigh to the 
 close of His life on earth. Again the Feast of tlie 
 Passover drew near. Again, as in so many former 
 years, the pastures and hills around Jerusalem were 
 whitened with flocks; again the thoroughfares, espe- 
 cially in the neighbourhood of the sheep-market, 
 were crowded with a moving mass of helpless vic- 
 tims; again the city itself was thronged with stran- 
 gers and pilgrims from every quarter of the then known 
 world, who, whether Jews or proselytes, had come up 
 with one accord to celebrate the groat national festi- 
 val, and commemorate the birthday of the chosen people 
 and their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. 
 
 Of the various festivals of the Jewish Church, if we 
 except those of later institution which commemorated 
 
112 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST, 
 
 tha deliverance of the people from Haman and Antio- 
 chus Epiplianes', the Passover was the only one which 
 rested on a distinctly historical basis. Year after 
 year, from generation to generation, it had been cele- 
 brated, and with every celebration recalled, as in 'a 
 living drama,' the great story of the national deliver- 
 ance ; a deliverance effected not hy them but for them, 
 not by their own might, but by the uplifted hand of 
 Jehovah, in which they had not been actors but passive 
 spectators, had stood still and seen the salvation of God', 
 Year after year, from generation to generation, it had 
 recalled by its expressive rites the awful night, when 
 there was not a house in Egypt, from the firstborn of 
 Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of 
 the captive in the dungeon^, where tliere was not one 
 dead; Avhen the destroying angel passed over the houses 
 of those Israelites, and those only, on the lintels and 
 doorposts of which the blood of the Paschal lamb 
 had been sprinkled, and where the flesh of the lamb 
 itself had been eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened 
 bread. 
 
 Under, therefore, its first and most obvious aspect the 
 Passover commemorated a redemption from cruel and 
 oppressive bondage, a redemption wrought solely by the 
 outstretched arm of Jehovah, conditional, as regarded 
 the Israelites, on the sacrifice of a lamb, the sprinkling 
 of its blood on the doorposts of each house, and the 
 slaying and eating of it by each Paschal company. In 
 
 ' See Stanley's Lectures on the Jeu-isli ChurrJi, p. 121. 
 ^ Ex. xiv. 13. Ex. xii. 29. 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 113 
 
 this festival the principle of mediation found its highest 
 expression. The victim slain was in the strictest sense 
 a sacrifice, and combined some of the chief features of 
 the sin«-offering and the peace-offering. It was pre- 
 sented before the brazen altar in the holy place', the 
 fat was burned by the priest, and the blood sprinkled 
 on the altar ^ It was then not burned, or eaten by the 
 priests only, but by all the people, who at this sacri- 
 ficial feast' — the distinguishing feature of the peace 
 or thank-offering — partook of the ' Table of the Lord,' 
 and received the seal and pledge of their covenant- 
 relation. 
 
 At this point it will, perhaps, be well to try and 
 realize the manner in which this Paschal Feast was 
 then celebrated by the Jews*. It will be, indeed, im- 
 possible to harmonize every detail with what was after- 
 wards instituted by the Saviour, but we may be, in 
 some measure, helped to understand the associations, 
 amidst which the Eucharist originated. 
 
 The company at the Table, which might not be less 
 than ten persons, usually included from ten to twenty, 
 according to the family, or the number of strangers 
 that might be present. They met in the evening and 
 
 ' Deut. xvi. 5, 6. 
 
 ^ 2 Chron. xxx. i6; xxxv. ii. 
 
 ^ See Cudworth's True notion of the Lord's Supper, Wis. IT. 831. 
 
 * The authorities consulted for the following notice of the Paschal 
 ceremonies have been Buxtorf, de Ctzna Domini; Lightfoot's Temple 
 Service; The Book of Jewish Ceremonies, by Gamaliel Ben Pedahzur, 
 pp. 51— Godwyn's Moses and Aaron; Freeman's Principles of 
 Dirine Service, Vol. 11. pp. -29— 39; Lange's Commentary on St Matthexo, 
 Vol. II. 435, 6. 
 
 8 
 
114 
 
 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 reclined on couches, this being the usual posture then, 
 as standing had been originally \ 
 
 The rites of the feast were regulated according to the 
 succession of four"^, sometimes five, cups of wine mixed 
 with water, which were placed before the head of the 
 house, or the most eminent guest, who was called the 
 Celebrant, the President, or Proclaimer of the Feast. 
 
 i. When they had reclined, he began by taking 
 one of the four cups of wine in his right hand, and pro- 
 nounced the benediction over the wine and the feast, 
 saying, Blessed be Thou, 0 Lord our God, the King of the 
 universe, who hast created the fruit of the vine^. He then 
 drank the first cup, and the remainder of the household 
 followed his example. 
 
 ii. Water was then brought in, and he blessed for 
 the washing of hands, and washed, followed by the 
 rest. 
 
 iii. The table was next set out with the unleavened 
 bread, the sauce called Charoseth, and the Paschal 
 lamb, and the flesh of the chagighah, or feast-offerings. 
 
 iv. The proclaimer of the feast then blessed God 
 for the fruits of the earth, and taking a portion of the 
 
 1 See Mlshna Pcsach, lo § i. 
 
 2 Buxtorf, de Carta Domini, pp. igc), 300, Omnes in coena Paschali 
 oportet quatuor pocula bibere. 
 
 For similar words used in the Synagogue Service for Friday night, 
 when a cup of wine is brouglit to the reader, a blessing pronounced, 
 with a remembrance made of the Exodus, and then the wine is dis- 
 tributed amongst the little children, see Pedazhur, p. 137. Also at the 
 end of the Sahhath Eicninrj Service, when a cup of wine is again brought 
 in, see Hid. pp. 185. Jost, Gesch. Judcnth. I. 180, quoted in 
 
 Article Syneirjoyuc in Smith's Bib. Diet. 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 115 
 
 bitter herbs dii^ped it in the sop, and ate it with all 
 who reclined at the table. 
 
 V. The Haggadali or showing forth now com- 
 menced, and the Celebrant declared the circumstances 
 of tlie delivery from Egypt, as commanded in the Law\ 
 Then the second cup of wine was filled, and a child, or 
 proselyte, enquired What mean ye by tliis service? 
 To which reply was made, according to a prescribed 
 formula, or liturgy : T]t,e Passover zuhich we eat is in 
 respect that the Lord passed over the houses of our fathers 
 in Egypt. Holding up the bitter herbs, he went on, 
 Tliese hitter herhs that we cat are in respect that the 
 Egyptians made the lives of our fathers bitter in Egypt. 
 Then holding up the bread in his hand, he said, This 
 unleavened bread which we eat is in respect that the 
 dough of our fathers had not time to be leavened, 
 luhen the Lord appeared unto them, and redeemed them 
 out of the hand of the enemy, therefore, he continued, 
 are we bound to confess, to praise, to extol, to magnify, 
 and to ascribe victory to Him, who did unto our fatJiers 
 and to us all these signs, and ivho brought us forth from 
 servitude to freedom, from sorrow to joy, from darlcncss 
 to marvellous light, and therefore we say before Him, 
 Hallelujah! whereupon Psalms cxiii. and cxiv. were 
 repeated, followed by a solemn blessing and drinking 
 of the second cup. 
 
 vi. Then, after a second washing of hands, taking 
 two (rf the unleavened cakes, the Celebrant broke one 
 of them, pi-onouncing the consecration in these words: 
 
 ' Ex. xii. 17; xiii. 8. ^ Ex. xii. ■26. 
 
 8—2 
 
116 THE INSTITUTION OP THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 Blessed he Thou, 0 Lord our God, King of the universe, 
 who hringest forth fruit out of the earth\ He next 
 distributed a piece to each person around him, saying, 
 This is the bread of affliction which our fathers did eat 
 in the land of Egypt. All present then dipped the 
 portions with the bitter herbs into the Charoseth and 
 ate them. 
 
 vii. After a thanksgiving to God who commanded 
 the eating of the Passover, they then ate the flesh 
 of the lamb with the bread, and the master, lifting up 
 his hands, blessed the third cup of wine, especially 
 known as the Cup of Blessing, and hande4 it round 
 to each person. 
 
 viiL Thanksgiving was now renewed for the food 
 of which they had partaken, for the delivery fi-om 
 Egypt, the covenant of cii-cumcision, and the law, and a 
 fourth cup was filled and drunk, while the remainder of 
 the Hallel, Psalms cxv — cxviii, was sung, whence the 
 cup was known as the cup of Song. 
 
 ix. Occasionally a fifth cup was drunk, while 
 Psalms cxx — cxxviii. were chanted, but no more. 
 
 Such, or nearly such, was the mode of celebrating the 
 Passover in the time of the Saviour. Up till now it will 
 be noticed that we have no record of any actual partici- 
 pation in a Paschal Meal by our Lord in company with 
 
 ^ Pedazhur p. 52. Ale.xander's Jewish Service, p. 9. For the Grace 
 on ordinary occasions before eating bread, see Pedazhur, p. 282. 'Their 
 Rabbies coiapare their tables, whilst they are at their meals, to the 
 altars, whereon the offerings were laid in their Temples, and therefore 
 they are commanded by the Rabbies to read a portion of some of the 
 laws of sacrifices at every meal.' Ibid. pp. 92, 3. 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF , THE EUCHARIST. 117 
 
 His discij^les. At the first Passover we are, indeed, told 
 that He went up to Jerusalem, and we may infer that 
 He confoiTned in all things to Jewish, usages, but the 
 Evangelists have not described the circumstances of any- 
 actual Paschal celebration. 
 
 But two days before the period at which we' have 
 now arrived. He Himself reminded His disciples of the 
 approach of the Festival, saying, Ye know that after 
 two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man is betrayed 
 to be crucified^. He thus distinctly intimated the occa- 
 sion, when the evemt so often already foretold would 
 take place. The 'Hour' so often declared to be at hand 
 was now specifically fixed and definitely connected 
 with the chief historical Festival of the Jews-, And not 
 only did He thus direct the attention of the Apostles to 
 the approach of the Passover, but in reply to the 
 enquiry where He intended to celebrate it. He bade two 
 of their number, Peter and John, go into the city, where 
 they would meet a man bearing a pitcher of water, 
 whom they were to follow to whatever hoase he should 
 enter. To the owner^ of this house they were to address 
 the significant words, the Master saith. My time is at 
 hand; where is the guest-chamber where I may eat the 
 Passover with My disciples? on which the Apostles 
 were told that the householder would show' them a 
 
 1 Mtt. xxvi. r, 1. 
 
 ' Probably a believing follower; Discipuhis, sed man ex duodecim. 
 Bengel. See also Stier, VII. 77; Lange on Mtt. xxvi. 17. Ellicott's 
 Lectures, 321, n. 
 
 ^ Mtt. xxvi. 18; Mk. xiv. 14.; Lk. xxii, it. 
 
118 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 large upjDer-room furnished and prepared ; there they 
 were to make ready. 
 
 In contrast with the silence, which has been hitherto 
 maintained respecting any actual celebration of the 
 Paschal Feast by the Saviour, we cannot fail to notice 
 the minute care with which He Hiinself directed its 
 celebration now. Not only does He send two of His 
 Apostles to make ready ; not only does He describe the 
 guide to the house, and the words they were to address 
 to the householder, but He particularizes even the size 
 and aspect of the upper-room he would show them. 
 Such minute directions could not fail to make a deep 
 impression upon the Apostles, and to deepen in their 
 minds the conviction that in the approaching feast their 
 Master had a profound and mysterious interest, that He 
 distinctly contemplated, and looked forward to it. The 
 fact that the room is described as already furnished and 
 prepared^ suggests that the searching for and putting 
 away of leaven, so important a preliminary to the Pass- 
 over, had already been carried out, and hence we may 
 infer that the preparation made by the Apostles in- 
 cluded the provision of the unleavened cakes, of the 
 bitter herbs, and of the cups of wine ; of everything 
 in short that could be prepared on the day before the 
 sacrifice of the Jewish Paschal lambs ^ 
 
 ^ aviiyaiov fiiya iaTpiajj-ivov iToifiov, Mk. xiv. 15; Lk. xxii. 12. 
 
 ^ Into the vexed and extremely difficult question whether the meal 
 of which the Saviour now partook was the Passover or an anticipation 
 of it, it has not been thought necessary to enter here. For a conspectus 
 of all the arguments on both sides, see Ebrard's Gospel History, 395 — 
 405; Lange, Life of Christ, Vol. IV. 15S — 271; Article Passover in 
 
THE IXSTITUTION OF THE EUCHAKIST. 119 
 
 This done, tbey probably returned to their Lord, 
 who later in the evening, when the hour was come^ 
 the compact between the traitor and the chief priests 
 having already been made^ left the little village of 
 Bethany, and entered the upper-room with the twelve. 
 They sat down or reclined, and the Saviour taking the 
 place of Celebrant, or Head of the family, said, ivith 
 desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you before 
 I suffer'': for I say unto you, I will no more eat thereof 
 until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. With these 
 words He took a cup, the first cup we may believe, 
 devoted usually to the announcement of the feast, 
 and gave thanks, and said. Take ye this and divide 
 it amongst you; for I say unto you, I will not drink 
 of the fruit of the vine'', till the kingdom of God shall 
 come. 
 
 But even now, even in this solemn hour, the old 
 contention touching priority again broke out among 
 the Apostles. He, however, who during the whole of 
 their mutual converse had ever borne so gently with 
 
 Smith's Bih. Did. ; Andrews' Life of our Lord upon the Earth, 368 — 
 397 ; Bp. Ellicott's Huhean Lectures, 32? n. 
 ^ Lk. xxii. 14. 
 
 a Mtt. xxvi. 14—16; Mk. xiv. 10; Lk. xxii. 3—6. 
 
