SUPPER, the evening repast. Suppers that are heavy should be avoided, because the stomach is more oppressed with the same quantity of food in a horizontal posture than in an erect one, and because digestion proceeds more slowly when we sleep than when we are awake. They should be eaten long enough before bed-time, that they may be nearly digested before going to sleep, and then a draught of pure water will dilute that which remains in the stomach.

Supper of the Lord, otherwise called the Eucharist, is a sacrament ordained by Christ in his church, of which the outward part is bread and wine, and the inward part or thing signified the body and blood of Christ, which the majority of Christians believe to be in some sense or other taken and received by the faithful communicants.

There is no ordinance of the gospel which has been the subject of more violent controversies between different churches, and even between different divines of the same church, than this sacrament; and though all confess that one purpose of its institution was to be a bond of love and union among Christians, it has, by the perverseness of mankind, been too often converted into an occasion of hatred. The outward and visible sign, and the inward and spiritual grace, have equally afforded matter of disputation to angry controversialists. Many members of the church of Rome condemn the Greek church and the Protestants for using leavened bread in the Lord’s Supper, contrary to the example set them by our Saviour; while the Greek church in general, and some Protestant societies in particular, unite with the church of Rome in censuring all churches which mix not the wine with water, as deviating improperly from primitive practice.

That it was unleavened bread which our Lord blessed and brake and gave to his disciples as his body, cannot be questioned; for at the time of the passover, when this ordinance was instituted, there was no leavened bread to be found in Jerusalem.^[1. Exod. xii. 15, 19. ] For the mixed cup, the evidence is not so decisive. It is indeed true, that the primitive Christians used wine diluted with water; and if we may believe Maimonides,^[2. ’In Mishnam. ] it was the general custom of the Jews, as well at the passover as at their ordinary meals, to add a little water to their wine, on account of its great strength; but that this was always done, or that it was done by our Saviour in particular, there is no clear evidence. Origen indeed affirms,^[3. Horn. xii. in Hieremiam. ] that our Lord administered wine unmixed; and he was not a man to hazard such an affirmation, had there been in his days any certain tradition, or so much as a general opinion, to the contrary. On this account we have often heard with wonder the necessity of the mixed cup insisted on by those who without hesitation make use of leavened bread; for if it be essential to the sacrament that the very same elements be employed by us that were employed by our Saviour, the necessity of unleavened bread is certainly equal to that of wine diluted with water.

But the mixed cup is said to be emblematical of the blood and water which flowed from the side of our Lord when pierced by the spear of the Roman soldier, while the absence of leaven is emblematical of no particular circumstance in his passion. This argument for the mixture is as old as the era of St Cyprian, and has since been frequently urged with triumph by those who surely perceived not its weakness. The flowing of the blood and water from our Saviour’s side was the consequence either of the spear’s having pierced the pericardium, or more probably of an ascites or hydrothorax, occasioned by bis cruel and lingering death. But whatever was the cause of it, how can the mixing of wine with water in the sacrament be emblematical of the flowing of blood and water separately? Such a mixture surely bears a more striking resemblance to the reunion of the serum and crassamentum, after they had been separated, by whatever cause. We urge not theβe objections to the mixed cup from any dislike that we have to the practice. It is unquestionably harmless and primitive; and we wish that greater regard were paid to primitive practices than the generality of Christians seem to think they can claim: but let the advocates for antiquity be consistent; let them either restore, together with the mixed cup, the use of unleavened bread, or acknowledge that neither the one nor the other is essential to the sacrament. This last acknowledgement must indeed be made, if they would not involve themselves in difficulties from which they cannot be extricated. If either the mixed cup or unleavened bread be absolutely necessary to the validity of the sacrament, why not wine made from the grapes of Judtea? why not that particular kind of wine which was used by our Saviour? and where is that wine to be found?

But the controversies respecting the outward part or sign of the Lord’s Supper are of little importance when compared with those which have been agitated respecting the inward part or thing signified; and of these we hasten to give[7:20:814] as comprehensive a view as the limits prescribed to such articles will admit.

Our blessed Lord, in the same night that he was betrayed, “took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Such was the institution of the Lord’s Supper as it is recorded in the gospel by St Matthew; and we have the same account of it, in almost the very same words, by other three inspired writers, St Paul, St Mark, and St Luke. That it was the bread which Christ blessed and brake that is here called his body, and the wine over which he gave thanks that he styles his blood of the new testament, will admit of no reasonable doubt; but in what sense they became so, has been the subject of many controversies.

