dered the minifter that attended him to use that form which ftands in the office for the holy communion, in its ftead." He freely blames thofe who would grafp at the fhadow of an authority, which in truth and fubftance they fhould all renounce. Such, he apprehends, are the PRETENCES to absolve confcience. We may say, that the absolution is not authe• ritative, but declaratory; or that it is not judicial, but mini⚫fterial. But if you would speak to be understood, you must fay, that with respect to any real, internal effect, it is NOTHING; and you will speak truth too: for all the rest, if you would preferve to God his prerogative to forgive fin, are words WITHOUT MEANING.'

The doctor also speaks with a diverting poignancy of the trading doctrines of the church of Rome, or the mercantile part of their religion, by which they attempt to cheat people of their money. Such perfons, he fays, turn religion inte à trade, and by falfhood and fraud, under the mafk of religion, make a gain to them elves; and that the claim of transferring merit from one man to another, is a most senseless kind of brokery, and in the nature of it impoffible. As to the payment of money for purchafing a release from purgatory, he remarks, that hell, not purgatory, is the place for bad men; fo that if it fhould be, that your portion is not among the • righteous, you will pay your money, and go to the devil into • the bargain.'

The two parts of these Inftructions may be had bound together, price is. 6d.

F

ART. LIII. The Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion occafionally opened and explained, in a course of fermons preached before the honourable fociety of Lincoln's-Inn. In two volumes. Vol. II. By the rev. Mr. Warburton, preacher to the fociety. 8vo. 5s. Knapton.

*

UR learned and ingenious author's character, as a writer,

tion, proceed to lay before our readers a distinct view of the difcourfes contained in this volume, that have not before been

As this gentleman is now a doctor of divinity, we shall speak of him as DoCTOR WARBURTON,

published. Four of them appeared formerly, on occafion of the late rebellion; but of thefe it will not be expected we fhould fay any thing: as for the others, we fhall take them in the order in which they lie, and begin with that concerning the nature and end of the lord's fupper, the specific nature of which our author makes it his business to enquire into. To have an exact idea of it, two things, we are told, must be well confidered: the state of religion at the time of inftituting this rite; and the immediate occafion of its celebration..

1. In those ages of the world,' fays he, when victims made fo great a part of the religion both of jews and gentiles, the facrifice was always followed by a religious feasting on the thing offered; which was called the feast upon, or • after the facrifice; the partakers of which were fuppofed to become partakers of the benefits of the facrifice. Now, from the gofpel-history of the inftitution of the Lord's fupper, and from St. Paul's reasoning upon it, a celebrated person (Dr. Cudworth, in his difcourfe concerning the true notion of the Lord's fupper) hath long fince fhewn, with great compass of learning, and force of argument, that Jefus, about to offer himfelf a facrifice on the crofs for our redemption, did, in conformity to a general practice, inftitute the last fupper, under the idea of a feaft after the facrifice. So far that learn⚫ed writer.

2. As to the immediate occafion of the celebration, we are to confider, that the great SACRIFICE ON THE CROSS was typically prefigured by feveral of the temple-oblations; and particularly by the PASCHAL-LAMB. Now juft before the paffion, and while Jefus was eating the pafchal-fupper, which was a Jewish feast after, or upon the facrifice, he inftitutes this holy rite. And as it was his general custom to allude, in his actions and expreffions, to what pafled before his eyes, or prefented itself to his obfervation; who can doubt, when we fee in the very form of celebration, all the marks of a facrificial fufper, but that the divine inftitutor intended it fhould bear the fame relation to his facrifice on the cross, which the pafchal-fupper, then celebrating, bore to the oblation of the pafchal-lamb, that is, to be of the nature of a feaft after the facrifice. For if this was not his purpose, and that no more was intended than a general memorial, or remembrance of a dead benefactor, why was this inftant of time preferred to all other throughout the course of his miniftry, any of which had been equally commodious?

* For our account of the first volume, fee the Review for January, 1753.

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This reasoning receives additional strength even from what hath been fuppofed to invalidate it, namely, the concluding words of the institution-Do this in remembrance of me. For tho' these words, confidered alone, might fignify no more than the remembrance of our obligations to him in general; yet when preceded by-this is my body-this is my blood-they neceffarily imply the remembrance of his death and paffion for us, in particular. And could there be a feast after the facrifice, in which that facrifice was not commemorated? "It is true, the injunction of doing it in remembrance implies, that the celebration was to be continually repeated; which, it must be owned, was not the practice in the feafts after the facrifice: on which, as we fay, this holy rite was modelled. But then if it differed from all others in this refpect, let us obferve, that the great facrifice itfelf, of which this feaft was a type, differed no lefs from all other facrifices. The jewith and pagan oblations had, or were fupposed to have, only a paffing and temporary virtue. The facrifice on the cross is of perpetual efficacy, and will continue to operate till the confummation of all things. It feemed fit therefore, that the operating virtue of this facrifice fhould be perpetually fet before us, in a conftant celebration of the feaft upon it.'