 3 The stress upon the words this Passover and lefore I suffer is 
 clear. ' It is as if He had said, Because I cannot eat of the proper 
 Passover, therefore have I desired beforehand, in this form, to eat it 
 ■with you, and this My desire is now fulfilled.' Freeman's Principles of 
 Divine Service, II. 303. Stier, vil. 33. Ellicott, 323 n. 
 
 ^ This expression fruit of the vine occurs in the Evening Synagogue 
 service, Pedazhur, 136, in the Sabbath Evening service, ibid. 184, in the 
 ordinary Grace before drinking wine, ibid. 282, as well as the Paschal 
 Festival, ibid. 51, 136. 
 
120 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 their shortcomings, to repress so unseemly a dispute, 
 and at the same time teach them in the most striking 
 manner a lesson of humility, took upon Him the form 
 of a servant, and girding Himself with a towel washed 
 His disciples' feet'. 
 
 This done the feast was resumed 2, and probably the 
 second cup of wine was drunk. But soon the conscious- 
 ness of the traitor's presence, already darkly intimated, 
 so wrought upon the Saviour, that His inmost soul was 
 deeply moved and troubled^, and He testified and said. 
 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you will betray 
 me*. This announcement excited great surprise and 
 sorrow among the Apostles, and many were the earnest 
 questionings, Lord, is it I?- At length He gave a special 
 and private indication to the disciple that reclined upon 
 His bosom^ The sop was dipped and given to Judas 
 Iscariot, who immediately left the room and went forth 
 to execute his awful purpose. With his departure the 
 Saviour was no more troubled in spirit, but brake forth 
 into the same triumphant language ^ which we have 
 already considered, when in the courts of the Temple 
 
 ' Jn. xiii. I — 20. Whether this was usual before the Passover see 
 Euxtorf, dc Ccena Domini, p. 303, ed. 1662. 
 
 2 Even if Seliruov -/(voixivov, Jn. xiii. 1, be the right reading, the 
 meaning must be when supper had begun, Tischendorf and Tregelles 
 read yivofj.ii'ov. 
 
 Jn. xiii. 21, erapaxdy] Tip wvev/iaTi. 
 
 ■» Jn. xiii. 21. ' Jn. xiii. 24 — 36. 
 
 " Truly in the harmony of our Lord's words now with those uttered 
 in tlie presence of the Greeks, we have ' a life and a truth with which 
 the subtlest combinations of thought could never have animated a 
 mythical narrative. ' 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 121 
 
 He heard of the request of the Greeks. Novj, said 
 He, is the Son of Man f/lorified, and God is glorified 
 in Him; if God is gloj'ified in Him, God will also 
 glorify Him in Himself and will straightway glorify 
 Him\ 
 
 Again the feast proceeded, and soon talving one of 
 the unleavened cakes that had been placed before Him 
 and giving thanks, probably in the usual words. He 
 brake it, and gave it to His Apostles, saying, 
 
 Tahe, eat, This is My Body, which is given for you ; 
 do this in remembrance of Me"^. 
 
 Afterwards He took a cup of wine, in all probability 
 the third cup and known as the Cup of Blessing, gave 
 thanks, and gave it unto them, saying. 
 
 Drink ye all of this ; for this cup is My Blood of the 
 New Covenant, which is shed for you, for many, for the 
 remission of sins ; this do ye as oft as ye sJtcdl drink it in 
 remembrance of i/e^ 
 
 After this, He conversed with His Apostles on the 
 events that were soon to happen to Himself and them, 
 of their desertion of Him at the most critical moment, 
 the failure of their faith, and their dispersion each unto 
 his own. And then, whereas at the usual Paschal Feast 
 
 1 Jn. xiii. 31, 32. 
 
 2 Tout6 eVri to iTujud /xov (Mtt., Mk., Lk., i Cor. xi. 24), rb virkp 
 ifiuf diSdfiei'oi' (Lk.), t6 iiirip v/xOf [xXw/iecoi'] i Cor. xi. 24, toCto Troieire 
 eis Trjv ifirjv dvdixvrjaip (i Cor. xi. 24). 
 
 3 niere aiiToO Tracrcs (Mtt.), touto yap iari t6 al/xd /Jiov rijs 
 StaBriKrjs (Mtt., Mk.), ij Kaivrj Oiad-qKTf iii Tip aifiari jxav (Lk. ; i Cor. 
 xi. 25), TO irepl ttoXXuv iKxvip.ei'ov (Mtt.), to eKX^obp-evov iiirkp iroXKCov 
 (Mk.), TO virip ip.wv Uxyop-ifov (Lk.), eh Hcpdri-v 6.p.apTiCiv (Mtt.), 
 toOto TroiejTC, oadKis dV iriurjre, tls ttjv epTjf dvdjxvqaiii (i Cor. xi. 25). 
 
122 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 it had been customary to continue long in religious 
 conversation on the great events of the Exodus and the 
 national deliverance from Egypt, so now did the Saviour 
 converse with the eleven of His own departure to the 
 Father and the coming of the Comforter^ ; of Himself as 
 the true Vine, and His disciples as the branches"; of the 
 hatred of the world and its sin against Himself^, of the 
 trials which the Apostles must expect, and the assured 
 aid of the Paraclete ^ and of offering up prayer in His 
 Name". Then, lifting up His eyes to heaven, in wrapt 
 and solemn devotion. He committed the Apostles to the 
 guardian care of the Eternal Father^ and dedicated to 
 Him His own completed work', which once more He 
 contemplates in its issues not only on those then pre- 
 sent, but on all that should believe on His Name'. 
 After this solemn outpouring of His whole soul to 
 God, which none can read or hear without feeling that 
 nothing more sublime is recorded in the Book of Life, 
 a hymn, -probably the Hallel, was sung, and the 
 Apostles went forth with their Lord to the Mount of 
 Olives". 
 
 ^ Jn. xiv. I — 31. 2 ju xy I — 
 
 ^ Jn. XV. 18 — 25. ^ Jn. xvi. 1 — 16. 
 
 ^ Jn. xvi. 23 — 27. * Jn. xvii. 
 
 John xvii. 20. 
 
 ^ We can never fail to notice the strong sacrificial language now 
 used by our Lord in tlie words, anrf /.))■ their saJces I sanctify (dytafti 
 IfiauTov, i.e. / consecrate Myself, I dedicate Myself to Thee in death) that 
 they may be consecrated through the truth, Jn. xiii. 19. Cump. 
 ayid^eu' in LXX. ; Levit. xxii. 1; Num. iii. 15. See Archbp. Trench's 
 A', r. Synonyms, II. 168. 
 
 ^ Mtt. xxvi. 30; Mk. xiv. 26. 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 123 
 
 Such were the circumstances of the institution of a 
 Rite, the uninterrupted celebration of which from the 
 eariiest times to the present day is an impregnable fact. 
 Now (i) we find that in the Gospel narrative it occupies 
 no isolated position. It is not only in complete harmony 
 with, but is the culminating point of all previous an- 
 nouncements whether figurative or specific respecting 
 the mystery of the Passion. Had the earliest explana- 
 tion of the import of the Saviour's Name declared the 
 delivery of His people from their sins to be the object of 
 His coming into the world? We have here the remis- 
 sion of sins distinctly connected with His death. Had 
 the Baptist, at the very commencement of his ministry, 
 spoken of Him as the Lamb of God that should take 
 aiuaij the sin of the world^? In the institution of the 
 Eucharist, Bread and Wine, before subordinate and not 
 even of Divine authority, are put in place of the lamb 
 hitherto eaten, and of that victim itself no word is 
 said. Had the Saviour at the first Passover of His 
 public ministry, spoken of a mysterious destruction and 
 resurrection of His Body, and declared that as Hoses 
 lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son 
 of Man he lifted ^ip ? He now embodies in a significant 
 Rite the destruction of His Body, and its lifting up for 
 the salvation of many. Had He, when another Paschal 
 Festival came round, after one of His most significant 
 miracles, spoken of Himself as the Bread of Life, of 
 eating His Body and drinking His Blood? In this 
 
 ' See Bp. Bron-ne on the Articles, p. 711. 
 
124 THE IXSTITUTIOX OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 Rite not only is the same language recalled to the 
 minds of His Apostles, not only is the same prominence 
 given to the mysterious words Body and Blood, but the 
 means, the eating and drinking then so incomprehensi- 
 bly demanded and promised, are now actually supplied. 
 Had the representatives of the Law and the Prophets 
 conversed with the Saviour respecting the decease He 
 was about to accomplish at Jerusalem! He now, at the 
 greatest of the historical festivals of the Jews, embodies 
 in a significant action the complete fulfilment of its 
 typical ordinances in and through that decease. That 
 previous training, which the brevity and conciseness of 
 the narrative of the Institution renders absolutely 
 necessary to explain its reception and celebration is 
 supplied", and that so incidentally and undesignedly, in 
 a manner so unmethodical and little studious about the 
 disposition and arrangement of its parts, that M'e feel 
 convinced of its truth and genuineness. 
 
 But, (ii), we have traced the institution of the 
 Eucharist back to its source, to the only account of 
 its origin which the Christian Churches have received, 
 and beside which there is no vestige of any other. 
 In an upper-room in the city of Jenisalem, the capital 
 of one of the most despised kingdoms of the Roman 
 empire, we have found a lowly Being surrounded by 
 a few lowly followers, twelve men of sordid occupa- 
 tions, peasants, publicans, fishermen from Galilee, a 
 district regarded as the lowest morally and socially 
 even in Palestine itself. He is conscious that within 
 a few short hours He will undergo the most ignomi- 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 125 
 
 nious punishment the Eoman governor can inflict on 
 the malefactor and the slave. This fact He has never 
 disguised from His followers ; it has formed the sub- 
 ject of frequent and earnest conversation. Calmly, 
 deliberately, He has declared that He must undergo 
 this death, that on it depends the most momentous 
 issues alike to His disciples and the world at large. 
 Though He has had no human soul, no relative, no 
 friend, no disciple, with whom to take counsel in such 
 a matter; though to His chosen disciples His words 
 have been utterly unintelligible, yet He has never fal- 
 tered when speaking of His death, and the conse- 
 quences He has declared will flow from it\ When- 
 ever He has spoken of them, it has never been in 
 the heated language of the enthusiast or the fanatic. 
 It has ever been calm, deliberate, majestic, simple. 
 It has never betrayed a symptom of hesitation, but 
 
 ^ On the perfect self-reliance of the Saviour, see Ullmann's Sinless- 
 ness of Jesus, p. 70. E. T. 'Courage and faith are not unusual, when 
 the principles that call them forth have been adopted by others, and 
 have received this decisive proof of their adaptation and their truth. 
 That which is true, indeed, is not more true by being understood and 
 admitted, and what a man believes is not really more worthy of his 
 belief than before, when it is accepted by others as well as himself. 
 But mind leans on mind, nevertheless, and the enlightened convictions 
 of one impart increased stability and strength to the enlightened con- 
 victions of another. What we could not effect or endure alone, we can 
 effect and endure when supported by other kindred souls. Jesus knew 
 no such support as this. He was followed by multitudes, but it was 
 not because they understood and embraced His principles ; and hence, 
 when these principles were more fully disclosed, man;/ went bark and 
 waUced no more with Him, Jn. vi. 66.' Young's Christ of Jlistorij, 
 pp. 232, 3- 
 
126 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 unifomily the composed and dignified assurance, the 
 clear prescience of One who is perfectly aware of 
 what is to be. 
 
 The ' hour' He has so often predicted is now nigh 
 at hand, nay at the very door. But a few days back 
 there was a moment when all Jerusalem was at His 
 feet, when thousands were ready to welcome Him as 
 the Messiah, and to exalt his triumph. That homage He 
 accepted with the calm composure of one who felt it 
 to be His due, but not for a single moment did He 
 allow Himself to be drawn aside into any compliance 
 with the popular exjiectations^ 
 
 That cue short hour of triumph has passed away 
 never to return. He is now in a humble upper-room 
 with His disciples. One of them, disappointed of the 
 material prosperity he had promised himself by joining 
 Him, filled with malice, has retired to mature a plan 
 for delivering Him into the hands of the ruling powers, 
 who have resolved on putting Him to death. Of this 
 cruel treachery He is perfectly aware, nay, He has 
 Himself indicated the traitor. 
 
 What, then, is His demeanour at this crisis ? Does 
 the calm composure of other hours forsake Him? Is 
 there no hesitation, no misgiving 7iow ? Is there no 
 fear of possible disappointment? At least, does He 
 not request of His followers that they will conceal the 
 fact of His disgraceful end ? 
 
 So far from this. His language was never so calm, 
 
 ^ See Bp. EUicott's Lectures, pp. 290, i. 
 
TIIK INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 127 
 
 SO unliesitatiug, so exalted above all human perplexity. 
 Not only does He converse with His disciples respect- 
 ing His end, but He institutes an Ordinance specially 
 to commemorate it for all future time^ ! In the face 
 of a cmel and ignominious death, at the season of one 
 of the greatest of the Jewish festivals, He supersedes 
 its ordinances, which have been celebrated from gene- 
 ration to generation, by another of His own appoint- 
 ment, declaring that His Body is about to he broken. 
 His Blood to he shed for many, for the remission of 
 sins! In the prospect of unutterable agony and shame 
 He commends His chosen ones to the Divine protec- 
 tion. He prays that they may be kept from tempta- 
 tion; but of Himself He^ speaks to the Supreme in 
 words, the depth and breadth, and length, and heioht 
 of which eighteen centuries have not fathomed, in 
 words such as no mortal ever, has or could address to 
 the Author of his being, of a work He has accom- 
 plished, of commandments He has kept; though He 
 has disappointed every earthly expectation, though He 
 has achieved no abiding success whatsoever. He yet 
 looks forward to His death as the very instrument of 
 
 1 ' About to be crucified as a felon and a slave, He commanded and 
 provided that the fact should be remembered to the end of time— did so 
 in the full confidence that He should at last triumph. And the fact 
 has leen remembered. This is the mystery— if He be not all that He 
 claimed to be— tliis is truly more miraculous than anything ever so 
 called, more inexplicable on all natural principles.' Young's CkriU of 
 History, p. 238. 
 