The church of Rome, which holds, that after consecration, Jesus Christ, God and man, is really, truly, and substantially, contained under the outward appearances of the bread and wine, informs us, that about the middle of the mass, when the priest, taking into his hand, first the bread and then the wine, pronounces over each separately the sacred words of consecration, the substance of these elements is immediately changed by the almighty power of God into the body and blood of Christ; but that all the outward appearances of the bread and wine, and all their sensible qualities, remain. This more than miraculous change is called transubstantiation, and is founded on the philosophy of Aristotle, which resolves all bodies into matter and form; for it is only the matter or imperceptible substance which supports the forms or sensible qualities of bread and wine, that is changed into the substance or matter of the body and blood of Christ; so that this divine matter, coming into the place of the former earthy matter, supports the same identical forms which it supported. Hence we are told, “that Jesus Christ, now present instead of the bread and wine, exhibits himself to us under those very same outward forms or appearances which the bread and wine had before the change." Could this doctrine be true, it would be abundantly mysterious; but, to add to the mystery, we are further informed, that under each kind is contained Jesus Christ whole and entire, his body and blood, his soul and divinity; so that when a man eats what has the appearance of a wafer, he really and truly eats the body and blood, the soul and divinity, of Jesus Christ; and when he afterwards drinks what has the appearance of wine, he drinks the very same body and blood, soul and divinity, which not a minute perhaps before he had wholly and entirely eaten! The ingenious author from whose work we have taken this account of the Romish doctrine concerning the real presence, may perhaps reject our inference, that the orthodox members of his church must believe the soul and divinity of Christ to be eaten and drunk in the Lord’s Supper; but he cannot deny that, according to his statement of the Romish faith, the soul and divinity are both received whole and entire into the stomach of each communicant-He says, indeed, that “communion consists in receiving Jesus Christ whole and entire, his sacred body, his precious blood, his blessed soul, and his adorable divinity, into our souls but that which was formerly bread and wine unquestionably goes into the stomachs of the communicants; and since, according to him, it is now the body and blood of Christ, the soul and divinity must go thither with it, for these four cannot be separated. This our author himself grants. “The Scripture,” says he, “positively declares, that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth no more; death shall no more have dominion over him (Rom. vi. 9). Consequently his body, his blood, and his soul, shall never more be separated from one another; and as the union of his divine and human natures can never more be broken, so neither can these, his two natures, united in his divine person, be ever separated. From this it necessarily follows, that wherever the body of Christ is, there also his blood, his soul, and his divinity, must of necessity be in like manner.”

Now, whether we suppose, with this author, that the soul and divinity of Christ directly carry his body and blood with them into the human soul, or, trusting in some degree to the evidence of sense, believe that the body and blood carry his soul and divinity with them directly into the stomach of each communicant; is it credible, is it possible, that the high and lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity, and whom the oracles of truth assure us that even the heaven of heavens cannot contain, should be substantially received whole and entire into a finite spirit like the human soul, or into a body so limited as the human stomach? Our author says it is; declaring that, “by the blessed presence of Jesus Christ, whole and entire within us, are communicated to our souls all the heavenly graces which are the effects of the holy communion: such as the sanctification of the soul by an increase of justifying grace; the rendering of it more pure, more holy, more beautiful, more agreeable, in the eyes of God; the cleansing of the soul from all those venial sins and imperfections of which we repent, and preserving us from falling into mortal sins; the uniting of us in a most intimate manner with Jesus Christ, who comes to us in this holy sacrament on purpose to dwell in our souls and abide with us; and the giving us a pledge and earnest of a glorious immortality, to the enjoyment of which it brings us at last, if we persevere to the end in the grace of God.”

