malignant action and re-action, in reference to the Lord's Supper, where the emblematical nature of the institution, and the figurative language in which, of course, much of the truth respecting it was couched, afforded peculiar facilities for misapprehension, misrepresentation, and delusion, we find, within the course of a few centuries, the simple rite of an assembly of Christians eating bread and drinking wine, in grateful commemoration of the expiatory sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, converted into a splendid and complicated ceremony ;* and the plain, intelligible doctrine that in this ordinance we are presented with, an emblematical representation and confirmation of the great principles of our religion, which, by strengthening our belief, contributes to our spiritual improvement, gives way to a portentous dogma, of which, it is impossible to say whether it be more absurd or impious, that in this ordinance the bread and the wine are, by the mystic power of a priest's repeating the words of institution, converted into the body, and blood, and divinity of Jesus Christ; which, after having been offered to God by the priest, as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead, are literally eaten and drunk by the recipients. So dangerous is it to deviate from the purity of scriptural truth, and the simplicity of primitive usage. It is impossible to say where we will stop. The probability is, that we will not stop till we land ourselves in the pravity of damnable error, and in the absurdity of senseless superstition.

At the reformation, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the practice of the sacrifice of the mass, were discarded by all the Protestant churches; but there was but a partial return to the purity and sim

"That feast of free grace and adoption to which Christ invited his disciples to sit as brethren and co-heirs of the happy covenant which at that table was to be sealed to them, even that feast of love and heavenly-admitted fellowship, the seal of filial grace, became the subject of horror, and glouting admiration pageanted about like a dreadful idol.”—MILTON.

plicity of primitive doctrine and observance. By the Lutheran church, a variety of unauthorized rites were retained, and the doctrine of consubstantiation, or the real, though impalpable and invisible, presence of the body and blood of Christ, along with, and under the substance of bread and wine, in the consecrated elements, was substituted in the room of the not more absurd, and certainly not less intelligible, dogma of transubstantiation; and, although most of the reformed churches rejected both these equally unscriptural doctrines, and approximated much more closely to both the principles and practice of apostolical times, yet still it cannot be denied, that in most of their symbolical books there is much mystical statement, respecting the spiritual presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper, and the manner in which Christians participate of his body and blood when they observe it; as if Christ's presence in this ordinance were not essentially the same as his presence in any other ordinance, when, by the operation of his Spirit, through the instrumentality of the truth, he communicates to the believing mind knowledge, and purification, and comfort;-as if "the eating Christ's flesh, and drinking Christ's blood," in this ordinance were something else than that participation of those blssings procured by his sufferings and death, which all true Christians enjoy whenever they believe the divine testimony respecting these sufferings and death;-and as if all the peculiarities of this ordinance did not originate in the emblematical form in which it brings Christian truth and its evidence before the mind.

It is obvious, that to be conducive to the spiritual improvement of those who engage in it, the Lord's Supper must be "a rational service," an exercise of the mind and of the heart: and it is equally obvious, that, for the purpose of rendering it a rational service, it is not our business to endeavour to invent

a spiritual meaning to the emblems which are employed in it; but to endeavour to discover the spiritual meaning, which he who appointed the ordinances intended to be attached to these emblems. Some writers on the nature and design of this ordinance, seem to have overlooked this; and, of course, their works, though replete with pious fancies, are rather deficient in such distinct, scripturally supported views, as are calculated at once to satisfy the mind and guide the exercise of the devout Christian. It is often treated of as an oath of allegiance-a federal transaction between God and the communicant-an unbloody sacrifice, or a feast upon a sacrifice-and much fruitless controversy has taken place, which of these, or whether any of them, affords a just representation of its nature, design, and advantages. Figurative descriptions of an emblematical ordinance do not seem peculiarly well fitted for explaining it; and there is a considerable hazard lest, in our following out our tropical illustrations, we end in making the ordinance something altogether different from what Jesus Christ made it; and, as the promise of his blessing is attached only to the observance of his institution, we shut ourselves out from the advantages we might have enjoyed from its observance, if we do not, in simple submission to his authority, and reliance on his Spirit, eat bread and drink wine, in believing remembrance and religious commemoration of his expiatory sufferings and death.

The simplest and, to our own minds, the most satisfactory view of the Lord's Supper which we have been able to take, is that which considers it as, on the part of Him who instituted it, an emblematical representation and confirmation of the grand peculiarities of the Christian institution; and, on the part of him who observes it, an emblematical expression of a state of mind and heart in accordance with this statement of Christian truth and its evidence.

That there is something more in the Lord's Supper than meets the external senses-that its emblematical elements are meant to embody Christian doctrine and its emblematical actions, to express Christian thought and feeling, there can be no doubt; and in order to discover what is the Christian truth which the instituted symbols represent, we are not left to conjecture how such emblems may be naturally interpreted. In the statements of our Lord, and of his inspired Apostles, we have abundant and satisfactory information. The following is a short account of the institution of the Lord's Supper, as narrated by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul:-"The Lord Jesus, that night in which he was betrayed, while observing with his Apostles the Jewish passover, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.' After the same manner he took the cup, when he had supped, and gave it to them, saying, This cup is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many, for the remission of sins: drink ye all of it. This do ye as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.'"* The meaning of the highly figurative phrases, "eating Christ's flesh and drinking Christ's blood," may be easily ascertained from the following quotations from one of our Lord's discourses :-"He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, 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

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*Matth. xxvi. 26, &c. Mark xiv. 22, &c. Luke xxii. 19, &c. 1 Cor. xi. 23, &c.

blood is drink indeed."* The apostle Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, makes the following observations in reference to the meaning of the emblems in the Lord's Supper:-"The cup of blessing, or thanksgiving, which we bless, or over which we give thanks, is it not the communion-the mutual participation of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion-the mutual participation of the body of Christ? for we being many are one bread and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread."+ These passages of Scripture are the legitimate materials from which we are to form our judgments as to the meaning of the emblems in the Lord's Supper; and they certainly warrant us to affirm, that this ordinance is an emblematical representation of all the grand peculiarities of the Christian system.

Truth may be brought before the mind in two ways-by verbal statement, or by emblematical representation. The first is best fitted for conveying new information; the second is admirably calculated for recalling, in a striking manner, to the mind, information formerly presented to it. The first method of presenting the leading truths of Christianity is adopted in the written and spoken gospel; the second, in the Lord's Supper: and it will be found, on examination, that that ordinance is as it were a miniature picture of the same series of divine dispensations, of which we have a detailed history in the word of the truth of the gospel.

It may be worth our while to expand this remark a little, and show how full of Christian truth is every part of this emblematical institution. Let us contemplate the symbolical elements and actions, and apply to our Lord and his Apostles for their spiritual signification. In this ordinance we have bread and wine and of the bread, : our Lord says, "This

* John vi. 47-55.

† 1 Cor. x. 16, 17.