 2 On the sense of personal faultlessness and perfection ever 
 exhibited by our Lord, see some striking remarks in Young's Christ of 
 History, pp. 202—^06 ; UUmann, p. 95. 
 
128 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 His triumjjh, and declares that by it and through it 
 He will draw all men unto Him ! 
 
 And that death He underwent ! He suffered under 
 Pontius Pilate ! We need only state this article of the 
 faith of the Universal Church. It is confirmed by hea- 
 then as well as Christian testimony. In four Gospels it 
 is recorded with a minuteness the writers employ in 
 treating of no other event in His life'. Heathen authors 
 mention it as a matter of common notoriety ; the oppro- 
 brious epithets applied to the early Christians presup- 
 pose it as a fact which admitted of no dispute ; in an 
 historical age, in a nation which had its archives, its 
 registers, its monuments, which had the strongest pos- 
 sible interest in demonstrating the contrary, the fact 
 was always accepted, and never disproved. 
 
 Where were His disciples when He died? One 
 alone stood by His cross, one had denied with an oath 
 that he had ever known Him, the rest had forsaken Him 
 and fled. This is their own testimonj'. Tliey do not 
 hide or disguise it. With singular openness and art- 
 less minuteness they describe their own cowardice and 
 faithlessness ! 
 
 We may conclude, then, that they now went back 
 to their homes. They had given up everything to 
 follow their Master ; they had gone after Him, as thou- 
 sands did after other Messiahs, but they had been dis- 
 appointed, and they tried to forget all that had occur- 
 red, to efface all recollection of their mistake ? 
 
 ^ For some remarks on the fulness of detail in the Evangelic ac- 
 counts of the Passion, see Thomson's Barapton Lectures, pp. loi, i. 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 129 
 
 On the contrary, little more than forty days after- 
 wards, they were to be found at Jerusalem', where they 
 elected not in a covert underhand manner, but openly 
 and fearlessly, even by lot, another Apostle to fill up 
 their original number^ Ten days after this, one of 
 the Apostles, and he no other than the very Peter, 
 who scarcely a year before could not endure the idea 
 of his Master's death, who had in a moment of temp- 
 tation thrice denied that he had ever known Him, 
 stood forth in Jerusalem, in the very place where His 
 Master had been crucified, to declare that though He 
 had died, He was yet the Messiah whom the prophets 
 had predicted, Avhom the nation was looking for, whom 
 God had promised'. Nay, the effect of his words was 
 such that three thousand* men did not hesitate to 
 avow their belief in the crucified One as the Messiah, 
 in spite of the shame of the Cross to submit to Bap- 
 tism into His name, to form themselves into a society 
 based on a belief in Him, and dissociating themselves 
 from the strongly-rooted prejudices of their childhood, 
 their country, and their age, to teach that all sacrifi- 
 cial observances had been once and for ever fulfilled 
 
 ^ ' In the heart of that city where the people would be most ex- 
 asperated at the revival of the sect which they had supposed to have 
 perished with its Founder ; where there would be the greatest disinclina- 
 tion to believe, and the greatest solicituile to confute ; where the 
 counter-proofs were in the hands of their enemies; where all the people, 
 high and low, had been committed in tlie transaction, and to whom the 
 preaching Christ not merely abased their national pride, but reproached 
 them with most odious national cruelty.' Milman, Hampton Lectures, 
 p. 86. 
 
 ^ Acts i. 22. 3 Acts ii. 14 — 36. ^ Acts ii. 41. 
 
 9 
 
130 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 by the death of One, whom fifty days before they had 
 seen suspended on a cross between two thieves ! 
 
 Now of these extraordinary facts there is only one 
 adequate and consistent explanation, even that which 
 all the disciples in spite of obloquy, contempt, and 
 persecution made it the business of their lives to pro- 
 claim, which every extant letter they wrote', and every 
 treatise that Christian authors have since composed, 
 assumes, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
 dead. 
 
 The Evangelists inform us that a few hours after 
 the last High -priestly prayer had been offered up in 
 the upper-room at Jerusalem, and after a final and 
 mysterious Conflict in the garden of Gethsemane^ the 
 Saviour was delivered into the hands of men. All that 
 He had solemnly foretold to His disciples came to pass. 
 He was mocked, He was buffeted. He was spitted on, 
 
 1 See Restoration of Belief, and Dean Goodwin's Hulsean Lectures, 
 p. 42. 
 
 ^ It has been well observed that the -4gony is on human principles 
 wholly misplaced ; ' it comes before the time, when as yet there is no 
 arrest ; and no human prospect that there will be any. The Saviour is 
 at large to go where He pleases, and is in perfect outward safety.' See 
 Bushnell's Nature and the Supernatural, p. 39; Aids to Faith, p. ^Co. 
 ' The narrative of the Agony,' remarks Lange, Life of Christ, iv. 270, 
 'guarantees its authenticity by its enigmatically mysterious nature. It 
 is a representation which lies beyond the mental capacity of ordinary 
 human or Christian invention. It belongs to those portions which the 
 Church, in all its weak moods, members, and theologians, most of all in 
 its weak critics, would have in many ways sun-endered, because of its 
 presumed offences, and which it has only preserved in consequence of its 
 motives, namely, its historical faithfulness in the transmission of this 
 history. ' 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST, 131 
 
 He was scourged. He was nailed to the Cross, and after 
 a final and mysterious cry It is finished^, He bowed 
 his head and died, at which moment the beautiful 
 VeiP that separated the Holy Place from the most Holy 
 in the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the 
 bottom', and the earth shook, and the rocks were rent, 
 and the graves were opened. 
 
 The Holy Body, continues the Gospel narrative, was 
 taken down from the Cross, and laid, not, as a writer 
 anxious only to exalt the Apostolic band would assured- 
 ly have related, by any of the Apostles, but by secret 
 disciples and comparative strangers in a new tomb. 
 There, the stone sealed and the watch set, it lay till 
 the morning of the first day of the week, when the 
 women who had gone thither to complete the process 
 of embalming, found the stone rolled away, and the 
 sepulchre emjjty ! 
 
 They had hardly time to recover from their asto- 
 nishment, and to run with the announcement to the. 
 disciples, when the risen Saviour appeared to Mary 
 
 ' None can fail to notice the complete harmony of these worus w-ith 
 all th.^t the Saviour had said during His life of a worl lie had to ac- 
 complish. Could such minute coincidences as these have been preserved 
 by any human idealist? 
 
 " Matt, xxvii. 51 ; Mk. xv. 38; Lk. xxiii. 45. 
 
 3 We are often told that in forming an opinion of the true character 
 of the death of Christ, we must rest on the Gospels, and not import 
 into them the lanrjuarje and Jiyures of the Epistles. Now it is worth 
 remarking, that this rending of the Veil is related only in the Gospels. 
 Had this appeared in the course of an argument in one of the Epistles, 
 in that, for instance, to the Hebrews, we should have been told perhaps 
 that it was merely a Jewish figure, perhaps that ' it was a later inser- 
 tion to justify the reference,' 
 
 9—2 
 
132 
 
 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 Magdalene', and not to her only, but on the same day 
 to Peter", during the afternoon to the two disciples 
 journeying towards Emmaus', in the evening to the 
 ten in the absence of Thomas*, and seven days after- 
 wards to the same body when that Apostle was pre- 
 sent°. During forty days after His Resurrection He 
 continued to manifest Himself to them from time to 
 time; to the seven on the lake of Gennesareth'; to 
 five hundred brethren at once, the majority of whom 
 were alive twenty years afterwards'; to James'; then 
 once more to all the Apostles. 
 
 There was, indeed, a mystery about the risen Body. 
 Before, the Apostles had been aware of the place of 
 their Lord's abode, of His going out and His coming 
 in. But now there is a change. He comes they know 
 not wli^nce, He goes they know not whither, and 
 only from time to time does He reveal Himself to 
 them. 
 
 But by many infallible proofs they were assured of 
 His Resurrection. 'It was not one person but many 
 who saw Him ; they saw Him not only separately but 
 together ; not by night only but by day ; not at a dis- 
 tance but near; not once, but several times; they not 
 only saw Him, but touched Him, conversed with Him, 
 
 ^ Matt. xx^Tii. 9, lo. 
 
 ° Lk. xxiv. 34; I Cor. xv. 6. 
 
 ^ Lk. xxiv. 13—25. 
 
 Jn. XX. 19 — 25 ; Lk. xxiv. 36 — 43. 
 ^ Jn. XX. 26 — 29. ^ Jn. xxi. i — 24. ^ I Cor. xv. 7. 
 
 8 I Cor. XV. 7. For an able summary of all that has been written 
 on the appearances after the Eesurrection, see Andrews, 492 — 513. 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 133 
 
 ate with Him, examined His Person to satisfy their 
 doubts'.' 
 
 And at length, after He had once and again conversed 
 with them, on the complete fulfilment in Himself of all 
 things written in the Law of Moses and in the Psalms 
 and in the Prophets, opening their understandings that 
 they might tcnderstand the Scri2)tures^, and commission- 
 ing them to preach the Gospel to every creature, He 
 led them forth to Bethany, and lifting up His hands 
 He blessed them, and it came to pass, while He was in 
 the act of blessing them. He was parted from them, and 
 a cloud received Him out of their sight^. 
 
 Such is the unanimous testimony of the four Evan- 
 gelists, such was the unanimous belief of all the 
 Apostles, who had the best means of knowing the truth ; 
 who, without a particle of worldly interest in the mat- 
 ter, voluntarily exposed themselves to labours, dangers, 
 and sufferings in proclaiming this account. The Resur- 
 rection is not an event incidentally noticed in one or 
 two early Christian writings, it is the very gi-ound and 
 foundation of the Apostolic preaching*, it is asserted 
 or assumed in every Qaristian writing we possess, and 
 
 1 Paley's Evidences. ^ Lk. xxiv. 16, 27, 44, 45. 
 
 3 Lk. xxiv. JO ; Acts i. 9. 
 ' * If Christ, says St Paul to the Corinthians, he not raised, your faith 
 is vain, ye are yet in your sins, i Cor. xv. 17. 'By our Lord's resur- 
 rection we may be assured concerning the efficacy of Hia undertakings 
 for us ; for considering it we may not doubt of God's being reconciled 
 to us,' Barrow's Sermon on the Resurrection, in Wordsworth's In- 
 stitutes, II. 267 ; Pearson, On tlie Creed; Baxter's Catechism, in Words- 
 worth, I. 299. 
 
134 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 in an age which had more interest than any other 
 in so doing, it was never disjnwed. 
 
 If it did not take place, then we are called upon 
 to believe that the Apostles, who had been trained in 
 sacrificial habits, who from early associations, from the 
 force of habit, and all those influences which are so 
 potent with mankind, would naturally have been dis- 
 posed to exalt the sacrificial system', without any ade- 
 quate assignable reason declared it to be done away, 
 and ascribed to a ' crucified Man, Divine predicates 
 which stood in direct contradiction with Jewish mono- 
 theism',' though for such ascription they had no real 
 gi'ound whatever ! We are called upon to believe that 
 the Apostles, who till the last moment could not reali2;e 
 to themselves that their Lord would die; who, when- 
 ever He spake to them on the subject, did not under- 
 stand His words J who, on the day He did die were 
 by their own confession scattered abroad as sheep, every 
 hope buried in His grave, yet within fifty days after 
 that event could be transfoimed into new men, from 
 being weak and cowardly could become bold and 
 
 1 ' Think what it was to the Jew in the Apostolical age, to see his 
 religion with all its far-back memories and associations vanishing auatj... 
 we know what a spell the religion of their fathers had for thousands in 
 Israel, how it rallied the bloodthirsty ruflBans of the final siege round 
 the ruins of the burning sanctuary... how it awakened a glow of 
 patriotic enthusiasm in the breast even of the renegade Josephus while 
 he described his descent from the house of Levi.. .what (outwardly at 
 least) had their new faith to give its votaries in compensation for the loss 
 of recollections so august, of institutions so sacred?' Dean Stanley's 
 Sermons on the Apostolical Age, p. 354. 
 
 2 Dorner's Per$on of Christ, Vol. I. p. 47. E. T. 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. ISo 
 
 outspoken; could stand up in the very place where 
 their Master had suffered, to proclaim an idea, a fancy 
 of their oym that He was risen from the dead^ ! We 
 are called upon to believe that in an age, when neither 
 civilization nor philosophy had eradicated or simplified 
 the ancient sacrificial system ; when men were exhaust- 
 ing themselves in the ardour of inventing some fresh 
 superstition, when they were commonly addicted to cruel 
 and revolting ceremonies"; out of the very centre of 
 Judaism, out of a system penetrated with sacrificial 
 habits emerged a body of men to teach that all sacri- 
 ficial observance had been done away through the death 
 of a crucified Man, who during His life on earth 
 
 ' ' The supposition that the Apostles were deceivers is utterly 
 absurd. Let us follow it out: imagine these twelve men assembled 
 together after the death of Christ, contriving a scheme to represent 
 Him, falsely, as raised from the dead. The human heart is strangely 
 addicted to levity and change, and warped by hopes and benefits. Let 
 only one out of the number have been dazzled by these attractions ; and 
 others of them, again, terrified by imprisonment, tortures, and death; 
 their plot would have been ruined ! Follow out this, I say.' Pascal, 
 Works, Vol. III. p. 310. See also Milman's Bampton Lectures, 51, 52. 
 