The consequence of the doctrine of transubstantiation is the sacrifice of the mass, by which, it is said, God’s acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is obtained for the actual benefit of those persons in particular for whom the mass is offered. In the work so often quoted, we are told that “Jesus Christ our redeemer, who is both our high priest and our victim, who, in order to perfect the work of our redemption, and reconcile man with his offended Creator, offered himself once in a bloody manner upon the cross, in order to communicate and apply to the souls of individuals those graces which, by his death, he merited for mankind in general, continues to offer himself daily upon the altar in an unbloody manner, by the ministry of bis priests, in the mass. The sacrifice of the cross and that of the mass are both one and the same sacrifice, because in both the victim is the same and the high priest the same, viz. Jesus Christ. The only difference is in the manner of offering. On the cross he offered himself in a bloody manner, and actually died; whereas on the altar he is offered up to God in an unbloody manner, not actually dead, but under the appearance of death ;” so that the communicants not only eat the man Jesus Christ, but even eat him alive!^[4. This whole account of the Romish doctrine respecting the sacrament of the Lord’s Supperis taken from a work in two small volumes, called “The sincere Christian instructed in the Faith of Christ, from the written Word.” Its author is a man of learning, and great personal worth; and as he fills a high station in the church of Rome, we cannot doubt but that be has given a fair view of the doctrine of that church respecting this and every other article of which he treats. ] i

It is known to all our readers that this doctrine of transubstantiation was one cause of the breach between the church of Rome and those various societies which call themselves reformed churches. The real and substantial change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord is rejected by every reformer, as a change contradictory and impossible, and fraught with the most impious consequences; and volumes have been written to expose the weakness of those arguments which have so often been vainly urged in its support. It has been shown to imply[7:20:815] numberless absurdities, such as, that the same thing can be in a million of different places, whole and entire, at the same instant of times that it is above 1800 years old, and yet may be not more than one minute; that forms or sensible qualities are real things, independent of their subject and the sentient beings who perceive them; that the infinite and eternal God, who created and sustains the universe, is himself wholly and substantially comprehended by the human soul; and that the half, or fourth, or tenth part of the body of Christ, is equal to the whole of that body. That these are necessary consequences of transubstantiation, has been so completely proved in various works to which every reader may have access, that it is needless for us to repeat arguments so hackneyed; but there are two objections to that doctrine, which, as we do not remember to have met with them elsewhere, and as they appear to us absolutely conclusive, it may be worth while to state in this place.

The advocates for the real presence in the Lord’s Supper contend, that every word relating to that ordinance is to be taken in the strictest and most literal sense; and they affect to triumph over the Protestants, because their notions of the sacrament cannot be supported without having recourse to figure and metaphor. This however is a very vain triumph; for we hesitate not to affirm, that supposing transubstantiation possible, and even capable of proof, there is not in the whole New Testament a single word or a single phrase which, if interpreted literally, gives the slightest countenance to that wonderful doctrine. The reader will remember that transubstantiation, as we have stated it from a dignitary of the Romish church, and as it is in fact stated by the council of Trent, consists in a change of the matter, imperceptible substance, or substratum, of the bread and wine, into the matter, imperceptible substance, or substratum, of Christ’s body and blood; for all parties agree that the sensible qualities of the bread and wine remain, and, according to the Romanist, are, after the consecration, either supported by the matter of Christ’s body and blood, or hung upon nothing. But the phrase rwro' lew ri <r⅞u,d μoυ, if taken in the literal sense, cannot possibly denote the consequence of such a change as this; for every person at all acquainted with the Greek language, especially the language of the Peripatetic school, knows that v⅛ s∑ιμa μου signifies, not the matter or substratum of my body divested of its sensible qualities, but the body of me in its natural state, consisting of matter and qualities, or matter and form united. Unless therefore the sensible qualities, as well as the matter of the bread and wine, give place to the sensible qualities as well as the matter of our Saviour’s body and blood, and unless he appear glorified on the altar as he appeared on the mount at his transfiguration, the words το βωμά μου must be interpreted figuratively. Had the apostles understood their Master’s words in the sense in which they are understood by the church of Rome, they would have rendered them into Greek, not roSri iβrι το Aμά μm, “this is my body,” but rour0 iβτι ή ύλη rcù ffω⅛αro'i μm, “this is the matter of my body.” In like manner, when St John relates^[5. Chap. vi. 54. ] that Jesus said, “Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day,” had he understood his adorable Master to speak of his flesh and blood in the Eucharist in the sense in which they are taught to be there by the church of Rome, he would have represented him as saying, not Ό Τξώγοα μου r⅛v A⅛xα, xaι <r!>ωι μου τh aξ⅛a, but Ό rgωγωv τ⅛ ύληs rη{ /Μοχός μου, xal τrivm την ύληs νοΰ αίματά; μου, “ whoso eateth the matter of my flesh, and drinketh the matter of my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

But further, supposing this singular conversion possible in itself, it cannot be rendered credible, however stated in any language that ever was or ever will be spoken by man.

