the prayer of benediction directed to God, might at the same time be understood to have relation to the bread, and might draw down a blessing upon it.* It is obvious to see how applicable all this is to our Lord's conduct in the first article of the institution. 2. The breaking of the bread, after benediction, was a customary practice in the Jewish feasts :† only in the paschal feast, it is said, that the bread was first broken and the benediction followed.‡ 3. The distributing the bread to the company, after the benediction and fraction, was customary among the Jews:§ and here likewise our Lord was pleased to adopt the like ceremony. Several learned men have suggested, that the words, "This is my body," might be illustrated from some old Jewish forms made use of in the passover feast; as, "This is the bread of affliction," &c., and, "This is the body of the passover:" but Buxtorf thought them not pertinent, or not early enough to answer the purpose: T and Bucherus,** who has carefully re-examined the same, passes the like doubtful judgment; or rather rejects both the instances as improper, not being found among the Jewish rituals, or being too late to come into account. 4. The words, "This do in remembrance of me," making part of the institution, are reasonably judged to allude to the ancient paschal solemnities, in which were several memorials :++ and the service itself is more than once called a memorial in the Old Testament, as before noted. * See Pfaffius de Oblat. vet. Eucharist. p. 171, &c. Bucherus, Antiq. Evangel. p. 368, &c. Buxtorf. de Coena Domini, p. 310. + Buxtorf. 313; Bucherus, 372. Lightfoot, Temple Service, c. xiii. sec. 7. p. 964. and on Matt. xxvi., 26. P. Pfaffius, p. 178. § Buxtorf. 316; Bucherus, 374. 259. See particularly Pfaffius de Oblat. p. 179. And Deylingius, (Miscellan. Sacr. p. 228, &c.) who refers to such authors as have espoused the first of the instances, after Baronius and Scaliger. ** Buxtorf. Dissert. vi., de Coena, p. 301. Dissert. vii. Vindic. p. 347, 348. Bucherus, Antiq. Evangel. p. 375, Compare Deylingius (Miscellan. Sacr. p. 228, &c.), who absolutely rejects one and doubts of the other. ++Avauvnous ritus Hebræorum redolet: habebant namque Judæi, in celebratione agni paschalis, plures ejusmodi ávaμvocis et recordationes, &c. Bucherus, p. 370. 5. In the ancient paschal feast, the master of the house was wont to take cup after cup (to the number of four) into his hands, consecrating them, one after another, by a short thanksgiving; after which each consecrated cup was called a cup of blessing. 6. At the institution of the passover it was said, (6 The blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you,"* &c. The blood was the token of the covenant in that behalf, between God and His people; as circumcision before had been a token also of a like covenant, and called covenant as well as token. In the institution of the communion, our Lord says, 66 This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you, for many, for the remission of sins." The cup is here by a figure put for wine; and covenant, according to ancient Scripture phrase, is put for token of a covenant; and wine, representative of Christ's blood, answers to the blood of the passover, typical of the same blood of Christ :§ and the remission of sins here, answers to the passing over there, and preserving from plague. These short hints may suffice just to intimate the analogy between the Jewish passover and the Christian Eucharist in the several particulars of moment here mentioned. 7. At the paschal feast there was an annunciation, or declaration of the great things which God had done for that people ;|| in like manner, one design of the Eucharist is to make a declaration *Exod. xii., 13. + Gen. xvii., 11. Gen. xvii., 10, “This my covenant," &c.; and v. 13, "My covenant shall be in your flesh," &c. § Deus speciali mandato sacrificia et primitias offerendas ordinavit, maxime effusionem sanguinis, ut ab initio homines haberent unde effusionis per Christum tacite recordari possent. (Dan. ix., 24; Heb. ix. et x.; Rom. iii.) Præter cæteras oblationes Deo factas, commemorabilia sunt sacrificia in festo expiationum.