 ' On the strange gods and still stranger rites introduced during the 
 later period of the Roman Empire, see Bollinger, Jew and Gentile, 
 II. 173 — 178. The horrible Taurobolium, it will be remembered, was 
 resorted to not only for individual purification, but for the welfare of 
 others, and particularly the Emperor and the imperial family. 'A 
 roomy grave was dug, and covered with pierced boards ; the victim, a 
 bull or ram, was sacrificed on these, so that the blood dropped through 
 the holes like rain, and was caught by the man below on his whole 
 body, a ceremony supposed to effect a complete purification for twenty 
 years.' See Prudeniii Peristephanon, 1036 — 1040; 1046—1050; 
 Quin OS supinat, obvias offert genas 
 Supponit aures, labra, nares objicit, 
 Oculos et ipsos perluit liquoribus : 
 
136 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 had achieved no complete success, and of whom after 
 His death, they could give no account save an enthu- 
 siastic idea that He had risen ! Nay more, we are 
 called upon to believe that they not only proclaimed 
 this idea, but succeeded in persuading^ men of its truth, 
 banished into oblivion the ten thousand sacrifices oi vari- 
 ous nations, and in place of a ritual hallowed by the memo- 
 ries of ages, substituted a Rite to the outward senses 
 of the most mysterious simplicity, and commemorating 
 nothing more than a cruel and ignominous death ! 
 
 ■ "We need not ask if such an opinion can be enter- 
 tained even for a moment. 
 
 The early celebration of the Eucharist, whether we 
 consider the period at which it began, or the persons 
 who first celebrated it, or the immense importance then 
 attached to sacrificial observances ^ remains and ever 
 
 Nec jam palato parcit, et lingiiam rigat, 
 Donee cruorem totus atrum conbibat 
 
 Hue inquinatum talibus contagiis 
 
 Tabo recentis sordidum piaculi 
 
 Omnes salutant atque adorant eminus 
 
 Vilis quod ilium sanguis et bos mortuus 
 
 Foedis latentem sub caveruis laverint. 
 1 Though it is ' the rarest of phenomena to find any religion which 
 is capable of transcending the limits of race, clime, and the scene of its 
 historic origin ; a religion which, if transplanted, wiU not die ; a reUgioQ 
 which is more than a local or national growth of superstition!' 
 Rogers' Reason and Faith, p. 37. 
 
 ^ Though after the destruction of Jerusalem Jewish sacrificial 
 observances gradually disappeared, yet 'the study and exposition of 
 the laws of the Temple and of sacrifice were the principal compen- 
 sations,' as it was believed that these laws mre speedily to become 
 available again; nay, 'it was decreed that a priest was not to drink 
 vine on the day he would have been on duty at the Temple, had 
 
THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 137 
 
 must remain an ' insoluble phenomenon,' except by the 
 admission of the fact of the Resurrection. This affords 
 a satisfactory account of the matter, and 'no other 
 satisfactory account can be given, nor any account 
 at all, but what is imaginary merely and invented \' 
 
 Once grant that He, whose marvellous life the Go- 
 spel narrative records, was, as He claimed to be, as He 
 is there represented, and as He has been acknowledged 
 by multitudes of all nations and tongues, of all classes 
 and conditions, perfect Man and perfect God; grant 
 that gathering up again the human race in Himself, as 
 the true Paschal Lamb He put away the sin of the 
 world, that He rose again on the third day, and ascended 
 up on high as the true High Priest of our redeemed 
 humanity ; and we can understand how in spite of the 
 shame of the Cross the old sacrificial language con- 
 centi-ated around His person and work; we can under- 
 stand how the ancient sacrificial ritual which prevailed 
 so universally down to the period of His death, then as 
 universally began to disappear; we can understand how 
 the first observers of the Eucharist were assured of the 
 acceptance of the sacrifice therein symbolized and shewn 
 forth; we can understand how the death commemo- 
 rated in that Rite could be regarded by them not only 
 as a propitiatory sacrifice, but one which, in a far higher 
 
 its regulations still continued in force, for the miracle of the restoration 
 might take place on that very day, and according to the law the priest 
 ought to be fasting then : and proselytes were to deposit a sum of money, 
 that the legal sacrifice might be bought with it, in case of the restoration of 
 the Temple.^ Dbllinger'a Gentile and Jew, li, 415. 
 1 Butler's Analogy, Pt. II, Ch. VI. 
 
138 THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 and more efBcacious degree than they had ever known 
 before, realized to them that pardon and reconciliation 
 which was the aim of the ancient sacrificial ritual; and 
 lastly, we can discern causes powerful enough to have 
 produced the most wonderful revolution in the religious 
 history of mankind that the world has seen', and which 
 has subsisted to the present day. 
 
 On any other hypothesis, the religious history of 
 mankind presents us for upwards of four thousand 
 years with a long, waste, purposeless parenthesis of use- 
 less rites and ceremonies; Judaism had no substance of 
 which it was the shadow; heathenism had no reality 
 after which its ten thousand sacrifices were a confused 
 outcry; the whole history of the world is naught else 
 than an insoluble enigma, 'an inextricable labjTinth, 
 a huge pUe of blocks and fragments of an unfinished 
 edifice, and the great tragedy of humanity remains de- 
 ^•oid of all proper result".' 
 
 1- E( XPV xal eUbri xprjadai Xo-yif irepl t^s ipxvS^ Xpumavu/v 
 avaTiijeui^, tprjiro/Mtv Sti oCi Tridavbi' ■ ■ .rods aKpou/iivovs [tuv AwotrTdXav} 
 p.(TaTe6(i<!6ai iK TraTploiy itoXvxjioviwv edZv, p.Ti 0^10X67011 Tivbs Swdftcws 
 avToii! Kal repaartoiv irpaypdTwv /jLeTaKivrjffdfTUV evl ra oiiru ^^va Kal 
 a.W6Tpia T(ic avvTiicKpwv avroh Soypdrav. Origen e. Celium, VIII. 47. 
 
 2 ScblegeFs PMlusophy of Eistory. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 Oi5 Siva(T9e Tror-qpiov Kvptov vlveiv Kal iroTr^ptov Sai/jinvloiv oi Svmcrde 
 rpawi^ris Kvplou fierix^iv Kal Tpairiirj^ SaipovLuiv. 
 
 S. Paul, i Cor. x. 21. 
 
 And now that we have seen in the institution and 
 early celebration of the Lord's Supper one of the strong- 
 est evidences of the truth of the Gospel Narrative, of 
 the reality of the Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and 
 Ascension of our Lord as therein set forth, we would 
 advance a step further, and regard it also as an evi- 
 dence of the Christian doctrine of the Atonement. 
 
 Much, indeed, of what might be said upon this 
 point has been already anticipated, but several par- 
 ticulars still remain for consideration. 
 
 i. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper under its 
 first and most obvious aspect presupposes the propitia- 
 tory effect of the sufferings and death of Christ. This 
 view has never been wanting in any age of Christianity, 
 and the early and general celebration of this Rite in 
 a sacrificial age by multitudes who had from their 
 
140 THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 earliest years been brought up in sacrificial habits, is 
 a decisive proof that they understood the Death therein 
 commemorated, not as a mere martyrdom, but as a true 
 sacrifice, similar to, though far surpassing the expiatory 
 sacrifices with which they had been so long familiar. 
 
 For, if the Death of Christ was merely a corrobora- 
 tion of His teaching, if it was merely the greatest moral 
 act done in the world, if it was merely a martyrdom, 
 the greatest of all martyrdoms in the cause of Divine 
 truth, then, how comes it to pass that neither the 
 Apostles, nor the early Christians, either revised, re- 
 arranged or reimposed on their converts the ancient 
 sacrificial system? If the Eucharist was simply a 
 memorial of His Death, what adequate reason can be 
 assigned for the cessation of the ancient sacrificial 
 ritual? Why should not these sacrifices in some modi- 
 fied form have been continued, at least amongst Gen- 
 tile nations'? From the earliest times, as we have seen, 
 they had been celebrated for a most real and definite 
 purpose. From the earliest times they had been 
 deemed to be in some mysterious manner capable of 
 making good man's imperfect consecration of himself 
 
 ^ The destruction of the Temple naturally put an end to all sacrifices 
 amongst the Jews, so closely were they bound up with the temple and 
 its altar; 'for, according to the universal teaching of the Eabbies, all 
 private sacrifices were for ever illegal, from the time Solomon's Temple 
 was dedicated. Later on, too, teachers of note declared that every one 
 who sacrificed without the Temple ought to be punished with " cutting 
 off." Even the use of serving roasted meat on the evening of the 
 Passover, as a feeble remembrance of the former sacrificial repast on 
 that day, was reprobated by the more scrupulous Jews.' Bollinger, 
 II. 415. 
 
THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 141 
 
 to God. This feeling was never stronger than at the 
 time when t\e [celebration of the Eucharist began, and 
 no men since the world began ever held deeper views 
 of the extreme heinousness of sin, and of the necessity 
 of some atonement over and above mere repentance, 
 than those who first celebrated this Rite. And yet 
 they never readjusted or reimposed the ancient sacri- 
 ficial ritual even in the most modified form, but uni- 
 formly spake of it as ' fulfilled ' and ' done away' ! These 
 are the facts of the case, and the idea that Christ died 
 as a martyr in the cause of truth does not explain 
 them, it does not account for the total and overmastering 
 change of thought and feeling in respect to sacrificial 
 observances which has invariably accompanied the re- 
 ception and celebration of the Lord's Supper. 
 
 ii. But, again, so far is this view of Christ's Death 
 from accounting for this extraordinary change which is 
 a matter of history, that it does not oven explain the 
 institution of the Rite itself 
 
 For let us allow for a moment that the Saviour's 
 Death was merely a coia-oboration of His teaching, that 
 He suffered as a martyr, the greatest of all martyrs ; 
 let us imagine that His disciples wished, from feelings 
 of deep affection and reverence, to commemorate His 
 Death ; then it is conceivable that this end would have 
 been attained by a moving recital from time to time 
 of its tender and touching circumstances. Or we may 
 go further, and imagine that they might have met to 
 break bread and to pour out wine, as a symbolical repre- 
 sentation of His Body broken and His Blood poured 
 
142 THE EUCHAEIST A SACEIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 out. But even granting this, in spite of its extreme 
 improbability, considering the religious^ importance 
 which as Jews they attached to the idea of breaking 
 bread and pouring out wine^ even at a common meal, 
 what explanation is to be given of the partaking of 
 these symbols by those who celebrated this Rite? \Vhat 
 point of connection is there between such a ceremonial 
 and the commemoration of a mere mart}Tdom, though 
 the martyr had been the holiest man that ever lived? 
 And how comes it to pass that there never has existed 
 a similar mode of commemorating the death of any 
 other martyr? The very character, therefore, of the 
 ordinance of the Eucharist, the very form in which it is 
 celebrated is unaccountable on the supposition that our 
 Cord's Death was no more than a martyrdom, or an 
 eminent sacrifice to the cause of truth I 
 
 iii. But the argument is immeasurably strength- 
 ened by the slightest consideration of the words of 
 our Lord at the institution of the Euchaiist, the time 
 when they were uttered, and the persons to whom they 
 were addressed. 
 
 For when He took the Bread, and blessed and 
 brake it, He not only said. Take, eat, this is My Body, 
 but He added, ivhich is for you, which is given [broken] 
 
 ^ 'There were Jewish ascetics, •who, in memory of the sacrificial 
 import of partaking of meat ami wine, wholly abstained from both after 
 the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. " Shall we eat flesh," 
 said they, "which was once offered in the sacrifice that now has ceased? 
 Shall we drink wine, of which drink-offerings used to be prepared, but 
 is now no longer?'" Bollinger's Gentile and Jcio, li. p. 416, and refs. 
 
 - See Archbp. Whately on the Sacraments, p. 106. 
 
THE EUCHARIST A 8ACEIFICIAL FEAST. 143 
 
 for you. Again, when He took the cup, He not only 
 said. Drink ye all of this, but, This cup is the New 
 Covenant in My Blood, which is shed for you, for many 
 for the remission of sins. 
 
 Now we have already seen how completely the lan- 
 guage here employed is in harmony with all He had 
 ever said before, whether privately to His Apostles, 
 or publicly to the Jews, respecting the pui-pose of His 
 Death. But the solemnity of the occasion, when this 
 Eite was instituted, utterly precludes the idea that the 
 language here employed can be explained away, as 
 a mere rhetorical use of Jewish figures. It was no 
 multitude that He was addressing, it was no knot of 
 unbelievers with whom He was reclining at the table, 
 whose prejudices it was necessary to soothe, whose 
 feelings it was necessary to consult. They were the 
 companions of His early ministry, the men whom He had 
 been pleased to call out of the world to be the heralds 
 of His Gospel, whom in His infinite condescension He 
 had called 'His friends,' whom He had endeared to 
 Himself by many acts of kindness, by loving counsels, 
 and mysterious sympathy, and who had given up everj- 
 thing to follow Him. 
 
 Was it a time, then, for mere rhetorical figures? 
 Were they the men to whom He was likely to speak 
 in language adapted merely to their Jewish jDrejudices? 
 The words even of common men and women are earnest 
 and real, when they are conscious that death is drawing 
 nigh; can we possibly conceive this to be less true of 
 Hbi, who was emphatically The Truth? 
 
144 THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 On an occasion, then, of such inconceivable solemnity 
 He instituted this sacred Feast, not simply in commemo- 
 ration of Himself, but of Himself in a particular cha- 
 racter, as about to give His Body for them, as about to 
 shed His Blood for them, and for many, and that for the 
 remission vf sins\ These are not the words of St Paul, 
 St Peter, or St John, or of the author of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews. They are the words of Him who delivered 
 the Sermon on the Mount; who therein declared that 
 He had not come to 'destroy the Law, but to fulfil it;' 
 who fulfilled its moral requirements by deepening them, 
 by developing principles as lying beneath enactments, 
 the spirit beneath the letter; who, on one memorable 
 occasion, bade certain objectors go and leam what one 
 of their own prophets had meant, when he said that the 
 Lord would have viercy and not sacrifice'; who inveighed 
 in awful and earnest words against 'the leaven of the 
 Pharisees',' against making the Law void through the 
 traditions of men*; the echoes of whose lofty morality 
 are even now reverberating through the length and 
 breadth of Christendom, passing into laws, into pro- 
 verbs, into principles of social life, yet 'never jjassing 
 
 1 ' We must consider,' remarks Warburton, ' not only -what Jesus 
 said now, but wliat He said and did ; and not only that, but the mode 
 of siiyiiig and doing ; relative to the time, the occasion, the manners, 
 and the customs of the age ; otherwise the Speaker's meaning can be 
 but very imperfectly understood without taking in all these things." 
 Warburton, Wks. V. 552. 
 
