to heaven? He has made HIMSELF "the way." He lies down, that you, the guilty, may walk on that way, and reach the bosom of God. I regard it as one of the most stupendous proofs of the love and humiliation of Christ, that not satisfied with dying for us, he has made himself the way for us, on which to walk to heaven and to happiness. How unlike is this love to man's! I remember reading of two Highland chiefs, bitter enemies and antagonists of each other, who met in a very narrow pathway, crossing a deep ravine between two hills, and along which only one person could pass at a time. It was the rule, that if two persons met there, one should lie down and the other step over him; but the one proud chief said, "Shall I allow this coward to walk over me?" and the other, "Shall I allow my foe to tread upon me?" They at last entered into desperate and mortal combat, every feeling stirred and every sinew stretched to its utmost, both knowing that one or other must perish. At length, one was thrown over the precipice; and the other walked on, triumphing in the result. That was man. But it is not thus with GOD. He, the offended, who might have stood upon terms, is the party that has become the Way, along which the guilty offender may walk to God, and thus find "glory, honor, and immortality." Truly, "his thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts."

LECTURE XII.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

"THIS is my body, which is broken for you," is assumed by Romanists as the basis of transubstantiation. Protestants understand, that by these words, so solemnly uttered by our blessed Lord as the dying precept which he enjoined, and therefore the more imperative upon our observance, he meant to convey-"This bread, which is broken upon the table, is the seal and symbol of that body which is about to be broken for you; it is the simple but expressive epitome of all the benefits and blessings that accrue to God's redeemed and living people, from the incarnation and sorrows, the agony and the expiatory death, of the Redeemer." And when we approach the Communion table, whatever be the form in which we celebrate that holy rite, we feel that it points backward to the past, and proclaims the height and depth, the length and breadth, of that love which Christ manifested to man; and that it points forward to the future also, and declares the certainty of that glorious advent which the Redeemer himself predicted, when he said — “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also."

One may well ask, By what strange hallucination has it come to pass, that a large section of the visible and professing church attaches to these words so different, so repulsive, a meaning as that of transubstantiation? alleging that they ought to be taken, not in that figurative and sym

bolic sense in which they have been accustomed to receive them, but that it was literally true, that when our blessed Lord uttered these words, the bread and wine that were placed before him on the table instantly were changed or transubstantiated into the literal body and the literal blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and this change still takes place when these words are uttered by the priest. So truly is this believed by every member of the Church of Rome, that he holds, that the moment the priest has pronounced the words Hoc est enim meum corpus (for this is my body), that moment the flour and water, in the shape of a wafer, which has been laid on the altar, become literally and truly and substantially the very flesh and blood and soul and deity of the Son of God. If you should protest to the Roman Catholic-"It looks like a wafer it tastes like a wafer-it smells like a wafer - it crumbles like a wafer of flour and water and if I leave it long enough, it corrupts and moulders like a wafer"-his answer is — "Your senses are all betrayed, it is no such thing; your five senses tell you it is flour and water, but you are told in the Inspired Volume by our Lord himself that it is his body; and in spite of all your senses proclaiming it to be flour and water, you are bound to believe it is literally and truly flesh and blood."

You will easily conceive that this is a demand upon our belief, of a very severe and extraordinary description; and that it will need, upon the part of the Church of Rome, neither few nor frail arguments to prove that they are right and that we are wrong. You will also perceive the vast importance of t e truth or falsehood of this doctrine, from the necessary sequences or consequences of it. In the Church of Rome, they believe, that as soon as the flour and water have been transubstantiated into the body and blood of our blessed Lord, and the priest holds it elevates

up, or

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the host," in the midst of the congregation, they may and do justly fall down and adore it, as truly the Lord Jesus Christ. If they are right in the previous supposition, that this transubstantiation takes place, their adoration is certainly proper; but if they are wrong in the assumption that the flour and water are turned into flesh and blood, then their adoration, upon their own principles, must be revolting idolatry. But this is not the only consequence of their doctrine: as soon as it has been thus changed and adored, the priest in every Roman Catholic chapel instantly offers up this which he believes to be the body and blood, the soul and divinity, of our blessed Lord—a sacrifice propitiatory for the sins of the living and the dead, possessing exactly the efficacy of the atonement on Calvary; a sacrifice, in short, adequate to cancel and remit the sins of the living and the dead, just as if it were the literal and true sacrifice offered upon the cross every Sunday. I shall not be able, in this Lecture, to enter upon a consideration of the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, which may be viewed quite distinctly from the doctrine of transubstantiation; for I may remark in passing, that if I were to grant to the Roman Catholic that transubstantiation is true, I should yet be prepared to repudiate as false the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass; being prepared to prove and to demonstrate that there is but one glorious and perfect expiatory Sacrifice-a sacrifice of such spotless excellency, such glorious perfection, that nothing that is in heaven itself can add to it, and nothing that is in hell can detract from it or destroy it.

In order that we may proceed fairly and logically to the consideration of this topic, I will first read to you a brief extract from the Creed of Pope Pius the Fourth-the Creed of the Church of Rome, and which every member of that Church subscribes. "I profess likewise, that in the Mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory

sacrifice for the living and the dead; that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, there is truly, really, and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood; which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation. I also confess, that under either kind alone Christ is received whole and entire, and there is a true sacrament."

I will also read the following extracts from the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent. Chapter IV. on the Eucharist: "Since Christ our Redeemer truly said that that which he offered under the appearance of bread was his body, therefore the Church of Christ has ever been persuaded, and this holy Synod declares it anew, that by the consecration of the bread and wine, a conversion takes place of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood; which conversion the holy Catholic Church properly calls transubstantiation." Again: the First Canon of the Council of Trent on the Eucharist is, "If any man shall deny, that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist there is contained, truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so a whole Christ - but shall say that he is only in it in sign, or figure, or power-let him be accursed." Also Canon VI.: "If any shall say, that in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored, and that outwardly with the worship of latria [the chiefest worship], and therefore that he ought neither to be venerated by any especial celebration, nor carried solemnly about in procession, according to the laudable and universal custom of the Church, or that he ought not to be exhibited to the people, and that the worshippers of him are idolaters,