communicants, he says, "May the body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul to everlasting

life."

As the cup is not administered to the Romanist laity, the priest cannot use the same form which we use in our Church.

Spreading his hands over the oblation he says, "Who the day before he suffered took bread into his holy and venerable hands, and with his eyes lifted up towards heaven, giving thanks to Thee, Almighty God, his Father: he blessed, brake, and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat ye all of this, for this is my body.""

In the elevation of the host there is some variation and some resemblance.

"In like manner," says the priest," after he had supped, Christ taking also this excellent chalice into his holy and venerable hands, giving thee also thanks, blessed and gave it to his disciples, saying: "Take and drink ye all of this, for this is the chalice of my blood of the New and eternal Testament: the mystery of faith: which shall be shed for you, and for many, to the remission of sins. As often as you do these things, you shall do them in remembrance of me.'"*

Here I must observe, in passing, that the word mystery, which the Church of Rome applies to the secret and miraculous change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, is not found in any manuscript whatsoever, Greek or Latin. It is not

*See Gandolphy's Exposition of the Roman Catholic Liturgy, pp. 216–224.

inserted by the Romanists in the text of their Vulgate. It partly rests upon oral tradition, and partly it is illustrated by three marginal quotations; one upon Matthew xxvi. from Ambrose, in his treatise concerning those who are initiated in the Mysteries, or Sacred Rites of the Church; one upon Mark xiv. from the same work of St. Ambrose; a third upon Luke xxii. from St. Ambrose; together with a fourth from the Homily of St. Eusebius on the Passover.*

* In the margin of the Vulgate, on the 26th of St. Matthew, there is the following quotation from Ambrose.

"Vera utique caro Christi, quæ crucifixa est, quæ sepulta est, verè ergo carnis illius sacramentum est. Ipse clamat Dominus Jesus-hoc est corpus meum. Ante benedictionem verborum cœlestium alia species nominatur, post consecrationem corpus Christi significatur. Ipse dicit sanguinem suum. consecrationem aliud dicitur, post consecrationem sanguinis nuncupatur.-Ambro. de iis, qui initiantur Mysteriis, cap. 9. In the margin of the Vulgate upon Mark xiv. they quote from Ambrose these words:

"Antequam consecretur, panis est, ubi autem verba accesserint Christi, corpus est Christi. Deinde audi dicentem: hoc est corpus meum. Ante verba Christi, calix est vini et aquæ plenus, ubi verba Christi operata fuerint, ibi sanguis efficitur, qui plebem redemit. Ergo videte quantis generibus potens est sermo Christi universa convertere."-Ambro. de Sacrament. lib. iv. cap. 5.

"Nam sacramentum istud quod accipis, Christi sermone conficitur. Quod si tantum valuit sermo Eliæ ut ignem de cœlo deponeret, non valebit Christi sermo ut species mutet elementorum ?"-Idem, de iis qui Mysteriis initiantur, cap. 9, et seq.

There is a third quotation from the same work of St. Ambrose, together with one from the Homily of St. Eusebius on the Passover, in the margin of the Vulgate upon Luke xxii.

To many readers the words of St. Ambrose and Eusebius may appear enthusiastic effusions of rhetoric, rather than precise statements of doctrine. In vindication of such an important word upon such a solemn occasion, the ablest champions of the Church of Rome have often been perplexed, and Protestants are well justified in rejecting it, as wholly unsupported by any various readings in the MSS. of the Sacred Text, as constituting an almost unparalleled innovation, and as insufficient to sustain the weight of a stupendous paradox.

I now pass on to other matters in the Roman Communion Service.

The Romanists say, as we do, "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth," and they add, as we do

“Quia corpus assumptum ablaturus erat ex oculis nostris, et sideribus illaturus, necessarium erat, ut nobis in hac die sacramentum corporis et sanguinis sui consecraret: ut coleretur jugiter per mysterium quod semel offerebatur in pretium: ut quia quotidiana et indefessa currebat pro hominum salute redemptio, perpetua esset etiam redemptionis oblatio, et perennis illa victima viveret in memoria, ut semper esset præsens in gratia."-Euseb. Emis. Hom. 5. de Pascha.

"Si operatus est sermo cœlestis in fonte terreno, et, in aliis rebus, non operatur in cœlestibus sacramentis? Ergo didicisti quòd ex pane corpus fiat Christi, et quòd vinum et aqua in calicem mittitur, sed fit sanguis consecratione verbi cœlestis. Sed forte dicis: speciem sanguinis non video. Sed habet similitudinem. Sicut enim mortis similitudinem sumpsisti, ita etiam similitudinem pretiosi sanguinis bibis, ut nullus horror cruoris sit, et pretium tamen operetur redemptionis. Didicisti ergo quia quod accipis est corpus Christi."-Ambr. de Sacra. lib, iv. cap. 4.

not, Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he that "comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest."

In the Book of Common Prayer, and of Administration of Sacraments for the use of all Christians in the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, published by Mr. Gandolphy in 1812 (page 180); and in a Roman Missal for the use of the laity, containing the Masses appointed to be used throughout the year, and published 1815, we have (page 18), word for word, the same glowing and sublime doxology, which in the Church of England's service thus begins-" Glory be to God on high," &c.

You here see proofs of my assertion, that the Church of England has impartially and deliberately selected many devotional passages for the Lord's supper from the sacramental service of the Romanists. We hear them attentively, or we repeat them reverently.

But let me now do to our own Establishment the same justice, which I should ever wish to be done. to the Romanists. Unincumbered by, what we think, mystical propositions and fantastic ceremonies, our communion office sets before you the very words of Christ himself. It leads you to assign to those words a figurative sense, which evidently was not mistaken by his disciples, and which is easily understood at least by believers in all succeeding ages, though by some classes of them it be rejected to make room for the literal interpretation. The same office, you well know, is favourable to virtue

as well as to religion. It teaches you to unite thanksgiving with faith-it insists upon the necessity of repentance-it enforces the exercise of charity-it tells you that, " at all times, and in all places, it is very meet, right, and your bounden duty to give glory to our Holy Father, to the Lord Most High, to the Almighty everlasting God." Can language be more luminous, more emphatical, more worthy of attention and assent from rational beings, or more adapted to the Majesty, and infifinite perfections of our Creator, Preserver, moral Governor and Judge?

Now, amidst great variety of belief, and great asperity of disputation, there is one point upon which all parties are really and avowedly agreed. Whether there be or there be not any transmutation of the elements into the body and blood of Christwhether there be or be not any union of them with the bread and wine-whether the sacrament be or be not, as a very illustrious divine* of our own church imagines, a feast upon the sacrifice, by which the communion of the body and blood of Christ unites the receivers into one body by the distribution of one common benefit; yet, all communicants believe, and all declare, that the participation of the sacrament is commemorative; they all understand the words of Christ, "Do this in remembrance of me;" they all acknowledge the obligation which lies upon them to obey that command; they, one and all, intend to obey that command when they meet together at the communion table. And here

* Cudworth.