 - Hnsea vi. 6 ; INIatt. xii. 7 ; ix. 13. 
 
 3 Matt. xvi. 6; Lk. xii. i. 
 
 ^ Matt. XV. 6; Mk. vii. 9. 
 
THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 145 
 
 away/ ever presenting some new, some deeper truth, to 
 the successive generations of the sons of men. 
 
 But on this momentous occasion it is not in the 
 language of the moralist that He addresses His chosen 
 Twelve. It is in sacrificial langviage, and in sacrificial 
 tei-ms that He speaks to them for the last time of the 
 event about to occur to Himself They who heard Him 
 were men not only of a peculiar religious education, 
 but of an education based on sacrifice, and that to an 
 extent we can hardly conceive'. With them no morn- 
 ing dawned, no evening closed, no harvest was housed, 
 no vintage was gathered in, no sin of omission was ex- 
 piated, no ceremonial impurity was removed without 
 the intervention of sacrifice in some form or other. 
 From generation to generation their fathers and their 
 fathers' fathers had been trained never to conceive of 
 the remission of sins otherwise than through the me- 
 diation of sacrifice. What other ideas, then, when they 
 heard now, or when they reflected afterwards, on the 
 words that accompanied the institution of the Eucha- 
 rist, could have been suggested to the minds of the 
 Apostles, but those of an atoning sacrifice, of a death 
 to be undergone for them, and for their eternal benefit? 
 Surely if these words, so solemn andso mo mentous, 
 were not designed to suggest the ideas they would of 
 necessity evoke, we may believe that He, who was The 
 Truth, would have guarded them by some explanation, 
 and would have prevented their being thus misunder- 
 
 1 See Dean Goodwin's Euhnan Lectures, p. 26. 
 
 10 
 
146 THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 stood. But as though, like seeds, they were to fall 
 on a soil ready prepared to receive them, as though 
 they were the key which would obviously reveal the 
 cypher, they are uttered with solemn and significant 
 action, but no lengthened explanation is vouchsafed'. 
 
 But this is not all. The Saviour speaks of His 
 Blood as the Blood of ' the New Covenant.' Now as 
 \ addressed to the Apostles, the very word Covenant im- 
 plied the idea of a sacrifice ratifying and attesting it, 
 and not only of a sacrifice, but of a feast upon a sacri- 
 fice. To whatever covenant their thoughts then or 
 afterwards carried them back, whether to that ratified 
 with their great forefather Abraham^, or to that which 
 ' amidst thunderings and voices and the noise of a 
 trumpet' Jehovah made with the emancipated nation 
 at Sinai', the accompanying sacrifices could not have 
 been forgotten. 
 
 On the memorable occasion, indeed, last alluded to, 
 the Jewish Lawgiver, after building an altar at the foot 
 of the Mount and setting up twelve stones of memorial, 
 caused calves and goats to be slain as burnt-offerings 
 and peace-offerings, and sprinkled one-half of the blood 
 on the altar and the roU containing the covenant-condi- 
 
 ^ ' It appeareth by many examples, that the Apostles of their own 
 disposition were very scrupulous and inquisitive, yea, in other cases, of 
 less importance and difficulty, always apt to move questions. How 
 Cometh it to pass, that so few words of so high a mystery being uttered, 
 they receive with gladness the gift of Christ, and make no show of 
 doubt or scruple.' Hooker, £ccl. Pol. Bk. v. See also Pelliiig's 
 Discourse on the Lord's Suppa; London, 1685. 
 
 2 Gen. XV. 8—12. ' E.x. xxiv. 3 — 9. 
 
THE EUCHAKIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 147 
 
 tions, and the other half upon the people, saying, 
 Behold the blood of the Covenant which the Lord hath 
 made with you concerning all these words\ And when 
 this ceremony was ended, Aaron and his sons Nadab 
 and Abihu, and seventy elders, as representatives of the 
 people, ascended to a level spot near the summit of the 
 mountain^, and there partook of the Covenant Feast, 
 thus, in conformity with the constant practice of an- 
 tiquity, receiving the seal and pledge of the alliance 
 which had just been concluded. 
 
 Now they, to whom our Lord was speaking, were 
 made perfectly familiar not only by these solemn asso- 
 ciations, but by every celebration of a peace-offering, 
 and especially of the Passover, in which the idea of the 
 peace-ofFering found its highest expression, with the 
 conception of a feast upon a sacrifice. Uttered in their 
 hearing, the words This is My Blood of the New Cove- 
 nant could not fail to be understood as implying that, 
 as in the old Dispensation God had made covenant 
 with Israel with the blood of beasts, so the New Feast 
 instituted by Him, who was about ' to give His life a 
 ransom for many,' was a feast ■a])on a sacrifice, ratifying 
 
 ^ Ex. XXXV. S. Compare Jeremiah xxxi. 31 — 34. 
 
 ^ Ex. xxiv. II. 'Tantum abfuit ut niortui errant, ut convivium 
 sacrificiale hilares celebraverint.' Eoseniniiller, in he. Outram, de 
 Sacrijiciis, L v. 5. See O. Von Gerlach on the PenlatcucJi, p. 3oSj. 
 Cudworth, dc Ccend Domini, Chap. I. sect. 2. 'Certe non in hoc lantum 
 sed et in Baptismi Sacramento videtur omniuo Christus se non He- 
 brsEorum tantum sed et Gentium in idem fojdus cooptandarum captul 
 accommodasse.' Grotius in Matt. xxvi. 27. 
 
 10—2 
 
l-tS THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 a new and better covenant between the Lord and His 
 people*. 
 
 iv. That the Rite thus instituted was regarded as 
 a feast upon a sacrifice by the first Christians, who 
 being trained under a sacrificial system were far more 
 likely to interpret it aright than ourselves at this dis- 
 tance of time, is furnished by the language of the Apostle 
 Paul, who was the first to apply to it the name of 
 the Lord's Supper, and the only one of the Apostolic 
 body who has treated of its celebration. 
 
 The testimony, indeed, of this Apostle is of the 
 utmost conceivable importance. For not only had he 
 been trained in Judaism, but he had belonged to one 
 of the very strictest of its sects, he had been brought 
 up at the feet of one of its most learned and eminent 
 teachers. No one, therefore, could be more truly a re- 
 presentative of the ideas of his nation, no one could 
 more adequately express the feelings, with which in a 
 sacrificial age the early Christians joined in the cele- 
 bration of this Rite. 
 
 This testimony he delivers in a letter written about 
 the year A.D. 57, the authenticity of which has never 
 been disputed, and which even the most recent scepti- 
 cism accepts as genuine. 
 
 Now in this letter we not only have the earliest 
 record of the institution of the Eucharist, but we have 
 a proof that within a very short time after the Ascen- 
 
 1 Bp. Browne on the Articles, p. 716. Freeman's Principles of 
 Divine Service, 11. 3. 
 
THE EUCHARIST A SACrjFICIAL FEAST. 1-19 
 
 sion, wherever the Christian Church was established, 
 there in place of the sacrifices, to which the early 
 Christians, whether Jews or Gentiles, were accustomed, 
 this Rite and this only was celebrated, which in any 
 way approximated to the ancient sacrificial ideas. As 
 we read the Apostle's words, wc can almost recall the 
 very manner in which this Rite was celebrated at this 
 very early period. ' We almost see the banquet spread 
 in the late evening, after the sun had set behind the 
 western ridge of the hills of Achaia; we see the many 
 torches blazing as at Troas', to light up the darkness 
 of the upper-room, Avhere, as was their wont, the 
 Christian community assembled; we see the couches 
 laid and the walls hung, after the manner of the East, 
 as on the night of the betrayal^;' we see the rich 'of 
 their abundance' and the poor 'of their poverty' con- 
 tributing to the Agape, the social meal which then 
 formed the preliminary of the sacred Feast ; we see at its 
 conclusion the bread broken, and the wine poured out, 
 and we hear the institutional words pronounced as 
 first they fell upon the Apostles' ears, and as the writer of 
 this letter himself had heard them by direct revelation 
 from his ascended Loi-dl 
 
 But over and above this there is far more to engage 
 our attention. 
 
 One of the questions on which the Apostle had been 
 consulted concerned a matter of the strongest interest 
 
 ' Aa/i7rdSet iKcwal, Acts xx. 8. 
 
 " Deau Stanley's C'ammeutayij on the Corintldans, i Cor. xi. i. 
 ' I Cor. xi. 23. 
 
150 THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 to the early Christian community, viz. whether it was 
 lawful for Christians to join in the heathen sacrificial 
 feasts. At Corinth, as in all Greek towns, as indeed 
 throughout the whole ancient world, the connection 
 between a sacrifice and a feast was of the closest pos- 
 sible character'. Most public entertainments, and nearly 
 all private meals, were more or less remotely connect- 
 ed with sacrifice. The difficulty, therefore, of avoid- 
 ing contamination with idol feasts was proportionately 
 great. 
 
 How, then, does the Apostle advise the Corinthians 
 in this matter 1 As he is dictating the words of his 
 reply to his amanuensis in some obscure quarter of the 
 great city of Ephesus, let us pause for a moment to 
 realize the scenes amidst which he was living. Ephesus 
 was then the very centre and focus of idolatrous wor- 
 ship. At the head of its harbour was the great temple 
 of Diana or Artemis, the magnificence of which was a 
 proverb throughout the civilized world, as also the 
 devotion of the city to its tutelary divinity. "WTiat 
 Jerusalem was to the Christian pilgrim of the Middle 
 
 ^ See CudwoTth's True Notion, Chap. I. 'These hallowed banquets 
 formed the principal object of, and most effective bonds of union in, 
 religious associations ; and hence meal-time and sacrifice were so 
 essentially connected together, that even the modes of expressing the 
 two acts were frequently interchanged.' DbUinger's Gentile and Jeur, 
 I. 233; II. 84. 'Nullum fere Sacrificium sine aliquo epulo, et vicissim 
 nullum paene epulum, etiam profanum, publicum praesertim, sine sacris 
 quibusdam ritibus atque aeremoniis fuit celebratmn. Quum ipsa quoqne 
 Sacrificia quid fuerunt aliud quam quaedam quasi epulse atque convlvia, 
 secundum illud Poet;e 
 
 ...epulis acctunhere DiTnm?' 
 
 Stuckius, Sacrific. Sacror. Detcrip- 
 
THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 151 
 
 Ages, or Mecca to the Mohametan, or Benares to the 
 Hindu, that was Ephesus to all the cities of Ionia, 
 and indeed to the whole world. Go where he would, 
 the eye of the Apostle rested on the offering of sacri- 
 fices before every temple and at every shrine. Go 
 where he would, he saw the stricken victim yielding 
 up its life, a portion laid upon the altar, and the rest 
 given up to the sacrificers to supply materials for a 
 sacrificial feast. The same rites were enacted in every 
 city, every town, every village throughout the Roman 
 world; from wellnigh every mountain and every hill 
 the steam of sacrifice ascended up to heaven. 
 
 Amidst scenes like these, then, consecrated in the 
 minds of men by the associations of centuries, the ces- 
 sation of which would have been deemed utterly be- 
 yond all boimds of possibility, and the very conception 
 of it a mark of madness, the Apostle dictates his advice 
 to the Corinthian Christians respecting their attendance 
 at the idol feast. 
 
 How, then, does he proceed ? He reminds them of 
 the true nature and the surpassing dignity and solemnity 
 of the Eucharistic feast, saying. 
 
 My dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to 
 wise men, judge ye what I say. The Cup of Blessing 
 which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of 
 Christ? The Bread tvhich we break, is it not the commu- 
 nion of the Body of Christ? For we being many are one 
 bread and one body : for we are all partakers of that 
 one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh : are not they 
 which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What 
 
152 THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is 
 offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? But I say, that 
 the things iuhich the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrijice to 
 demons, and not to God: and I would not timt ye should 
 have fellowship with demons. Ye cannot drink the cup 
 of the Lord and the cup of demons: ye cannot he par- 
 takers of the Lord's Table and of the table of demons^. 
 
 Now the first point deserving of attention here is 
 the claim of the Apostle to be speaking to wise men: I 
 speak unto wise men, judge ye what I say. ' Whence/ 
 remarks Bp. Warburton^ ' we may fairly conclude the 
 reasoning to be such as wise men would not disdain 
 to consider, and so regularly conducted as wise men 
 would best comprehend. In a word, pursued with that 
 science and precision which leaves no room for a loose, 
 popular, and inaccurate interpretation.' 
 
 But, secondly, in this argument addressed to wise 
 men, by one eminent above his equals for his ac- 
 ^ quaintance with Judaism, he assumes a perfect analogy 
 between Jewish, Pagan and Christian sacrifices, and 
 that they are all jMrallels to one anothei: ' If the three 
 feasts, Jewish, Pagan and Christian,' remarks the same 
 eminent authority we have just quoted^ 'had not one 
 
 1 1 Cor. X. 14 — 21. Hence afterwards the charge of the heathens 
 against the Christians that they did Pracerptos cibos et delibatos aliari- 
 lus potus abhorrere, Minucius Felix, Xll. 5. 
 
 ^ Wks. Vol. V. p. 549. 
 