At first sight it may appear paradoxical to affirm that a possible fact cannot be so related as to obtain credit; but that transubstantiation, if possible, is such a fact, will be apparent on the slightest consideration.

The relation which subsists between things and words is arbitrary; so that what is termed body in English, is σώαα in Greek, and corpus in Latin; and the same thing might with equal propriety (had the authors of these languages so pleased) have been expressed in the first by soul, in the second by u>⅛ and in the third by anima. The consequences of this are, that there is no universal language spoken, that the natives of one country understand not the speech of those of another, and that different men speaking the same language are perpetually liable to mistake each other’s meaning. Between the substrata of bodies and their sensible qualities there is a relation founded in nature, so that the sensible qualities which indicate the substance to which they belong, to be gold, for instance, in one country, indicate the same thing in every other country, and have done so from the beginning of time. The sensible appearances of bodies therefore are a universal language, the language of the Author of Nature, by which he declares to his creature man, that though the ύλη *⅞><irn, or primary matter of all bodies, may be the same kind of substance, yet the ύλη ∙rgosιχt∣s of one body, or the internal combination of its primary parts, differs from that of another; that gold, for instance, has a different substratum or basis from iron, lead, or silver; that the internal organization or structure of the body of an ox is different from that of a horse; and that the internal substance or substratum which exhibits the appearances of bread and wine is different from that which supports the sensible qualities of flesh and blood. Supposing therefore the doctrine of transubstantiation to be possible and even true, it would still be impossible, by any statement in human language, or by any argument urged in its support, to render that doctrine an object of rational belief; for if it be said that the words roùrô tβτι ri ff¾⅛α uoυ were spoken by a divine person, who could neither be deceived himself nor intend to deceive us, it may be replied, that the sensible appearances of bread and wine, which are confessed to remain, are likewise the language of a divine person, even of the Creator and Governor of heaven and earth; that this language addressed to the sight, the taste, the touch, and the smell, is equally intelligible to all nations; that since the creation of the world its meaning has never been mistaken by the scholar or the clown, the sage or the savage, except in this single instance of our Lord’s flesh and blood exhibiting the sensible appearances of bread and wine; and that it is therefore infinitely more probable that the members of the church of Rome should mistake the meaning of the words τοΰτί lβτι r⅛ βωμά μου, which, though spoken by Christ, are part of the language of men, and liable to all its ambiguities, than that all mankind should mistake the language of God himself, which is liable to no ambiguities, and which was never in any other instance misunderstood by a single individual. Should transubstantiation therefore be really true, its truth can never be proved or rendered probable, but by an immediate operation of the Spirit of God on the mind of man; and he who is conscious of no such operation on his own mind, may rest assured that the Father of mercies, who knows whereof he is made, will never bring upon him, for his incredulity in this instance, any of the anathemas denounced by the church of Rome upon those who place implicit confidence in the universal language of Him who created them, in opposition to her figurative and contradictory interpretations of the written word. Of the transubstantiation of the elements a visible miracle would afford no proof. Had the water been changed into wine at the[7:20:816] marriage in Cana of Galilee for the express purpose of bearing testimony to this singular conversion, what must have been the consequence on the minds of those who witnessed that miracle? Nothing, we think, but scepticism or distrust of their own faculties; for they would have had the very same evidence that no substantial change was wrought on the elements, as that the water was actually turned into wine.

Though the reformed churches unanimously reject the doctrine of transubstantiation, and of course the sacrifice of the mass, its inseparable consequence, they are far from being agreed among themselves respecting the nature of the Lord’s Supper; and the notions of this ordinance entertained by some of them appear to us as untenable as any part of the doctrine of the church of Rome. The Lutherans believe that the body and blood of Christ are really and substantially present with the bread and wine; that the body is really and truly eaten, and the blood really and truly drunk, by the communicants; and that whatever motion or action the bread has, the body has the same.^[6. Luther. Cogit. MS. 400. Gerhard, in Loc. Theol. de Sacra Coena. ] ’ According to them, therefore, the same sensible appearances are exhibited by two substances united in some inexplicable manner, which is neither a personal union, nor incorporation, nor the enclosure of the body within the bread; nor does it last longer than while the sacrament is celebrating. This union is generally called consubstantiation; but they reject the term, contenting themselves with asserting the real presence, without presuming to define the mode by which the body and blood of Christ are united to the sacramental elements.

