guage of the ancient Liturgies, "We offer by way "of commemoration ";" according to our Saviour's words when he ordained this holy rite, Do this in commemoration of me°. In the Eucharist then, Christ is offered, not hypostatically, as the Trent Fathers have determined, (for so he was but once offered,) but commemoratively only and this commemoration is made to God the Father, and is not a bare remembering, or putting ourselves in mind of him. For every sacrifice is directed to God, and the oblation therein made, whatsoever it be, hath him for its object, and not man. In the holy Eucharist therefore, we set before God the bread and wine, as figures or images of the precious blood of Christ "shed for us, and of his precious body," (they are the very words of the Clementine Liturgy P,) and plead to God the merit of his Son's sacrifice once offered on the cross for us sinners, and in this sacrament represented, beseeching him for the sake thereof to bestow his heavenly blessings on us.

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To conclude this matter: the ancients held the oblation of the Eucharist to be answerable in some respects to the legal sacrifices; that is, they believed that our blessed Saviour ordained the sacrament of the Eucharist as a rite of prayer and praise to God, instead of the manifold and bloody sacrifices of the Law. That the legal sacrifices were rites to invocate

n

Μεμνημένοι προσφέρομεν. Commemorantes, or Commemorando offerimus.

• Τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν. [Luke xxii. 19.] Vid. Justin. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 296, 297. [c. 70. p. 168, 9.]

- Τοῦ τιμίου αἵματος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ ἐκχυθέντος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, καὶ Toû tiμíov owμatos тà ȧντíτνñα. Constitut. Apost. VII. 25. [See also V. 14. et VI. 30.]

God by, is evident from many texts of Scripture, see especially 1 Sam. vii. 9. and xiii. 12; Ezra vi. 10; Prov. xv. 8. And that they were also rites for praising and blessing God for his mercies, appears from 2 Chron. xxix. 27. Instead therefore of slaying of beasts, and burning of incense, whereby they praised God, and called upon his name under the Old Testament; the Fathers, I say, believed our Saviour appointed this sacrament of bread and wine, as a rite whereby to give thanks and make supplication to his Father in his name. This you may see fully cleared and proved by the learned Mr. Mede, in his treatise entitled, The Christian Sacrifice. The eucharistical sacrifice, thus explained, is indeed λoyun Ovoía, a reasonable sacrifice, widely different from that monstrous sacrifice of the mass taught in the church of Rome.

The other branch of the article is concerning transubstantiation, wherein the ecclesiastic professeth upon his solemn oath his belief, that in the Eucharist "there is made a conversion of the whole sub"stance of the bread into the body, and of the whole "substance of the wine into the blood of Christ:" a proposition, that bids defiance to all the reason and sense of mankind; nor (God be praised) hath it any ground or foundation in divine revelation. Nay, the text of Scripture, on which the church of Rome builds this article, duly considered, utterly subverts and overthrows it. She grounds it upon the words of the institution of the holy Sacrament by our Saviour, the same night wherein he was betrayed; when he took bread, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, This is my body, Tò didóμevov, saith St. Luke, [xxii. 19.] тò kλwμevov, saith St. Paul,

[1 Cor. xi. 24.] which is given and broken for you. After the same manner he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood of the new testament, Tò èxxvvóμevov, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Now whatsoever our Saviour said was undoubtedly true: but these words could not be true in a proper sense; for our Saviour's body was not then given or broken, but whole and inviolate; nor was there one drop of his blood yet shed. The words therefore must necessarily be understood in a figurative sense; and then, what becomes of the doctrine of transubstantiation? The meaning of our Saviour is plainly this: What I now do, is a representation of my death and passion near approaching; and what I now do, do ye hereafter, do this in remembrance of me; let this be a standing, perpetual ordinance in my church to the end of the world; let my death be thus annunciated and shewn forth till I come to judgment. See 1 Cor. xi. 26.

As little foundation hath this doctrine of transubstantiation in the ancient church, as appears sufficiently from what hath been already said concerning the notion then universally received of the eucharistical sacrifice. It was then believed to be an áváμvnois, or commemoration, by the symbols of bread and wine, of the body and blood of Christ, once offered up to God on the cross for our redemption; it could not therefore be then thought an offering up again to God of the very body and blood of Christ, substantially present under the appearance of bread and wine; for these two notions are inconsistent, and cannot stand together. The ancient doctors, yea, and Liturgies of the church, affirm the Eucharist

to be incruentum sacrificium, “a sacrifice without "blood;" which it cannot be said to be, if the very blood of Christ were therein present and offered up to God. In the Clementine Liturgy, the bread and wine in the Eucharist are said to be antitypa, " cor

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respondent types," figures, and images of the precious body and blood of Christ. And divers others of the Fathers speak in the same plain language. Vid. Greg. Naz. Apol. Orat. 1. tom. I. Cyril. Hierosol. 5. Cat. Myst. Ambros. de Sacrament. lib. IV. cap. 4.

We are not ignorant that the ancient Fathers generally teach, that the bread and wine in the Eucharist, by or upon the consecration of them, do become and are made the body and blood of Christ. But we know also, that though they do not all explain themselves in the same way, yet they do all declare their sense to be very dissonant from the doctrine of transubstantiation. Some of the most ancient doctors of the church, as Justin Martyr 9 and Irenæus, seem to have had this notion, that by or upon the sacerdotal benediction, the Spirit of Christ, or a divine virtue from Christ, descends upon the elements, and accompanies them to all worthy communicants, and that therefore they are said to be, and are the body and blood of Christ; the same divinity, which is hypostatically united to the body of Christ in heaven, being virtually united to the elements of bread and wine on earth. Which also seems to be the meaning of all the ancient Liturgies, in which it is prayed, "that God would send down "his Spirit upon the bread and wine in the Eucharist."

a [Apol. I. 66. p. 83.]

r

[IV. 18. p. 251.]

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And this doubtless is the meaning of Origen in his eighth book against Celsus, p. 399. [c. 33. p. 766.]; where, speaking of the holy Eucharist, he says, that therein, "we eat bread by prayer (i. e. by the prayer "of consecration for the descent of the divine Spirit upon it) made a certain holy body, which also sanc"tifies those who with a sound or sincere purpose "of heart use it s;" but that neither Justin Martyr, nor Irenæus, nor Origen ever dreamed of the transubstantiation of the elements, is most evident. For Justin Martyr and Irenæus do both of them plainly affirm, that by eating and drinking the bread and wine in the Eucharist, "our bodies are nourished," and that the "bread and wine are digested and "turned into the substance of our bodies;" which to affirm of the glorified body of Christ were impious and blasphemous, and to affirm the same of the mere accidents of the bread and wine would be very absurd and ridiculous. And Origen expressly saith, "that what we eat in the Eucharist is bread, but "bread sanctified and made holy by prayer, and

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which, by the divine virtue that accompanies it, "sanctifieth all those who worthily receive it." He that would see more of this notion of the ancient Fathers, and particularly those places of Justin Martyr and Irenæus fully cleared and vindicated from the forced and absurd glosses of the Romanists, may consult my learned friend Mr. Grabe, in his notes upon Justin Martyr's first Apology, of his own edition, p. 128, 129, but especially in his large and elaborate Annotation upon Irenæus, lib. IV. cap. 34. [c. 18.]

§ ̓́Αρτους ἐσθίομεν σῶμα γενομένους, διὰ τὴν εὐχὴν ἅγιόν τι καὶ ἁγίαζον τοὺς μεθ ̓ ὑγιοῦς προθέσεως αὐτῷ χρωμένους.