 3 Wks. Vol. V. p. 550. It has also been noticed that the fact of the 
 Eucharist being a Sacrificial Feast is one of the leasons why we find so 
 few directions in the New Testament about preparation for a worthy 
 reception of it. f There is little, or nothing said upon this subject, 
 flatting aside what St Paul once occasionally said of self-examination in 
 
THE EUCHARIST A SACIilFlCIAL FEAST. 153 
 
 common nature, how could the apostle have inferred 
 that this intercommunity was absolutely inconsistent?... 
 For though there might be Impiety in the promiscuous 
 use of Pagan and Christian rites, yet the Inconsistency 
 arises from their having a common nature; and so, 
 consequently (as they had opposite originals), from their 
 destroying one another's effects, in the very celebration. 
 The reasoning stands thus. Those who eat of the sacri- 
 fices were partakers of the altar. A sacrifice at the 
 altar was a Federal Rite: consequently a feast upon 
 that sacrifice became a Federal Rite likewise. The 
 Lord's Table, and the table of devils, therefore, being 
 both federal Rites, the same man could not be partaker 
 of both. This is the Apostle's argument to the wise men 
 here appealed to : and we see it turns altogether on 
 this postulatum, that the Lord's Supper is of the nature 
 of a feast upon the sacrifice. Suppose it now a general 
 commemoration only of a dead benefactor, and all this 
 reasoning vanishes; for though a man cannot execute 
 
 1 Cor. xi. ^8. For the thing was not so very needful ; because such 
 directions might easily be drawn even from the consideration of the 
 nature and uses of this Holy Banquet, and men already had great im- 
 pressions and apprehensions of their duty in order to a due celebration 
 of those solemnities, to which this mystery was parallel and analogous. 
 With what religion did the very heathens prepare themselves, by 
 washing their bodies, and by abstaining from worldly and carnal 
 pleasures, before they addressed themselves to the tables of their gods? 
 And with what care and curiosity did the Jews pick every crumb of 
 leaven out of their houses, and use other observances, before they pre- 
 sumed to eat of the Passover ? The very resemblance and analogy 
 between this mystery and that is enough to minister directions about 
 preparing and purifying our spirits in order to it.' Felling on the 
 Lord's Sapper, ^. iS. London, 16S5, 
 
154 THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 two federal Rites which destroy one another, yet a 
 federal rite and a hare remembrance, in two contrary 
 religions, have none of this opposition; but may be cele- 
 brated, if not without impiety, yet without any of that 
 inconsistency which the learned Apostle here charges 
 upon his licentious Corinthians.' 
 
 It is clear, then, that the Apostle regarded the 
 Lord's Supper in the light of a feast upon a sacrifice, 
 and it is inconceivable that he could have so regarded 
 it had tlie Death of the Saviour been merely that of 
 a martyr. With the idea of a feast upon a sacrifice he 
 and the early Christians were familiar*. "With the idea 
 of a solemn meal commemorating a martyrdom, or the 
 death of any saint, however eminent, Abraham, or Moses, 
 or David, they had been made familiar by no single 
 event, type, symbol, or ceremonial of that Economy 
 
 ^ ' The Jews of our Saviour's age spoke the same language that He 
 spoke: He had read their sacred books : He had submitted to their laws : 
 their manners and customs were familiar to Him; the objects, about 
 which He was conversant, natural, moral, religious and political, were 
 continually presented to their minds also. If we, by deliberately com- 
 paring different parts of the New and Old Testament with one another, 
 are sometimes enabled to discover His meaning, when they compre- 
 hended it but imperfectly, it would more frequently happen that His 
 countrymen and contemporaries would see the full force of Sis words, 
 when they are not so fully understood by us. AVe are not to appeal to 
 the Jews of His time, as the best judges of the truth of His doctrines ; 
 but we may confidently appeal to them as competent interpreters of 
 words spoken in their own language, addressed to them, intended first 
 for their information, and next, for that of the whole world. Of the 
 meaning of these words, our Saviour's contemporaries and countrymen 
 were unquestionably the best judges.' Wilson's Explanation of the New 
 Testament, p. 99. 
 
THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 155 
 
 under which they had lived. That 'full efflorescence of 
 sacrificial thought and language with' which, as we have 
 seen, the Apostle could speak of the Eucharist, is per- 
 fectly intelligible, if we recognise in our Lord's institu- 
 tion a real sacrificial action, and in the ordinance He 
 instituted in place of the ancient Paschal Meal, an 
 analogous though infinitely higher Passover commemo- 
 rating a sacrifice for a deliverance from sin. On any 
 other supposition, it is inconceivable that men trained 
 in Judaism, like St Paul, in a system that rigorously 
 forbade, under the severest penalties, human sacrifices, 
 could have recognized in the human death of our 
 blessed Lord the true fulfilment of the ancient sacri- 
 ficial ritual. If the habits of thought they exhibit, and 
 the phraseology they employ, ' emerged to view after a 
 lapse of centuries, then,' as it has been pointedly 
 remarked, 'they might well be set down to a gradual 
 divergence from the original institution, or to an en- 
 tire subversion of it. But there was no time for such 
 a process of declension or overthrow. The men who 
 so freely apply sacrificial language to the Eucharist had 
 seen the Apostles, or their immediate successors, and to 
 suppose that they misconceived the whole matter of 
 Christ's action, is to suppose that Christianity was 
 corrupted at its very foundation ^' 
 
 To object to this that we do not find the words 
 'sacrifice' or 'atonement' distinctly employed by our 
 Lord in His discourses with His apostles on the mo- 
 
 1 Freeman's Principles of Diiine Sen-ice, ll. 92. 
 
156 THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 mentous purpose of His Deatli is, as we have already 
 shown, to overlook the wisdom of that progressive 
 teaching, whereby He prepared the minds of the 
 Apostles for the abrogation of the Old Covenant, 
 not by acts of authority or external decrees, but 'by 
 realizing ilie desir-e of salvation shewn forth by its 
 most characteristic institutions.' He, the Saviour of 
 the world, 'made no formal profession of His inten- 
 tion to do what He has actually done, and is now doing, 
 for its benefit. He did not plainly say that He had 
 come to civilize rude nations, to humanise savages, 
 to abrogate slavery, to abolish polygamy, to bring into 
 disuse judicial torture, to rid cities of the sanguinary 
 exhibitions of the amphitheatre, to break up caste, and 
 to set men forward on the course of free and hopeful 
 improvement, on terms of brotherhood. Christ said 
 little of these purposes, great as they are ; but now that 
 we see what it is which His religion does for nations, 
 when it is allowed to take its effect upon them in its 
 own manner, we turn anew to the record of His sermons 
 and parables, and there, without difficulty, we find the 
 efficient principles of all these silent reforms, and can 
 trace each of them separately to its source, in this or 
 that Avord of power, precept, or instance'.' 
 
 Similarly He made no formal profession of His in- 
 tention to abolish sacrifices; He imposed upon His fol- 
 lowers no specific injunctions that they must cease; He 
 did not dogmatically institute a comparison between the 
 
 1 Restoration of Belief, p. 315. 
 
TUE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 157 
 
 Mosaic ordinances and the sacrifice He was about to 
 offer on the altar of His Cross; with solemn and 
 majestic composure He finished His work, and He 
 foreknew it would draw all men unto Him; He im- 
 posed nothing, but He fulfilled all things; He gave 
 Himself, and the Old Covenant vanished away. 
 
 Will not this suffice? Shall we be still exacting? 
 Shall we demand that the doctrine of His Sacrifice be 
 set forth by Himself in set terms; that Apostles be 
 called upon to hear these 'many things' He Himself 
 said He had to say to them, before they were in a con- 
 dition to hear them or interpret their meaning? Shall 
 we claim that for our special behoof the very funda- 
 mental principle of His Divine mission be altered, that 
 He proclaim decrees, and give premature utterance 
 to formal and dogmatic statements? 
 
 Rather let us be satisfied with His own wise coun- 
 sels. He was made of a woman, made under the Law^. 
 He submitted to all its requirements, fulfilled all its 
 ordinances, and then He gave Himself a ransom for 
 many, a very Paschal Lamb, a spotless victim. He 
 died. He rose again. And then they, who had been 
 slow of heart to believe all that Moses in the Law and 
 the Pr-ophets had spoken^, at length saw the deep mean- 
 ing and significance of His Life and Death. The 
 Spirit took of the things of Christ, and shewed them 
 unto them, and their eyes were opened. They saw 
 all they had only dimly conceived and groped after 
 
 J Gal. iv. 4. 
 
 Lk. xxiv. 25. 
 
158 THE EUCHARIST A SACRIFICIAL FEAST. 
 
 before. They recognised the true interpretation of 
 those words, Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not 
 
 desire burnt-offering and sin-offering hast Thou not 
 
 required: then said I, Lo, I come\ Like the two 
 Apostles, to Avhom the Baptist pointed out the Lamh 
 of God, they left the Type for the Antitype; that 
 which was perfect was come, that which was in 
 
 PART was DONE AWAY. 
 
 1 Ps. xl. 6; Heb. x. 6, 7. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE EUCHARIST A SACRAMENT OF OUR REDEMPTION. 
 
 Ccena Domini est Sacramentum nostrre per mortem Christi Redemptionig. 
 
 Akt. XXVIII. 
 
 We have seen then that as the commemoration of a 
 mere martyrdom, the institution of the Lord's Supper 
 is inexpHcable; that the Institutional words accom- 
 panying it are plainly sacrificial; that as a feast upon 
 a sacrifice it was accepted and celebrated by the first 
 disciples, who living in a sacrificial age had the best 
 means of forming an opinion respecting its true cha- 
 racter. This being so, the Lord's Supper is by its very 
 nature a declaration on the part of our Lord Himself, 
 of the utmost conceivable importance, that His death 
 upon the cross was a real sacrifice, ' and not merely 
 so called by conversion of terms or accommodation of 
 ideas '.' 
 
 Speaking of the doctrine of Election, it was the 
 
 * ' For figurative expressions (as some are apt to deem the Gospel 
 represeutation of Clirist's sacrifice and atonement) could never produce 
 a religious Rite of Divine appointment, arising from, and dependent on, 
 a real specific action.' Warburton's ]Vorks, Vol. v. p. 551. 
 
160 THE EUCHARIST A SACRAMENT 
 
 remark of Bishop Eidley', 'in these matters I am so 
 fearful that I dare not speak further, yea, almost none 
 otherwise, than the very text doth, as it were, lead 
 me by the hand.' These words fitly express the reve- 
 rent and teachable spirit in which we should approach 
 the consideration of the great doctrine of Christ's sacri- 
 fice, ' of that full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, ob- 
 lation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world' 
 which He made once for all iipon His cross. For no 
 doctrine is more apt to suffer either from falling short 
 of the general teaching of the Scriptures respecting it, or 
 from nan-owing our view to one out of the many various 
 symbols and figures whereby it is there set forth ^ 
 
 Manifold, as we have already remarked, were the 
 prophetic intimations to the Jewish Church, of the 
 person and work of man's Dehverer. In the infancy 
 of the world He was represented as the Bruiser of 
 the Serpent's head'; to Abraham as the promised Seed 
 in whom all nations of the earth should be blessed*; 
 to Jacob as the Shiloh or Peace-Maker*; to David as 
 the King that should sit upon his throne and of whose 
 dominion there should be no end^ ; Isaiah spake of 
 Him as the Prince of Peace, as the Virgin's Son', as 
 a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief*; Jere- 
 
 1 Letter to Bradford, quoted in Bp. Browne on the Articles, p. 413. 
 
 2 See Abp. Tbouisou's Bampton Lectures, -p. 135; Swainson's Hul- 
 scan Lectures, p. 469. 
 
 3 Gen. iii. 15. * Gen. xii. 3; xviii. 18; xxii. 18. 
 ' Gen. xlix. to. 
 
 s 1 Sam. vii. 12 — 17; Psalm Ixxxix. 29, 36. 
 
 " Isaiah vii. 14 and ix. 6. * Isaiah liii. 3. 
 
OF OUE EEDEMPTION. 
 
 161 
 
 miah as the ' Lord our Rigliteousness' ;' Zechariah as 
 the 'Priest-king^;' Daniel as the 'Messiah to be cut off, 
 but not for Himself^; Malachi as the 'Messenger of 
 the Covenant V and ' the Sun of righteousness arising 
 with heahng in his wings ^ 
 
 Similarly various we found to be the images em- 
 ployed in the Gospel narrative respecting the purport 
 and object of His death. Slowly and gradually the 
 truth included in the first announcement of the Angel to 
 J oseph was developed, and men were prepared to appre- 
 hend it. The ' Saviour from sin,' the ' Lamb of God,' 
 the 'Temple destroyed and raised again,' the 'uplifted 
 Serpent,' the ' Bread of Life,' the good ' Shepherd 
 giving his life for the sheep,' the ' Seed-corn dying be- 
 fore it can bring forth fruit,' the ' Ransom-money paid 
 for the captive,' all these varied figures we have seen 
 employed when the Holy One Himself, or men like 
 His forerunner, would speak of His death, and the 
 benefits He came to bestow upon the world. 
 
 Moreover in the more doctrinal portions of the New 
 Testament we . find the same variety of images and 
 figures". No system of morality, but the death of 
 Christ 'for us men and for our salvation' was the 
 uniform teaching of the Apostles to whomsoever they 
 addressed themselves, the inhabitants of Jervisalem, 
 or the Gentile Cornelius, in Galatia or Macedonia, at 
 Athens or at Rome. 
 
 1 Jer. xxiii. 6; xxxiii. 15, 1 6. ^ Zech. vi. 13. 
 
 3 Dan. ix. 26. ^ Mai. iii. i. 5 Mai. iv. 2. 
 
 * See Grotii Lefemio Fidci CatlioUcw de SatisfactioneChristi, Cap.i. 
 Works, Vol. III. p. 297. 
 