Having thus fhewn what he thinks may be naturally, and must be reasonably inferred, of our faviour's purpofe in the laft fupper, from the hiftory of its inftitution, our learned author tries next what can be collected of St. Paul's fenfe in the matter, who has occafionally fpoken at large concerning it. And here, he tells us, we fhall find, that this very fort of feaft, which the words of the inftitution tacitly allude to, St. Paul, in order to fhew the specific nature of the rite, exprefly draws a comparifon from; and at the fame time, in order to fhew the efficacy of it, informs us of the end and purpose of those feafts upon the facrifice. The place he refers to is, in the firft epiftle to the Corinthians, ch. x. where the apoftle reproves the profelytes to Chriftianity for the idolatrous practice of eating, with the gentiles, of things offered to idols, in their feaft upon the facrifice. After this he proceeds as follows:

• Such then, I prefume, is the true nature of the LORD'S SUPPER. And was the adjusting a precise idea of it, as it referred to a religious cuftom of antiquity, a matter only of curiofity and fpeculation, I might perhaps have left it to the ecclefiaftical hiftorian. But it appears to me to have imVOL. XI. Ef

portant

portant confequences, with regard both to our FAITH and WORSHIP. For,

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1. If the last fupper be of the nature of a feast after a facrifice, then is it a declaration of Jesus himself, that his death < upon the cross was a REAL SACRIFICE. For figurative expreffion (as fome are apt to deem the gofpel-reprefentation • of Chrift's facrifice and atonement) could never produce a religious rite of divine appointment, arifing from, and dependent on, a real specific action. I fay, of divine appointment, because many of human original have been thus produced. Yet then only (which is a further fupport to the preceding • obfervation) when the figure had been miftaken for the fubftance.

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2. If the laft fupper be of the nature of a feast after a facrifice, then is it productive of great and fpecial benefits to the partakers. For the partakers of the jewish and gentile feafts after a facrifice did, or were fuppofed to, communicate

of the benefits of the facrifice.'

Our learned author proceeds now to examine the reasoning advanced in the Plain account of the nature and end of the facrament of the Lord's Jupper, the author of which, he tells us, has taken away the fpecific nature of the last supper, and left it nothing but its generic; has excluded the idea of a feaft after the facrifice, and confined us to the notion of a mere memorial or remembrance. The faulty link in the chain of propofitions laid down in the Plain account, Dr. Warburton imagines to be the fourth propofition, which runs thus.-It cannot be doubted but that he himself (Jesus) fufficiently declared to his first and immediate followers, the whole of what he defigned should be understood by it (the facrament of the Lord's fupper) or implied in it.

Now,' fays our author, Iapprehend this to be the faulty • link; and that all the connection it hath with the propofitions, which precede and follow it, lies in the unperceived ambiguity of the words, SUFFICIENTLY DECLARED: which may either fignify, declared by exprefs words; or, on the other hand, declared by fignificative circumstances, such as refpect the time, the occafion, the mode of acting, or the manner of fpeaking. For the communication of our thoughts is carried on as well by EXPRESSIVE ACTIONS as by WORDS " AND SOUNDS: nor did the first bear a small part in the con< verfe of the antients; efpecially amongst the Jewish people of every age, to the time in question.

Hence it comes to país, that tho' we are agreed in the propofition, that Jefus fufficiently declared the whole of what

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he understood by his laft fupper, we draw fo different conclufions: the learned writer, that it was fimply a remem<brance of Chrift; I, that it was of the nature of a feast upon the facrifice. For he confiders only what Jefus in exprefs words SAID, at the inftitution of this holy rite: I take in both what he SAID and DID; and not only that, but the C MODE of faying and doing; relative to the time, the occafion, the manners, and the cuftoms of the age; as being perfuaded, that the fpeaker's meaning, where the fubject is of remote antiquity, can be but very imperfectly understood, without taking in all thefe things. A rule of interpretation, in which I fuppofe the learned writer would concur with me, was the point concerning a difficulty in CLASSICAL expreffion.

This then, I understand to be the only remaining question, whether or no the difciples of Jefus (as it is agreed, their mafter did not, in exprefs terms, call this rite a feast upon a facrifice) could collect, from the whole of the circumstances attending the inftitution, that it was indeed of the nature of fuch a feaft? namely, from the critical time of the celebration, which was just before his paffion, and at the Jewish pafchal-fupper; from the peculiarity of phrafe employed in the inftitution, of which more hereafter; and from his accustomed manner in the execution of his miniftry, to adapt his words and actions to the fcene or fubject before him? Now, I fuppofe, that from these circumftances, one may fairly conclude, the difciples might and did collect that the laft fupper was of the nature of a feast upon facrifice.'

Dr. Warburton advances a great deal more upon this fubject, but the extracts we have given may fuffice to inform our readers what he principally infifts upon against the author of the Plain Account. Towards the clofe of his difcourfe, he fhews briefly what those benefits are which we receive at the Lord's table, and what the obligations which we lie under of frequenting it: he concludes with the following words.

All this duly confidered, we fhall, I hope, endeavour to regain a proper veneration for this holy myjtery; which hath of late been fo fatally impaired, as by other liberties, fo principally by the proftitution of it to CIVIL PURPOSES; not a proftitution by the LEGISLATURE, but by thofe licentious men, who, contenting themfelves with the obfervance of the form and letter, neglect the end and fpirit of the law." Upon what juft and confiftent principles the legiflature can be vindicated from the charge of proftituting the facrament of the Lord's fupper, by making it a civil teft, we really cannot

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