Christ in the sacrament of the altar, that, if he has it in his power, he is bound to participate thereof. But if Mr. Tottenham means that faith alone will save a man, he himself has to contend with a difficulty similar to that in which he wishes to involve me. In the 3rd chapter of St. John's Gospel, verse 3, Christ said

Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Hereupon his Church professes that baptism is of ordinary necessity. Now, Mr. T. has as much to do in order to reconcile this with his notion of the sufficiency of faith alone, as he imagines I have in extricating myself from his objection.

:

But, he goes on, according to the Roman Catholic interpretation, no matter how wicked a man may be, if he eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ; for Christ says:"He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood shall have eternal life." I wish then, to ask Mr. T. whether he now maintains that the words of Scripture are to be always understood literally, without any exercise of man's discretion and judgment upon their true meaning? When in St. Luke chap. xi. 10. we are assured by Jesus Christ, that "Every one that asketh receiveth,"-can any one pretend that these words are to be taken in their strictly literal meaning: that whatever man says, "O Lord, grant me this or that," although his heart be full of evil, and of impure desires, and he meditate wickedness at the very moment whilst he is in the presence of God, that such a one shall receive what he asketh? Now as you expound this text, not of the wicked man, but of him who repents, and petitions with worthy dispositions, so are we justified in putting a similar interpretation upon the promise of Christ in the 6th chapter of St. John, that, "Every man that eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood shall be saved," provided his disposition be such as the excellency of the sacrament requires.

The Rev. Gentleman argues that, from this chapter, all are bound to receive the communion under both kinds, under the form of bread and the form of wine. This, however, is a topic which does not belong strictly to the subject before us, and I will therefore answer merely in the words of the Council of Trent, Sess. 21. cap. 1 :

"He who said:- Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,' has likewise said:- If any one shall eat of this bread, he shall live for ever;' and he who said :- - He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life,' likewise said: The

bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world;'-he, in fine, who said-be that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him,' hath nevertheless said :- he who eateth this bread shall live for ever.""

Mr. T. quoted the 34th and 35th verses of the 6th chap. to show our Saviour's meaning to be that by faith we are all to partake of him. You may recollect, however, that when I was expounding the 35th verse, I observed that hitherto there was an obscurity about the words of Christ, and that our Saviour's true meaning was only afterwards manifested from ver. 51. to ver. 59.

Mr. T. adduced an objection against the real and bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist, from St. Matt. xxvi. 26. wherein Christ said :

"I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, till I drink it new in the kingdom of my Father."

Now, in the first place, if Mr. T. will look at Luke xxii. 17-20, he will find a solution of his difficulty, which was pointed out by St. Fulgentius, in the primitive ages of the Christian Church.

The 17th and 18th verses are as follows: :

"He took the cup, and gave thanks and said, Take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.'

Here we find the objection that has been urged; but afterwards in the 20th verse another and different cup is mentioned, and it is of this second cup that Christ says:"This cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you."

Thus mention is made is made of two different cups or chalices; the objection is borrowed from the language spoken of the first chalice; our faith is founded upon the terms applied to the second. But, in the second place, we sometimes call the sacramental appearance of the Eucharist bread and wine; for we are accustomed to speak of things as they appear to our senses. Accordingly, in the book of Exodus vii. 12. Aaron's rod, after it had been changed into a serpent, is still called a rod and in the Gospel of John ii. 9. the water after it was changed into wine, is still called water.

To the objection from 1 Cor. xi. 23-28. where, after the consecration, the Eucharist is still spoken of as bread and wine, my answer is the same as above; that Scripture, after a substantial change, does not always speak of the thing according to what it is become, as in the instance of Aaron's rod in Exodus chap. 7., which was called a rod after it had become a serpent.-Mr. T. says that commemoration

and remembrance signify absence; they signify, indeed, that there is no visible presence, but they do not signify that there is no presence whatsoever. We commemorate the presence of God when we pray to Him: yet we believe that God is every where present; " for in him we live, and move, and have our being." By prayer, therefore, and frequent reflection upon God we call him to mind, not implying thereby that we consider him to be absent, but because he is not sensibly present, but after an invisible and spiritual manner.

Mr. T. quoted from the 3rd chapter of Acts, ver. 21, wherein it is said of Christ, "Whom the heavens must receive until the time of the restitution of all things." In order to meet the difficulty which he raised therefrom against the possibility of Christ's bodily presence in the Eucharist, I must recal your attention to the statement of the Catholic doctrine, which I read to you from the decree of the Council of Trent, wherein it is said, that although we believe Christ to be truly present in the Eucharist, we do not pretend that he is present after a natural manner of existence, but only after a mysterious and sacramental manner; constituting thereby not two distinct bodies, but two different manners in which the same body exists. Moreover, if Mr. T. will insist upon his objection, let him explain how Christ, being in heaven until the time of the restitution of all things, appeared to St. Paul on earth, as we read in Acts ix. 4-8?