 11 
 
162 
 
 THE EUCHARIST A SACRAMENT 
 
 Again, however, it is under no single figure, but 
 with varied trains of association that _ the Apostles 
 represent the effects of that death to our finite facul- 
 ties. Did the Baptist speak to his two wondering 
 disciples of the ' Lamb of God who should take away 
 the sin of the world'? The same idea of the 'Lamb 
 without blemish or spot' recurs once and again in the 
 Epistles of St Peter'. Did the Saviour Himself sug- 
 gest the idea of the ' Shepherd giving His life for 
 the sheep'? The same idea recurs too often for us 
 to enumerate in the Epistles, wherever He is said 
 to have suffered 'for us, and in our steadl' Did the 
 Saviour speak of His death under the figure of giving 
 His life a ransom for many' ? The idea of recall from 
 captivity through a price paid is of frequent occurrence 
 in the writings of St Paul. Did the Angel announce 
 to Joseph the birth of One 'who should save his 
 people from their sins,' and did the Holy One Him- 
 self, when He instituted the Eucharist, speak of His 
 Blood as 'shed for many, for the remission of sins'? 
 The same figure recurs in the Epistles of St John, when 
 
 1 I Pet. i. i8, 19. 
 
 2 On the force of inrip and i-vrl as applied in the N. T. to the Death 
 of Christ, see Winer, Grammar of the New Testament, II. 401, and a 
 quotation from Tischendorf's Doctrina Pauli de ri mortis Christi salis- 
 factoria, quoted in Arclibp. Trench's N. T. Synonyms, Part n. p. 147 ; 
 Grotius, De Salisfact. Christi, c. 9 ; Bp Ellicott on Oa!. nr. 13. Winer, 
 Trench, Tischendorf, Ellicott all agree that i/wep has the signification of 
 in loco as well as in commodum .ilieujus, that in doctrinal passages it 
 may admit of the first meaning united with the second where the context 
 seems to require it, but never has the first meaning exclusively. See 
 also Bull on Justification, Part 11. p. 239; Library of Ang.-Cath. Theol. 
 
OF OUR EEDEAIPTION, 
 
 163 
 
 He speaks of Christ as 'the propitiation for our sins',' 
 and says that 'His Blood cleanseth us from all sin^;' 
 of St Peter, when he affirms that He ' bore our sins 
 in His own body on the tree^;' of St Paul, when he 
 declares that the Father made 'Him to be sin, or a 
 sin-offering, for us, who knew no sin*,' that we ' have 
 redemption through His Blood, the remission of our 
 sins,' that 'He gave Himself for us, that He might 
 redeem us from all iniquity ^; terms borrowed not 
 more, as is often asserted, from the Mosaic sacrifices 
 than from those which obtained universally through- 
 out the ancient world. Lastly, did the Angelic Host 
 on the world's first Christmas morn announce ' on earth 
 peace, good will toward men®,' and did the Saviour, 
 in that momentous conversation with Nicodemus, to 
 which we have already referred, declare that 'God so 
 loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son... 
 not to condemn the world, but that the world through 
 Him might be saved"? What is this but the root- 
 thought of that Reconciliation, that At-one-menf, which 
 so often occurs in the Epistles of St Paul, as when he 
 tells us that ' when we were enemies, we were recon- 
 
 1 I Jn. ii. 2. 2 I Jn. i. 7. 
 
 3 I Pet. ii. 24. 'Hebreei ut significent quod Latini dicunt pcenas 
 pcndere, nullam habeat p'hrasim magis receptam quain banc ferre pecca- 
 turn, cui similis est Latinorum locutio, luere delicta, hoc est delictonmi 
 supplicia. Eadem plane phrasi dixit Petrus, Chi-istum peccata nostra 
 sui'sum tulisse in corpore suo in lignum.' Grotius, Bef. Fid. Cath. do 
 Salisf. Christ/, c. I. 
 
 * 1 Cor. V. 21. 6 Titus ii. 14. 
 
 6 Lk. ii. 14. 7 Jn. iii. 16, 17. 
 
 8 ' The recunciUation of two estranged parties was the earlier mean- 
 
 11—2 
 
164 
 
 THE EUCHARIST A SACRAMENT 
 
 ciled to God tln-ough the death of His Son';' that 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ 'we have received the 
 atonement'';' that in Christ God 'was reconciling the 
 world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto 
 them';' that through Him the Father was pleased 'to 
 reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace 
 through the Blood of His Cross^'? 
 
 Quotations to the same effect might be multiplied. 
 But these are sufficient to show that the four great 
 circles of images 5, which the Apostles employ when 
 they seek to represent to us the effect of Christ's death, 
 (1) a sin-offering, (2) reconciliation with an offended 
 friend, (3) ransom or redemption from slavery, (4) 
 satisfaction of a debt, coincide with those emplo>jed by 
 our Lord Himself in the Gospel Narrative. 
 
 Following the example of Apostles and Evange- 
 lists, the Church of England in her Formularies and 
 Articles similarly approaches the truth of Christ's sacri- 
 
 ing of the word atonement;' Archbp. Trench, Glossary, pp. 12, 13, who 
 quotes 
 
 He and Aufidius can no more atotie 
 
 Than vioientest contrarieties. 
 
 Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act iv. Sc. 6. 
 ' His first essay succeeded so well, Moses would adventure on a second 
 design, to atone two Israelites at variance.' T. Fuller, Pi-sgah ^iylu of 
 Palestine. 
 
 ^ Eom. V. 10. ' Eom. v. 1 1. 
 
 3 2 Cor. V. 18, 19. ^ Col. i. 70. 
 
 ' See Grotii Defensio Fidei CathoIiccE de Satisfactione Cliristi, 
 Cap. I.; Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, I. 259; Archbp. Trench's New 
 Testament Synonyms, Part II. p. 120; Dean Goodwin's Hulsean Lectures, 
 p. 221. 
 
OF OUR REDEMPTION. 
 
 165 
 
 fice from several different quarters, and uses a similar 
 variety of expressions in setting forth a doctrine which 
 in all its length and breadth and depth and height 
 transcends the limits of our comprehension. Thus 
 while in the Apostles' Creed we are simply taught to 
 say that Jesus Christ ' suffered under Pontius Pilate,' 
 in the Nicene we add that ' for us men and for our salva- 
 tion He came down from heaven, was made man, and 
 crucified for us.' In other places we are taught that 
 ' Christ is the very Paschal Lamb, which was offered 
 for us, and hath taken away the sin of the world' ;' that 
 'very God and very Man, He truly suffered, was cruci- 
 fied, died, and was buried, to reconcile His Father to us, 
 and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but 
 also for all actual sins of men^;' that the offering of 
 Christ once made is a ' perfect redemption, propitia- 
 tion, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, 
 both original and actual';' that 'by His meritorious 
 Cross and Passion alone we obtain remission of our 
 sins and are made partakers of the kingdom of hea- 
 ven*;' that 'of His tender love toward mankind God 
 sent His Son to take upon Him our flesh, and to suffer 
 death upon the cross^;' 'to die for our sins, and to rise 
 
 1 Communion Office, Proper Preface for Easter Day; comp. Article XV. 
 ' Article U. 
 
 ' Article xxxi. On the word satisfaction, wbich again occurs in the 
 Collect for the 4th Sunday in Advent, and dates from the writings of 
 Archbp. Anselm, see Swainson's Ilukean Lectures, p. 283, and the notes. 
 Thomson's Bampton Lectures, p. 134. 
 
 * Comm. Office. 
 
 ^ Collect for Sunday before Easter. 
 
166 
 
 THE EUCHARIST A SACRAMENT 
 
 again for our justification';' that 'God the Son hath 
 redeemed us and all mankind 
 
 But whatever be the metaphors by which we illus- 
 trate the consequences of Christ's sacrifice on His Cross, 
 whether it be that of reconciliation with an offended 
 friend, or redemption from slavery, or the satisfaction 
 of a debt, or a sin-offering, the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper, by its very nature, being a religious Rite of 
 Diwne appointment and dependent on a real specific 
 action, is a declaration of J esus Himself that His death 
 was a real sacrifice^. 
 
 For, to quote again the words of our Articles and 
 Formularies, the Supper of the Lord is 'not only a sign of 
 the love that Christians ought to have among themselves 
 one to another, but rather a Sacrament of our Redemp- 
 tion by Christ's death : insomuch that to such as rightly, 
 worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread 
 which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; 
 and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the 
 Blood of Chi-ist*;' it is 'a Holy Mystery instituted and 
 
 ^ Collect for ist Sunday after Easter. 
 
 " Catechism. Compare the Homily of tlie Salvation of all Mankind 
 and the two Homilies on the Passion. 
 
 ^ This view has never been wanting in any age of Christianity. 
 ' Even the Jewish Christians were more and more definitely forced on 
 this, while the Ebionites mutilated also the Supper.' Dorner's Person 
 of Christ, I. 167. E. T. 'Already in the days of the Apostles there had 
 arisen tliose who denied that Jesus Christ was come in the flesh, or that 
 there was any resurrection from the dead. But none called in question 
 the reality of Christ's sacrifice of Himself on the ground of its being a 
 sacrifice, or stumbled at any other sacrificial feature of the system.' 
 Freeman's Principles of Divine Service, 11. 90, 91. 
 Article xxvm. 
 
OF OUR IlEDEMPTION. 
 
 167 
 
 ordaiued by our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ, 
 to the end that we should alway remember His exceed 
 ing great love in dying for us, and the innumerable 
 benefits which by His precious blood-shedding He 
 hath obtained to us';' it is a 'pledge of His loveV it 
 is a 'certain sure witness,' an outward, visible, and 
 'effectual sign of God's good will towards us^;' an as- 
 surance that a reconciliation of man to God has been 
 effected, that a ransom has been paid, that an all-per- 
 fect and sufficient sacrifice for sin has been offered, 
 so that each faithful recipient can 'take and eat' the 
 Bread ' in remembrance that Christ died for /iwn,' that 
 ' the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ was given for him' 
 and can drink of the Cup ' in remembrance that Christ's 
 blood was shed for liim*.' 
 
 The Lord's Supper, then, is not only a feast upon a ^ 
 Sacrifice, but by its very nature a seal and pledge of 
 reconciliation. 
 
 In all ages, God, in His infinite mercy has been 
 wont to speak to man not only in words but in outward 
 and symbolical actions. He is no hard taskmaster, ' He 
 kuoweth whereof we are made,' that we are not pure 
 spirit, but bear about with us bodies also; that from 
 the weakness of our mortal nature we cannot always 
 
 ^ Communion Office. ^ Ibid. 
 
 ^ Art. XXV. 'Panis et Vini symbolis nobis confirmatur Christ! corpus 
 ...ut reconciliationem gratiie ad no$ pertinere certo sciarmis, fructuniqiic 
 redemptionis per mortem ejus partce ctqnamus atque percipiamns.^ Nowell's 
 Catechism, p. 93 ; Parker Soc. Ed. Homily Concerning the Sacrament, 
 p. 447 ; Corrie's Edition. 
 
 * Communion OJice, 
 
168 THE EUCHARIST A SACRAMENT 
 
 stand upright, or stay ourselves utterly on Him. The 
 language of men in all ages has been that of the Patri- 
 arch, 'Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall 
 inherit it'?' And, in condescension to the want thus 
 expressed, the all-merciful God has ever been wont to 
 confirm His word with some pledge or sign I 
 
 The Rainbow after the flood ^; the smoking furnace 
 and the burning lamp that passed between the divided 
 victims before Abraham*; the signs given to Moses 
 when he was afraid to go before Pharaoh^; the blood 
 sprinkled on book, people, and altar, when the Covenant 
 was ratified at Sinai'; these are only a few instances 
 out of many where God has condescended to human 
 weakness, and by external pledges assured them of the 
 certainty of His promises. 
 
 But however needful may have been those pledges 
 voiichsafed on the occasions just mentioned, it needs 
 but a passing contemplation of those deep wants which 
 found an expression in the ancient sacrificial system, to 
 
 ' Gen. XV. 8. 
 
 ' See Swainson's Hiihcan Lectures, p. 213. Thomson's Bamptov 
 Lecturca, p. 227. 
 
 ' Gen. ix. 13. * Gen. xv. i — 21. ' Exod. iv. i — 3, 
 
 8 Exod. xxiv. 6 — 8. 'Nos quidem mente, atque intelligentia adeo 
 coelesti Divinaque non sumus, ut nobis Angelorum instar Divinse gratiae 
 pure per se appareant ; hac ergo ratione infirmitati nostrse consuluit Deus, 
 ut qui terreni sumus atque casci, in extemis elementis et figuris, quasi 
 speculis quibusdam, ccelestes gratias, quas alioqui non cerneremus, in- 
 tueremur; et id nostra maxime refert, ut sensibus etiam nostris Dei pro- 
 missiones ingerantur, quo mentibus nostris sine uUa dubit.\tione con- 
 firmantur.' Nowell's Catechism, Parker Soc. Ed. p. 84 ; Kicholson on 
 the Catechism, p. 189. 
 
OF OUR REDEMPTION. 
 
 169 
 
 perceive the inestimable value of this Sacrament, if only 
 we consider it from this single point of view as a pledge 
 of God's love and goodwill towards us, as an outward 
 and visible sign 'of our redemption by Christ's death.' 
 
 For the question, which in all ages man has felt 
 to concern himself most nearly, is, 'How do I stand 
 in reference to that Being of whose greatness, goodness, 
 and power I cannot but be sensible as often as I reflect 
 on the various phenomena of the physical world, and 
 how does He stand affected towards me?' 
 