It would be superfluous to waste time in replying to this doctrine. Every reader sees that it implies the possibility of the same thing’s being whole and entire in a million of places at one and the same instant of time, which has been so often urged as an unanswerable objection to the Romish doctrine; and it is fraught with this additional absurdity peculiar to itself, that two bodily substances may at once occupy the same place, which is directly contrary to our notions of solidity. It may likewise be observed, that whatever be the real sense of our Saviour’s words, he says expressly, “This is my body this thing which I give you, and which you see and feel: whereas, had he meant what Luther and his followers teach, he would surely have said, “With this bread receive my body, with this cup receive my blood.”

The notions of some of the early Calvinists respecting the Lord’s Supper are very mysterious, and expressed in language of which we are not sure that we understand the meaning. In the year 1561 an attempt was made in France to bring the Catholics and Protestants to an uniformity of doctrine on this great topic of controversy; and deputies were appointed by both parties to meet at Poissy, and debate the question in a friendly manner. The principal managers on the side of the Catholics were the cardinals of Lorraine and Tournon; those on the side of the Protestants were Beza and Peter Martyr. After several meetings, disputes, and violent separations, the Protestant deputies declared their faith in the following words: “We confess, that Jesus Christ, in the Supper, does truly give and exhibit to us the substance of his body and blood by the efficacy of his Holy Spirit; and that we do receive and eat spiritually, and by faith, that very body which was offered and immolated for us, so as to be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, to the end that we may be enlivened thereby, and receive what is conducive to our salvation. And because faith, supported by the word of God, makes those things present which it apprehends, and by that faith we do in deed and reality receive the true natural body and blood of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit: by this means we confess and acknowledge the presence of his body and blood in the Supper.” One of the Romish delegates expressing his dislike of this last clause, the Protestant ministers gave the following explanation of their sentiments. “No distance of place can hinder us from communicating of the body and blood of Christ, for the Lord’s Supper is a heavenly thing; and though on earth we receive with our mouths bread and wine, which are the true signs of his body and blood, yet by faith, and the efficacy of the Holy Ghost, our minds, which are fed with this food, are rapt up into heaven, and enjoy the presence of the body and blood; and that by this means it may be said that the body is truly joined to the bread, and the blood to the wine; but after the manner of a sacrament, and not at all according to place or natural position.”^[7. Thunnus, lib. xxviii. See also Johnson’s Unbloody Sacrifice, vol. i. ]

If the reader can discover the precise meaning of these passages, his sagacity exceeds ours. That the Protestant deputies believed, or professed to believe, that the natural body and blood of Christ are by the faithful received in the Lord’s Supper, is indeed evident; but their notions respecting the manner of this reception are very unintelligible, if not contradictory. In the former quotation, they confess that Christ’s body and blood are really present in the sacrament; that they are made present by faith (we suppose the faith of the communicants); and that the very body which was offered and immolated for us is eaten spiritually and by faith. In the latter quotation, they seem to say that Christ’s body and blood are in heaven, at a great distance from the true signs of them; that on earth the communicants receive only these signs, which are bread and wine; but that, by faith and the efficacy of the Holy Spirit, their minds, during actual communion, are rapt up into heaven, where they enjoy the presence of the body and blood; and that by this means the body and blood are truly joined to the bread and wine through the medium of the mind of the communicant, which is at once present both to the sign and to the thing signified. To this mysterious doctrine it is needless to urge objections. Every man who is accustomed to think, and to use words with some determinate meaning, will at once perceive that the authors of this declaration must have had very confused notions of the subject, and have pleased themselves with sound instead of sense, satisfied that they could not be wrong if they did not symbolize with the Lutherans or the council of Trent.