"And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest; it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do."

If, therefore, Mr. T.'s objection is of any weight against us, it may just as well be urged by infidels against the apparent discrepancy between the 3rd and 9th chapters of the Acts. I might refer you to several other passages in which the presence of Christ, even to mortal sight, after his ascension, is related in the most explicit terms. In 1 Cor. xv. 8, you will find that Christ appeared to St. Paul, and was seen of him; you will find it likewise recorded in Acts vii. 56, that St. Stephen saw Christ; yet it is not to be supposed that the eyes of a mortal man penetrated into the heaven of heavens, where Christ resides. Hence the text adduced does not prove that Christ cannot be present on earth at the same time that he is present in

heaven, especially as we suppose that the mode of his presence in the sacrament is not after the manner of a material, but of a spiritualized body. Lastly, I contend that this text ought not to be urged against us at all, because the meaning of the original Greek is ambiguous; accordingly we find that Hammond, Camerarius, Beza, and other Protestant divines understand by the original of this passage, "that Christ took possession of heaven for the government thereof," and not that he is now in heaven never to be again on earth, in any manner, until the last judgment. Thus, even according to its literal signification, it does not bear out Mr. T.'s meaning.

Of the difficulties raised by Mr. Lyons I mean to take but little notice. He contended that the words of Christ could not refer to a literal eating, because in the old law the sin-offering was not eaten. But why, I ask, are we in the new law to be bound by the rites prescribed in the old?-or why could Christ, who came to institute a new sacrifice, that of himself on the cross, not also institute the manducation of his sacramental body and blood without being bound by the prohibitions of the old law?

One objection I find that I have passed by. Mr. T. contended that the 6th chapter of John was to be understood of a receiving by faith only. Christ, he said, is there speaking of actually bestowing himself in food; the Jews, therefore, could not understand him of any future participation of his real body and blood in the sacrament which was not to be instituted until long afterwards. We find, however, in the 51st verse, where Christ describes the manner in which he is to be received, that he says, "the bread which I will give is my flesh." It is evident, therefore, from the express words of Jesus Christ that he speaks of a future eating and drinking of his body and blood.

It is now time that I should resume my arguments in support of the real presence, or, (since Mr. T. objects to that term,) of the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist. These arguments are deduced from the institution of the sacrament as it is recorded by the evangelists. The terms in which that institution is related having been recently read to you by my Rev. Friend who preceded me, I shall not trespass upon your time by repeating them; but if you will attend, 1st, to the manner in which the evangelists relate the institution of the sacrament— 2ndly, to the language which Christ employs-3rdly, to the subject matter of the institution-4thly, to the time

at which that institution was made-you will be convinced that the words of Christ are to be understood in their plain and literal sense. To-morrow I purpose to review clearly and fully the objections that have been and may be brought against their literal meaning; and I trust that I shall be able to satisfy those whose minds are not already convinced, that, according to the laws of figurative language, it is impossible for the words of Christ to mean in this place a merely figurative presence; which, moreover, not one circumstance of the institution warrants.

In the first place, then, if we look to the usual manner in which the evangelical narration is conducted, we shall repeatedly find the inspired writers solicitous to guard their readers against mistakes in matters of far less importance than the real or symbolical presence, in the Lord's Supper, of the body and blood of Christ. Thus, St. Luke ch. iii. v. 25. in mentioning the reputed Father of Jesus, who had truly taken flesh of his Virgin Mother, lest any mistake might arise that Christ had been begotten like other men, the Evangelist cautions against such an error, by saying: "being as was supposed the son of Joseph."In like manner, in chap. xii. 1. having recorded the warning of our Divine Master; "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees," he immediately adds, in order to prevent mistake, the explanation given by Christ of his meaning: "which is hypocrisy."-In St. John's Gospel, ii. 19. we read : "And Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' Lest, however, any error might ensue, the same Evangelist, in the 21st verse, explains the figurative expression of our Lord: "But he spake of the temple of his body."-In St. Matthew, xi. 14. we read: "If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come;" which is interpreted in the 1st chap. of St. Luke's Gospel, verse 17:"He shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." From these passages I repeat, that if the Evangelists are so cautious to prevent errors, in matters of much less moment than the bodily or the figurative presence of Christ in the Eucharist, assuredly in this instance they would not have left us without some warning, were the language which they employ intended not to be understood literally. By what system, then, of interpretation do you make out, that the words of the institution imply not a real, but a figurative pre