people of God. Among them, they who eat of the sacrifice are partakers of God's table, the altar, have fellowship with him, and share in the benefit of the sacrifice, as if it were offered for them f. Do not mistake me, as if I hereby said, that the idols of the Gentiles are gods in reality, or that the things offered to them change their nature, and are anything really different from what they were before, so as to affect us in our use of them: no, but this I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God, and I would not that you should have fellowship with, and be under the influence of devils, as they who, by eating of things offered to them, enter into covenant, alliance, and commerce with them. You cannot eat and drink with God, as friends at his table in the Eucharist, and entertain familiarity and friendship with devils, by eating with them, and partaking of the sacrifices offered to them.' Such appears to be the force of the whole argument. But as there is nothing so plain, but that it may be obscured by misconception, and darkened by artificial colourings, so we need not wonder if difficulties have been raised against the construction here given. And because it may sometimes happen, that very slight pretences on one side, if not particularly answered, may weigh more with some persons, than the strongest reasons on the other, I shall here be at the pains to bring together such objections as I have anywhere met with, and to consider them one by one. Dr. Pelling, in his Discourse of the Sacrament, (pp. 116, 117, 118,) well illustrates the case of the Jews, as partaking of the altar. I shall cite a small part :There is an expression which will make this matter clear, in Levit. vii. 18, "neither shall it be imputed," &c. When those sacrificial feasts were regularly cele brated, they were imputed to the guests for their good, they were reckoned advantageous to them, they were favourably accepted at God's hand, in order to the ends for which the sacrifice was designed: they served to make an atonement, they were effectual to their purposes, they were good to all intents, they were available to the offerers, (as the Hebrew Doctors expound the phrase). This is the true meaning of being partakers of the altar,' &c. p. 117. In the next page the learned author applies the whole very aptly to the Eucharist. Objections answered. I. Dr. Whitby, whose comments upon this text, I am sorry to say, appear to be little else than laboured confusion, is pleased to object as here follows: Neither can the sense of the words be to this effect; The cup and bread communicate to us the spiritual effects of Christ's broken body, or his blood shed for us, though this be in itself a certain truth; for these spiritual effects cannot be shared among believers, so that every one shall have a part of them only, but the same benefits are wholly communicated to every due receiver. See note on ver. 165.' The learned author did well to call our doctrine a certain truth: but he had done better, if he had taken due care to preserve to this text that true sense, upon which chiefly that certain truth is founded. His objection against the spiritual effect being shared, appears to be of no weight for how do we say they are shared? We do not say that Christ's death is divided into parcels, or is more than one death, or that his sacrifice is more than one sacrifice, or that it is shared like a loaf broken into parts, as the objection supposes: but the many sharers all partake of, and communicate in one undivided thing, the same death, the same sacrifice, the same atonement, the same Saviour, the same God and Lord: and here is no dividing or sharing anything, but as the same common blessing diffuses itself among many divided persons. And what is there amiss or improper in this notion? The learned author himself is forced to allow h that κοινωνία τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, communion of his Soni, and κοινωνία τῶν παθημάτων, communion of his sufferingsj, and κοινωνία μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, communion with the Father and the Sonk, are all so many proper phrases, to express the communion of many in one and the same thing, where the effects are common to those mary. And he might have added κοινωνία τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος, I Cor. i. 9. Whitby on verse 20, p. 175. h Ibid. p. 173. communion of the Holy Ghost 1, and κοινωνία τοῦ μυστηρίου, communion of the mystery m, as two other parallel instances, wherein the same undivided blessings are supposed to be communicated to many, in such a sense as we suppose the undivided blessing, privilege, atonement of Christ's death to be vouchsafed to worthy communicants. And therefore there is no occasion for the low thought, that Kovwvia here, with respect to the Eucharist, must signify no more than the sharing out the consecrated bread and wine among the communicants which is resolving all into sign, and dropping the thing signified; and is sinking the Apostle's admirable sense into jejune, insipid tautology; as I have before observed. The Socinians themselves deal more justly and ingenuously with St. Paul's text in this place; as may sufficiently appear by what I have quoted from them in this chapter. II. The same learned man makes a further attempt to defeat the true sense of this passage, first, by interpreting the