The churches of England and Scotland, in their established doctrines respecting the Lord’s Supper, appear to be Calvinistical; but the compilers of the Thirty-nine Articles and of the Confession of Faith must have been much more rational divines than Beza and Peter Martyr. They agree in condemning the doctrine of transubstantiation, as contrary to common sense, and not founded in the word of God; they teach, that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the sacrament, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and the cup of blessing a partaking of the blood of Christ; and they add, that the body and blood of Christ are eaten and drunk, not corporally or carnally, but only after a heavenly and spiritual manner, by which the communicants are made partakers of all the benefits of his death.^[8. Articles of the Church of England, art. xxviii.; and Confession of Faith, chap, xxix. ] In one important circumstance these two churches seem to differ. The Confession of Faith, as we understand it,^[9. Chap. xxix. § 3. ] affirms that in the Lord’s Supper there is no sacrifice. The thirty-first article of the Church of England likewise condemns the Popish sacrifice of the mass, as a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit; but in the order for the administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy [7:20:817] Communion, the celebrator “beseeches God most mercifully to accept the alms and oblations of the congregation,” and again “to accept their sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving from which petitions many have inferred that, in the Lord’s Supper, that church offers a commemorative and eucharistical sacrifice. This inference seems not to be wholly without foundation. In the order for the administration of the Lord’s Supper, according to the form of the Book of Common Prayer set forth by act of parliament in the second and third years of King Edward the Sixth, the elements were solemnly offered to God as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; and though the prayer containing that oblation was, at the review of the liturgy some years afterwards, removed from the prayer of consecration, to which it was originally joined, and placed where it now stands in the post-communion service, yet the very act of parliament which authorized that alteration calls King Edward’s “a very godly order, agreeable to the word of God and the primitive church, and very comfortable to all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation.”

The English church, however, has not positively determined any thing respecting this great question; and while she condemns the doctrine of the real presence, with all its dangerous consequences, she allows her members to entertain very different notions of this holy ordinance, and to publish these notions to the world. Accordingly, many of her most eminent divines have maintained that, in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the elements of bread and wine are offered to God as a sacrifice commemorative of Christ’s one sacrifice for the sins of the whole world; that these elements, though they undergo no substantial change, yet receive such a divine virtue by the descent of the Holy Ghost, as to convey to the worthy communicant all the benefits of Christ’s passion; that they are therefore called his body and blood, because being, alter their oblation, eaten and drunk in remembrance of him, they supply the place of his body and blood in the feast upon his sacrifice; and that it is customary with our Saviour to give to any thing the name of another of which it completely supplies the place, as when he calls himself the door ^[10. St John x. 7. ] ’ of the sheep, because there is no entrance into the church or kingdom of God but by faith in him. They observe, that the Eucharist’s being commemorative, no more hinders it from being a proper sacrifice, than the typical and figurative sacrifices of the old law hindered them from being proper sacrifices: for as to be a type does not destroy the nature and notion of a legal sacrifice, so to be representative and commemorative does not destroy the nature of an evangelical sacrifice. To prove that, in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, there is a real sacrifice offered to God as well as a sacrament received by the communicants, they appeal to St Paul, who says expressly,^[11. Heb. xiii. 10. ] that “Christians have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle,” and who by contrasting the cup of the Lord with the cup of devils, and the table of the Lord with the table of devils,^[12. Cor. x. 16. &c. ] teaches plainly that those cups and those tables had the same specific nature. That the table of devils spoken of by the apostle was the Pagan altars, and the cup of devils the wine poured out in libations to the Pagan divinities, will admit of no dispute; and therefore, say the advocates for the eucharistical sacrifice, the table of the Lord must be the Christian altar, and the cup of the Lord the wine offered to God as the representative of the blood of Christ; otherwise there would not be that absurdity which the apostle supposes, in the same person drinking the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils, and partaking of the Lord’s table and the table of devils. They observe further, that in all the ancient liturgies extant there is a solemn form of oblation of the sacramental elements, and that all the Christian writers from the second century downwards treat of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice as well as sacrificial feast, having indeed no value in itself, but acceptable to God as representing Christ’s one sacrifice for the sins of the world. Our limits will not permit us to give even an abstract of their arguments; but the reader who shall attentively peruse Johnson’s “Unbloody Sacrifice and Altar unveiled and supported,” will discover that their notions are better founded than probably he supposes, and that they are totally irreconcileable with the doctrine of transubstantiation and the Popish sacrifice of the mass.

