May 20. 1830.

THE EUCHARIST.

ST. JOHN, xix. 11.

GENUINENESS OF BOOKS OF MOSES. DIVINITY OF CHRIST. MOSAIC PROPHECIES.

No doubt, Chrysostom, and the other rhetorical fathers, contributed a good deal, by their rash use of figurative language, to advance the superstitious notion of the eucharist *; but the beginning had been much earlier. In Clement, indeed, the mystery is treated as it was treated by Saint John and Saint Paul; but in Hermas we see the seeds of the error, and more clearly in Irenæus; and so it went on till the idea was changed into an idol.

The errors of the Sacramentaries, on the

* Mr. Coleridge made these remarks upon my quoting Selden's well known saying (Table Talk), " that transubstantiation was nothing but rhetoric turned into logic."

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one hand, and of the Romanists, on the other, are equally great. The first have volatilised the eucharist into a metaphor; the last have condensed it into an idol.

If so,

Α

Jeremy Taylor, in his zeal against transubstantiation, contends that the latter part of the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel has no reference to the eucharist. St. John wholly passes over this sacred mystery; for he does not include it in his notice of the last supper. Would not a total silence of this great apostle and evangelist upon this mystery be strange? mystery, I say; for it is a mystery; it is the only mystery in our religious worship. When many of the disciples left our Lord, and apparently on the very ground that this saying was hard, he does not attempt to detain them by any explanation, but simply adds the comment, that his words were spirit. If he had really meant that the eucharist should be a mere commemorative celebration of his death, is it conceivable that he would let these disciples go away

from him upon such a gross misunderstanding? Would he not have said, "You need not make a difficulty; I only mean so and so?"

Arnauld, and the other learned Romanists, are irresistible against the low sacramentary doctrine.

The sacrament of baptism applies itself, and has reference to the faith or conviction, and is, therefore, only to be performed once;

it is the light of man. The sacrament of the eucharist is a symbol of all our religion; it is the life of man. It is commensurate with our will, and we must, therefore, want it continually.

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The meaning of the expression, εἰ μὴ ἦν σοι διδομένον ἄνωθεν, " except it were given thee from above," in the 19th chapter of St. John, ver. 11., seems to me to have been generally and grossly mistaken. It is commonly understood as importing that Pilate

could have no power to deliver Jesus to the Jews, unless it had been given him by God, which, no doubt, is true; but if that is the meaning, where is the force or connection of the following clause, dià TOUTO, "therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin?" In what respect were the Jews more sinful in delivering Jesus up, because Pilate could do nothing except by God's leave? The explanation of Erasmus and Clarke, and some others, is very dry-footed. I conceive the meaning of our Lord to have been simply this, that Pilate would have had no power or jurisdiction ἐξουσίαν over him, if it had not been given by the Sanhedrim, the ava Souλn, and therefore it was that the Jews had the greater sin. There was also this further peculiar baseness and malignity in the conduct of the Jews. The mere assumption of Messiahship, as such, was no crime in the eyes of the Jews; they hated Jesus, because he would not be their sort of Messiah; on the other hand, the Romans

cared not for his declaration that he was the

Son of God; the crime in their eyes was his assuming to be a king. Now, here were the Jews accusing Jesus before the Roman governor of that which, in the first place, they knew that Jesus denied in the sense in which they urged it, and which, in the next place, had the charge been true, would have been so far from a crime in their eyes, that the very gospel history itself, as well as all the history to the destruction of Jerusalem, shows it would have been popular with the whole nation. They wished to destroy him, and for that purpose charge him falsely with a crime which yet was no crime in their own eyes, if it had been true; but only so as against the Roman domination, which they hated with all their souls, and against which they were themselves continually conspiring!

Observe, I pray, the manner and sense in which the high-priest understands the plain declaration of our Lord, that he was the Son