 If he attempt to answer this question from a 
 renewed reflection on the external world, what does 
 he perceive? That in this world of order ^ there is 
 disorder of the most extensive kind. There is pain; 
 there is suffering; there is universal liability to dis- 
 ease; there is the famine and the plague; and then 
 there is death, the solemn silence of the tomb^ 
 
 Nay more, the faculty of Conscience, which strength- 
 ens so mightily man's religious instinct, testifies to a 
 deep-seated source of disorder within himself, to a 
 schism in his own soul. Man feels he is not as he 
 ought to be, or as he was intended to have been I 
 
 For sin has never reigned with such entirely undis- 
 puted sway over man's heart, but there have been 
 
 ^ Compare the names Kitr^tos and mundus which the two most culti- 
 vated nations of the ancient world applied to the universe. Humboldt's 
 Cosmos, I. 51. n; also the dialogue of Socrates with Aristodemus, Xen. 
 Mem. I. 4; Cicero, de Nat. Deor. 11. 49 — 61. 
 
 ' For illustrations of the conviction of the general misery of man 
 amongst the Greeks, see Dbllinger, Jew and Gentile, I. 294. 
 
 ' See Ackermann's Christian Element in Plato, p. 203. 
 
170 
 
 THE EUCHARIST A SACRA JI EXT 
 
 voices protesting against its lordship, and witnessing 
 against it as an alien and a usurper \ Conscience may 
 not be sovereign de facto, but de jure it is felt to be. 
 
 It was the sense of this inward derangement, this 
 bondage^ of the will to some mysterious and opposing 
 poAver, which made one of the ancient heathens exclaim 
 that 'he felt as if two souls were lodged within 
 him.' 'What is it,' writes another to a friend, 'which 
 drags me this way when I wish to go that? What is 
 it that is ever wrestling with our will, nor suffers us 
 once and for ever to desire the same thing'?' Another*, 
 and he one of the wisest of men that ever lived before 
 the Advent, could only express his sense of the struggle 
 within him by speaking of the soul as a ' chariot, which 
 two horses, one white and one black, were dragging 
 in different directions.' The well-known lines of the 
 frivolous and worldly Ovid, 
 
 Video meliora proboque 
 
 Deteriora sequor, 
 
 express the feeUngs of every man that ever lived, and 
 testify alike to the all-attractive loveliness of virtue, 
 and the deep conviction of personal shortcoming^ 
 
 1 On the Platonic doctrine of Sin, see Ackermann, 58, and notes. 
 
 2 'Quis neget omnes improbos esse servos?' Cicero. ''EXevBepia, 
 Kal oovXda, to fxh dper^s Sco/xa, t6 5^ KaKias. Epictetus. 
 
 3 Seneca, Ejjist. Lll; Conf. Xenopbon, Cyrop. VI. i. 41. 
 ■» Plato, P/iccdrus, 246. 
 
 ^ With Plato Virtue is health, beauty {Rep. iv. 444. e), and har- 
 mony of soul (Gorg. 482. b), while the efifects of sin be considers as 
 afflictive and as corrupting ; for he says that sin renders the soul sick 
 and ugly, and reduces it to slavery (72ep. iv. 444. c; ix. 579. d. Comp. St 
 
OF OUR REDEMPTION. 
 
 171 
 
 Combined with this sense of internal weakness there 
 is a sense also of unmeetness to enter into God's pre- 
 sence. Man feels that God is very near to him in the 
 operations of His hands, and in the voice of conscience, 
 but he is afraid to draw very near to Him. 'Be he 
 brave or be he timid, in one respect he is the same, he 
 dares not to stand by himself If he believes in God 
 at all, if he is not a thoroughly convinced atheist, his 
 heart will either rise in prayer or sink in impreca-. 
 tions. But whether he prays or curses, the witness is 
 the same, wrung out from the inmost depths of his 
 being : and that witness is that he is unfit, and knows 
 himself to be unfit, to stand upright in his own 
 strength before God'.' In the midst of outward plea- 
 sures and happiness there is in the breast of thousands 
 a sorrow which knows no joy, an inward grief, an inde- 
 finable sense of defect, all the more dreadful because 
 it is so indefinable. 
 
 But what does man say to these things ? Does he give 
 up all hope of deliverance and salvation? The answer to 
 this is inscribed in an emphatic negative on the pages 
 of history. Never has the mind of man, driven to 
 construct a form of worship even from its natural 
 promptings, invented a religion of despair. He has 
 ever believed that the great gulf which separates him 
 from the Supreme may be bridged over, that the sense 
 of guilt which causes such indefinable fear may be 
 
 John viii. 34); it robs man of his fairest joys here and of heavenly bliss 
 hereafter; the impure and unholy cannot come to God (Phccd. 69. c). 
 Ackermann, 59, and notes; and comp. Bollinger, i. 321. 
 1 Swainson's Jluhean Lectures in 1848 and 1858, p. 61. 
 
THE EUCHARIST A SACRAMENT 
 
 removed. And wherever there has been a sense of re- 
 pentance, a sorrow for sin, there has been also a belief 
 in the necessity of something to be done for man and 
 not hj man, if the broken relations between himself 
 and his Maker are to be renewed. 
 
 Now of this deepfelt sense of the need of recon- 
 ciliation, sacrifice has ever been the outward expres- 
 sion'. Whatever may be our opinions respecting its 
 origin, whether we believe it to have been invented 
 by man for himself, or to have been taught him by 
 external revelation, certain it is that it has universally 
 prevailed. It is no mere Jewish notion. For four 
 thousand years it prevailed before the Advent, among 
 nations widely sundered from the Jews in everything 
 else. However far apart they might be in other 
 respects, in this at least they were at one, in the con- 
 viction that there was something which hindered man's 
 free access to the Deity without an intermediary ; and 
 all that we know, independently of Eevelation, of sin, 
 in ourselves, in savage tribes, or at certain epochs in 
 national history^ only tends to shew how true this 
 sense was, and how awful a thing sin is. 
 
 ^ The fact that in the face of the natural law the soul that iinneth it 
 shall die — every nation visited death upon sinless victims, in order to 
 extirpate its own transgressions, will be taken by any candid person as 
 a sign that the principle of sacrifice has a stronger hold on the human 
 mind than that of simple retribution. Archbp. Thomson's Bampton 
 Lectures, p. 32. The prodigality of the sacrifices offered up by the Em- 
 peror Julian, which gained him the title of Vietimarius, and his submis- 
 sion even to the loathsome tauroboliad, after renouncing Christianity, is 
 very striking. See Smith's Gibbon, III. 148. 
 
 2 For illustrations see Ackermann, pp. 195, 196. 
 
OF OUR REDEMPTION. 
 
 173 
 
 Now, so long as this sense of inherent impurity, of 
 internal derangement, of guilt, has no adequate source 
 of relief, there can be no real peace. For the side of 
 human life most full of suffering and evil is the reli- 
 gious side ; it is here that the virus of the disease has its 
 chief seat. By its repeated confessions of the dream- 
 like nothingness of its own glory, by its constant com- 
 plaints of the impossibility of the things of time and 
 sense entirely to satisfy its longings, by its inability to 
 rid itself of the consciousness of shortcoming, by its 
 ten thousand times ten thousand instances since the 
 world began of agonized remorse, by the terrible ' earnest- 
 ness of its guilt-offerings, its punishments, penances, 
 and self-tortures',' the world testifies, and has testified 
 from the beginning, to the existence within it of 
 some profound source of misery, and cries with the 
 Apostle, 0 wretched man that I am who shall deliver 
 me from the body of this death^ ? 
 
 And it is to this malady that the Gospel addi-esses 
 itself. It does not mock man by telling him that he is 
 deceiving himself, that the disease, to which his own 
 bitter experience only too surely testifies, is a creature 
 of his imagination. It does not mock him, as some 
 human systems have done, by bidding him be comfort- 
 able, and regard his consciou-sness of demerit as a sha- 
 dow. AVliat philosophy lays down as the ultimate diffi- 
 culty, the enigma of all enigmas, the existence of sin, 
 with this the Gospel starts. ' In this darkness, or this 
 
 Ackennann, 206. 
 
 ' Rom. vii. 24. 
 
174 
 
 THE EUCHAKIST A SACIIAMENT 
 
 light of nature, call it whicli you please, Revelation 
 comes in, confirms every doubting fear which could 
 enter into the heart of man concerning the future un- 
 prevented consequence of wickedness ; supposes the 
 world to be in a state of ruin (a supposition which 
 seems the very ground of the Christian dispensation, 
 and wbich, if not provable by reason, yet is in no 
 wise contrary to it) ; teaches us too, that the rules of 
 Divine government are such, as not to admit of pardon 
 immediately and directly on repentance, or by the sole 
 efficacy of it : but then teaches, at the same time, what 
 nature might justly have hoped, that the moral govern- 
 ment of the universe was not so rigid, but that there 
 was room for an intei-position to avert the fatal conse- 
 quences of vice, which, therefore, by this means, does 
 admit of pardon. Revelation teaches us, that the un- 
 known laws of God's more general government, no less 
 than the particular laws by which we experience He 
 governs us at present, are compassionate, as well as 
 good in the more general notion of goodness : and 
 that He hath mercifully provided that there should be 
 an interposition to prevent the destruction of human 
 kind, whatever that destruction unprevented would 
 have been'.' 
 
 For in His tender love to mankind the Father 
 sent the Son into the world. The purport of His 
 coming is declared on the very first page of the Gospel 
 narrative to be 'the saving of His people from their 
 
 1 Butler's Analogy, Part II. chap. 5. 
 
OF OUR REDEMPTION. 
 
 175 
 
 sins.' To effect this deliverance He took upon Him 
 our nature, entered into conflict with the Evil One, 
 and proved Himself victorious over the worst enemies 
 of man's happiness, over disease, over death, over that 
 world of spiritual foes with which man in all ages has 
 believed that the human race has become entangled. 
 He ' republished to men the law of nature, which men 
 had corrupted; and the very knowledge of which, to 
 some degree, was lost among them;' He deepened the 
 requirements of the moral law, and so rectified the- 
 aberrations of conscience ; He closed His earthly minis- 
 try by freely and spontaneously giving Himself up 
 to death, even the death of the Cross, for man and in 
 man's stead. He died, He was buried. He rose again, 
 He ascended into heaven, there to carry on before His 
 Father's throne that work of mediation and priestly 
 intercession which man in all ages has felt he needed. 
 And before He left the world He instituted a Holy 
 Mystery as a visible pledge of His love, ' for a continual 
 remembrance of His death,' and of 'the innumerable 
 benefits which by His precious Blood-shedding He 
 hath obtained to us'.' 
 
 Every time, then, that we listen to the words of 
 Institution, which He uttered on the night that He was 
 betrayed ; every time that we draw near and receive 
 the symbols of His Body broken, and His Blood poured 
 out, we have signed and sealed to each one of us the 
 pledge of our Redemption by His death, and ' before 
 
 1 Communion Office. 
 
176 
 
 THE EUCHARIST A SACEAMENT 
 
 our eyes He is evidently set forth crucified" for us. 
 Every time that we approach this Feast upon the one 
 full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, and oblation, once 
 offered for the sins of the whole world, and think of 
 Him who offered it, who was with the Father before 
 all worlds, 'God of God, Light of Light, very God of very 
 God,' ' by whom all things were made,' but who for our 
 sakes came down from heaven, and satisfied for us 
 and as our Head 'the Divine craving and yearning 
 after a perfect holiness, righteousness, and obedience,' 
 the shadows that hide the face of God flee away, 
 and we know and are assured that we are not hving in 
 a redeemerless world, that One has come and reconciled 
 us to God, and that we need not ' look for another.' 
 
 And reflecting on His infinite love, and receiving 
 its seals and pledges, we are not concerned to explain 
 how and in what particular way ' His sacrifice of Him- 
 self had that efficacy for obtaining pardon of sin, 
 which the heathens may be supposed to have thought 
 their sacrifices to be, and which the Jewish sacrifices 
 really were in some degree, and with regard to some 
 persons'^' Scripture has left 'this matter of the satis- 
 faction of Christ, mysterious, left somewhat in it unre- 
 vealed;' nor can we show any claim to further explana- 
 tion. We know that sin itself still remains an enigma 
 
 1 Gal. iii. i. 'Tantum dicimus, quemadraodum /rfes est quasi manus 
 nostra, qua nos quserimus et accipimus ; sic verbum et sacramenta, esse 
 quasi manus Dei, quibus is nobis ofiFert et confert quod fide a nobis petitur 
 et accipitur.' Vossius, de Sacram. Vi et Effic. quoted in Waterland, 
 Worlcs, IX. 435. 
 
 2 Butler's Analogy, II. 5. Waterland's WorJcs, YoL IX. 393. 
 
OF OUR EEDEIIPTION. 
 
 177 
 
 which we can sec but cannot explain; we know 
 that on vicarious suffering the whole worlil Ls built 
 up, that ' in lower forms, — not low in themselves, — 
 though low as compared with the highest, — it is every- 
 where, where love is at all'; we know that the mystery 
 of sacrifice is the condition of the support of even our 
 daily lives, nay, that the death of man is often the 
 condition of the life of his fellow man ; we know that 
 except a corn of wheat fall into the gj'ound and die, it 
 abideth alone, hut if it die it bringeth fuiih much fruit;' 
 and we remember who it was that suggested this 
 analogy, and are content to leave the matter in His 
 hands, convinced that to object to the 'pi-inciple of 
 mediation is to object to the whole daily course of 
 Divine Providence in the government of the world.' 
 
 ' Trench's University Sermons, p. 33. 
 
 2 ' Of the dark parts of revelation,' says Warburton, ' there are two 
 sorts: one which may be cleared up by the studious api)lication of well 
 employed talents; the other, wliich Avill always reside within the shadow 
 of God's throne, where it would be impiety to intrude.' 'The great 
 Atonement — who shall dare to say that he knows enough of the coun- 
 sels of heaven, the requisitions of God, and His relation to man — to 
 pronounce it improbable? Who is he that comes among- us in the high 
 character of confidential secretary to the Divine administration, that he 
 can venture to affirm that God requires no suffering Mediator?' Archer 
 Butler's Sermons, i. 263. 
 
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