Other English divines of great learning, with the celebrated Hoadley bishop of Winchester at their head, contend strenuously that the Lord’s Supper, so far from being a sacrifice of any kind, is nothing mure than bread and wine reverently eaten and drunk, in remembrance that Christ’s body was broken and his blood shed, in proof of his Father’s and his own love to mankind; that nothing is essential to the sacrament but this remembrance, and a serious desire to honour and obey our Saviour as our head; that the sacrament might be celebrated without uttering one prayer or thanksgiving, merely by a society of Christians, whether small or great, jointly eating bread and drinking wine with a serious remembrance of Christ’s death; that St Paul enjoins a man to examine himself before he eat of that bread and drink of that cup, not to discover what have been the sins of his past life in order to repent of them, but only that he may be sure of his remembering Christ’s body broken and his blood shed; that, however, it is his duty in that, as in every other instance of religious worship, to resolve to obey from the heart every precept of the gospel, whether moral or positive; and that to partake worthily of the Lord’s Supper is acceptable to God, because it is paying obedience to one of these precepts; but that no particular benefits or privileges are annexed to it more than to any other instance of duty. Bishop Hoadley acknowledges, that when St Paul says,^[13. Cor. x. 16. ] “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ?” he has been supposed by many learned men to afiirm, that all the benefits of Christ’s passion are in the Lord’s Supper conveyed to the worthy communicant; but this, says he, is an idea which the apostle could not have in his thoughts as at all proper for his argument. The Greek word χοιvωvία and the English communion signify only a partaking of something in common with others of the same society; and the apostle’s meaning, he says, can be nothing more than that in the Lord’s Supper we do not eat bread and drink wine as at an ordinary meal, but as memorials of the body and blood of Christ, in honour to him as the head of that body of which we are all members. That the word χοιvωvία not meant to denote any inward or spiritual part of the Lord’s Supper, he thinks evident, because the same word is used with regard to the cup and the table of idols, where no spiritual part could be thought of, and in an argument which supposes an idol to be nothing.^[14. ‘ Hoadley’s Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Lord’s Supper. ]

To this view of the nature and end of the Lord’s Supper it must appear no small objection, that “he who eateth and drinketh unworthily is said to be guilty of the body and bipod of the Lord, and to eat and drink a judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” No doubt it would be sinful to eat and drink a mere memorial of Christ’s death without serious dispositions; but we cannot conceive how a little wandering of the thoughts, which is all the unworthiness that the author thinks there can be on such[7:20:818] an occasion, should be a sin of so deep a dye as to be properly compared with the guilt of those who murdered the Lord of life. Other divines, therefore, feeling the force of this and similar objections, steer a middle course between the mere memorialist and the advocate for a real sacrifice in the holy Eucharist, and insist that this rite, though no sacrifice itself, is yet a feast upon the one sacrifice offered by Christ and slain upon the cross. The most eminent patrons of this opinion have been Dr Cudworth and Bishop Warburton; and they support it by such arguments as the following. In those ages of the world when victims made so great a part of the religion both of Jews and Gentiles, the sacrifice was always followed by a religious feasting on the thing offered; which was called the feast upon or after the sacrifice, and was supposed to convey to the partakers of it the benefits of the sacrifice. Now Jesus, say they, about to offer himself a sacrifice on the cross for our redemption, did, in conformity to general practice, institute the last supper, under the idea of a feast after the sacrifice; and the circumstances attending its institution were such, they think, that the apostles could not possibly mistake his meaning. It was just before his passion, and while he was eating the paschal supper, which was a Jewish feast upon the sacrifice, that our blessed Lord instituted this rite; and as it was his general custom to allude, in his actions and expressions, to what passed before his eyes, or presented itself to his observation, who can doubt, when, in the very form of celebration, we see all the marks of a sacrificial supper, but that the divine institutor intended it should bear the same relation to his sacrifice on the cross which the paschal supper then celebrating bore to the oblation of the paschal lamb? If this was not his purpose, and if nothing more was intended than a general memorial of a dead benefactor, why was this instant of lime preferred for the institution to all others throughout the course of his ministry, any one of which would have been equally commodious? Indeed any other time would have been more commodious for the institution of a mere memorial; for the paschal lamb and unleavened bread were certainly a sacrifice; and the words used by our Saviour, when he gave the bread and wine to the apostles, were such as must necessarily have led them to consider that bread and wine as bearing the same relation to his sacrifice which the paschal supper bore to the paschal sacrifice. At that Jewish feast, it was the custom of every father of a family to break the unleavened bread, and to give to every guest a portion, saying, “This is the bread of affliction, which our fathers did eat in the land of Egypt ;” a custom which we may be sure that Christ, as a father of his family, would religiously observe. The apostles knew well that they were not eating the identical bread which their fathers did eat in Egypt, but the feast upon the sacrifice then offered in commemoration of their redemption from Egyptian bondage; and therefore, when they saw their Master alter supper break the bread again, and give it to each of them, with these remarkable words. “This is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me,” they must have concluded, that his meaning was to institute a rite which should to the end of the world bear the same relation to his sacrifice that the paschal supper bore to the sacrifice of the passover.