partaking of the altar, to mean only having communion with God, or owning him as that God from whom they had received mercies; and next, by interpreting the partaking of devils so as to exclude any spiritual influence from devils ". To all which I shall make answer in the excellent words of Bishop Burnet : 'If the meaning of their being partakers with devils [he should have said of devils] imports only their joining themselves in acts of fellowship with idolaters, then the sin of this would have easily appeared, without such a reinforcing of the matter. . . . St. Paul seems to carry the argument further: . . . since those idols were the instruments, by which the devil kept the world in subjection to him, all such as did partake in their sacrifices might come under the effects of that magic, that might be exerted about their temples or sacrifices; . . . and might justly fear being brought into a partnership of those magical possessions or temptations 1 2 Corinthians xiii. 14. Phil. ii. 1. m Eph. iii. 9. that might be suffered to fall upon such Christians as should associate themselves in so detestable a service P. In the same sense it was also said, that the Israelites were partakers of the altar. That is, that all of them who joined in the acts of that religion, such as the offering their peace-offerings, (for of those of that kind they might only eat,) all these were partakers of the altar: that is, of all the blessings of their religion, of all the expiations, the burnt-offerings and sinofferings, that were offered on the altar, for the sins of the whole congregation. . . . Thus it appears, that such as joined in the acts of idolatry became partakers of all that influence that devils might have over those sacrifices; and all that continued in the observances of the Mosaical law, had thereby a partnership in the expiations of the altar; so likewise all Christians who receive this Sacrament worthily, have by their so doing a share in that which is represented by it, the death of Christ, and the expiation and other benefits that follow it.' I cannot too often repeat, that St. Paul is not here speaking of external profession, or of outwardly owning the true God, (which any hypocrite might do,) but of being real and living members, and of receiving vital spiritual influences from Christ; and his argument rests upon it 1. The thing may P The true meaning of partaking of devils, or of coming under the influence of devils, is very aptly illustrated by the following lines of Tertullian: Nemo in castra hostium transit, nisi projectis armis suis, nisi destitutis signis et sacramentis principis sui, nisi pactus simul perire... Quale est enim de Ecclesia Dei, in diaboli ecclesiam tendere? de caelo, quod aiunt, in coenum? . . . Cur ergo non hujusmodi etiam daemoniis penetrabiles fiant? nam et exemplum accidit, Domino teste, ejus mulieris quae theatrum adiit, et inde cum daemonio rediit. Itaque in exorcismo cum oneraretur immundus spiritus, quod ausus esset fidelem adgredi; constanter, Justissime quidem, inquit, feci, in meo enim inveni.' Tertullian. de Spectac. cap. xxv. xxvi. p. 83. 4 Loquitur Apostolus de ejusmodi communione corporis et sanguinis Domini, per quam unum corpus cum illo et inter nos sumus,... reprobi et infideles, omnesque ejusmodi, Spiritus Christi destituti, quamvis sumant et participent panem quem frangimus, et benedictionis calicem, . . . non fiunt unum corpus cum Christo et fidelibus, sicut ipse Apostolus docet, inquiens: Qui Spiritum Christi non habet, hic non est ejus. Rom. viii. 9. 2 Cor. vi.' Albertin. p. 225. perhaps be yet further illustrated from a similar argument, made use of by the Apostle in a resembling case. 'Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot God forbid. What? know ye not that he who is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.' Here we may observe, that the argument, in both cases, proceeds upon the supposition that the Christians whom the Apostle speaks to are true and living members of Christ, and of consequence actual partakers of all the spiritual benefits of such union: which union would be entirely broken, and all its privileges forfeited, by commencing a contrary union, either with devils in one case, or with harlots in the other. The Apostle is not speaking of Christians as barely contradicting their outward professions, or com mitting a logical absurdity, but of their acting inconsistently with their internal blessings or privileges. There was no natural impossibility of appearing as guests both at God's table and the table of devils; it was as easy to be done, as it was easy for men to be deceitful, false, and wicked: but the Apostle speaks of a real inconsistency in things; namely, such as lies in the being in league with God and the devil at the same time, and retaining the friendship and participation of both. All which shews, that the communicants whom r 1 Cor. vi. 15, 16, 17. Compare 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15, 16. N.B. The Apostle is plainly speaking, in all the three places, of Christians, considered as true and living members of the internal invisible Church, and not merely of the external and visible. Nec ergo dicendi sunt manducare corpus Christi, quoniam nec in membris computandi sunt; quia non possunt esse membra Christi, et membra meretricis.' Aug. de Civ. Dei, lib. xxi. cap. 25. • Corpus nostrum, (id est, caro |