――Tum quoque sacrificium agni paschalis, et quotidiani, seu jugis sacrificii, attendi debit. Hos igitur ad ritus et oblationes alludit Christus cum ait, Τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι τὸ αἷμα μου τὸ τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης, τὸ περὶ πολλῶν ἐκχυνόμενον εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτ τιῶν. Observant præterea viri docti vinum rufum, quale in illis regionibus crescebat, ac in primis in coena paschali bibebatur, egregiam nobis sanguinis memoriam relinquere. Bucher. Antiq. Evan. p. 389. See Lightfoot, vol. ii. p. 778. Pfaffius, p. 181. of the mercies of God in Christ, to "shew the Lord's death till He come." 8. Lastly, at the close of the paschal supper, they were wont to sing an hymn of praise:* and the like was observed in the close of the institution of the Christian Eucharist, as is recorded in the Gospels. CHAPTER III. TESTIMONIES IN ALL CENTURIES, FROM THE FIFTH TO THE FIFTEENTH, IN FAVOUR OF THE PROTESTANT VIEW OF THE EUCHARIST. I HAVE already considered the positive testimony of Scripture on the subject of our enquiry, and also illustrated the views of the early Church, in numberless quotations from their writings. It has been seen, that with whatever of figure and hyperbole the ancient Greek and Latin Fathers sometimes spoke and wrote, when pouring forth their souls in fervid declamation, or indulging in oratorical displays, yet, in their more sober and systematic statements, they speak the language of reason and scriptural truth. This is the case for the first eight centuries of the Christian era; for, however far some may have gone in the use of language which must be considered unguarded, yet in the same authors, during the period mentioned, we always find the corrected statement of sobriety. It is not in isolated expressions, and disjointed sentences, that the opinions of the Fathers must be sought, but in their whole train of thought, and the general drift of their writings. When they are thus examined, they are found generally to hold the great distinguishing doctrines of the Gospel, and become powerful witnesses of the truth of Protestant Christianity against the unscriptural heresies of the Vatican and Trent. It would be but a waste of time to go over the ground which has thus been trodden, as far as, at least, the first five centuries are concerned. I shall now proceed to prove, that in every succeeding age, downwards to the Reformation, there was the profession of Protestant doctrine on the subject of the Eucharist; and that when, in the ninth century, Paschasius began to teach the before unheard-of doctrine of transubstantiation, he was strenuously opposed by both clergy and laity. It is impossible not to see the weight of this testimony, which is indeed the most weighty and cumulative which can be brought to bear on any doctrine. Thus, with regard to this leading doctrine of the Romish communion, there is, in the first nine centuries of the Christian era, the absence of all special instruction as to a corporeal presence, of all particular directions for worship, &c., arising necessarily from that doctrine, and of all objections to it by adversaries of any kind. But as soon as Paschasius begins to preach it, opposition is rife enough; and no sooner is it adopted as an article of faith, than it is specifically taught, though at first with such varying phraseology as shews the doctrine to be unsettled; while directions are liberally dispensed to regulate the conduct of all who believed in such a momentous tenet. The conduct of both Papist and Protestant (to forestall the names) since the ninth century, being so different from what it was previously, can only be explained by the assumption that both now occupy a position which they did not before that time. Before parting company with the Augustine age, I will give a quotation or two from Theodoret, bishop of Cyr, or Cyrus, in Syria. From these it will be perceived that, however clear and emphatic the Protestant doctrine of those Fathers is, it is only fully seen and felt from a consideration of the whole of the passages. Pick some particular sentence, and the sense may be made to appear very different from what it really is, and what the writer intended. These passages are from Theodoret's Dialogues, in which he introduces an orthodox believer and a Eutychian discoursing thus: Dial. 1. "Orthodoxus. Do you not know that God called His body bread?-Eranistes. I know it.-Orth. Elsewhere also He calleth His flesh wheat.-Eran. I know that also: Unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, &c.-Orth. But in the delivery of the mysteries, He called the bread His body, and that which is mixed |