This inference, from the circumstances attending the institution, Bishop Warburton thinks confirmed by St Paul’s mode of arguing with the Corinthians on their impiety and absurdity in partaking both of the Lord’s table and the table of devils; for “what,” says he, “had the eaters of the sacrifices to do with the partakers of the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, if the Lord’s Supper was not a feast of the same kind with their feasts? If the three feasts,

Jewish, Pagan, and Christian, had not one common nature, how could the apostle have inferred that this intercommunity was inconsistent? ‘Ye cannot,' says he, ‘drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and the table of devils.’ For though there might be impiety in the promiscuous use of Pagan and Christian rites of any kind, yet the inconsistency arises from their having a common nature, and consequently, as they had opposite originals, from their destroying one another’s effects in the very celebration. Sacrifices, and feasts upon sacrifices were universally considered as federal rites; and therefore the Lord’s table and the table of devils being both federal rites, the same man could no more be partaker of both, than he could at once engage to serve both God and the devil. This is the apostle’s argument to the wise men to whom he appeals; and we see that it turns altogether upon this postulatum, that the Christian and Pagan feasts had the same specific nature, or were both feasts upon sacrifices. If this be admitted, it is easy to see why St Paul deemed those who ate and drank unworthily guilty of the body and blood of the Lord; for if the Lord’s Supper be a feast upon his sacrifice, it must have been considered as the means of conveying to the communicants all the benefits of his death and passion; and the profanation of such a rite, by rendering his death ineffectual, might be fitly compared and justly equalled to the enormous guilt of those by whom his blood was shed.” In reply to Bishop Hoadley’s remarks upon the word χοιvωvία his brother bishop observes, that “had the apostle meant what the learned writer makes him to mean, he would doubtless have said χοιvωvίχ υμωv είς τὸ σωμα , ‘ your communion in the body—your eating it jointly.’ St Paul,” continues he, “knew how to express himself properly, as appears from a passage in his epistle to the Philippians, where, professedly speaking of the joint participation of a blessing, he uses these words, χοιvωvίχ υμωv είς τὸ ευαγγελιov, ‘ your communion in the gospel.’” To the other remark, that no spiritual part could be thought of in the table of idols, because an idol is said by the apostle to be nothing, Bishop Warburton replies, “that by St Paul the Gentiles are said to have sacrificed to devils, and those who ate of such sacrifices to have had communion with devils; now the devil,” continues his lordship, “was in St Paul’s opinion something.” But the inference which the apostle draws from the acknowledged truth, that the cup of blessing which we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ, and the bread which we break the communion of the body of Christ, puts his meaning, our author thinks, beyond all doubt. He says,^[15. Cor. x. 27. ] that the partaking of one bread makes the receivers of many to become one body. A just inference, if this rite be of the nature of a feast upon the sacrifice; for then the communion of the body and blood of Christ unites the receivers into one body, by an equal distribution of one common benefit. But if it be only a general commemoration of a deceased benefactor, it leaves the receivers as it found them, not one bedy, but many separate professors of one common faith.

Thus have we given such a view as our limits would permit us to give, of the principal opinions that have been held respecting the nature and end of the Lord’s Supper. It is an ordinance which seems not to be generally understood; though, being intended to show forth the Lord’s death till he come, it is surely of sufficient importance to engage the attention of every serious Christian. The most considerable English divines who have expressly written upon it are, Johnson in his Unbl∞dy Sacrifice; Cudworth in his Discourse concerning the true Nature of the Lord’s Supper; Hoadley in his Plain Account; and Warburton[7:20:819] in bis Rational Account. The notions of Cudworth and Warburton are the same, and perhaps they differ not so much from those of Johnson as many readers seem to imagine. At any rate, the arguments by which Warburton supports his doctrine must have some force, since it is said that Hoadley himself acknowledged they would be unanswerable, if it could be proved that the death of Christ was a real sacrifice. (h. h. h. h.)