very body and blood of Christ wherein there is no change known to be made? And if they have endured no change, they are nothing else than what they were before." And again, "For as to the substance of the creatures, what they were before consecration, that they are also after." And in the Comment upon St. Matthew, attributed to St. Chrysostom, we find it said, "If therefore it be so dangerous to transfer the sanctified vessels to private uses, in which not the true body of Christ, but the mystery of his body is contained how much more as for the vessels of our body, which God hath prepared for himself to dwell in, we ought not to give place to the devil to act in !" What could be spoken more plainly? It is not the body of Christ itself, but only the mystery and sacrament thereof, that is contained in the holy vessels and offered in the Lord's Supper. To all these testimonies I shall only add that of Theodoret again; "The visible symbols he honoured with the name of his body and blood, not changing their nature, but adding grace to nature.

"The body of Christ is given, and taken, and eaten in the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual man ner; and the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is faith."

Ir being so clear a truth, that the bread and wine are not turned into the very body and blood of Christ in the holy sacrament, we need not heap up many arguments to prove, that it is only after a spiritual not after a corporal manner, that the body and blood of Christ are received and eaten in the sacrament. For if the bread be not really changed into the body of Christ then the body of Christ is not really there present; and if it be not really there present, it is impossible it should be really eaten and received into our bodies as bread is. So that the truth there demonstrated, and the truth here delivered, have so much affinity to one another, that they cannot so well be called two as one and the same truth. And therefore to the arguments produced in the foregoing discourse, I shall add only these following, and that briefly to show that the body and blood of Christ are not eaten after a poral but only a spiritual manner, in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

cor

. . . First, supposing it was not impossible, yet it would be unprofitable for us thus to eat of the body of Christ. For our Saviour himself having preached concerning the eating of his flesh, and drinking of his blood, the Jews and the Capernaites taking him (as their followers the papists do) in a carnal sense, cried out, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat? John vi. 52. And his disciples themselves said, "This is an hard saying, who can hear it ?" ver. 60. Whereupon he explained himself, and told them, "It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you they are spirit

and they are life," ver. 63. As if he should have said, Though I do speak of eating my flesh, I would not have you think that my very flesh profiteth any thing, or quickeneth; no, " 'It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing;" and the words that I speak unto you are not to be understood in a carnal, but a spiritual sense, for they are spirit and life: plainly shewing that the corporal eating of his body is unprofitable, and that whatsoever he said concerning eating of his flesh, and drinking of his blood, was still to be understood in a heavenly and spiritual sense. Secondly, upon this supposition, that the body of Christ is corporally eaten in the sacrament, it follows that it was corporally broken too, and so that Christ did really break his own body, before the Jews broke it for him; yea, and that Christ received his own body into his own body; for that he received this sacrament himself, as well as administered to his disciples is plain, not only from the testimonies of the Fathers, but from the words of our Saviour himself, "With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer," Luke xxii. 15.; and, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom," Matt. xxvi. 29. So that I cannot see how it can possibly be denied, that Christ ate of the bread whereof he said, "This is my body." and if he ate it, and ate it corporally, that is, ate his very body as we eat bread, then he ate himself, and made one body two, and then crowded them into one again, putting his body into his body, even his whole body into part of his body, and so he must be thought not only to have two bodies, but two bodies so as to be one within another; yea, so as to be one eaten and devoured by another; the absurdity of which and the like assertions, he that hath but half an eye may easily discover. So that it must need be granted to be in a spiritual manner that this sacrament was then instituted, and by consequence that it is in a spiritual manner, that this sacrament ought now to be received.

And this was the judgment of the Fathers. Macarius saith, "In the church is offered bread and wine, the antitype of his flesh and blood; and they that partake of the visible bread do spiritually eat of the flesh of Christ."

And St. Augustine, " Understand spiritually what I say unto you; you must not eat that body which you see, nor drink_that blood which they will shed that crucify me. I have commended to you a certain sacrament; being spiritually understood, it will quicken you; though it be necessary it should be celebrated visibly, yet it must be understood invisibly." For as Elfrick archbishop of Canterbury saith, "That bread is Christ's body, not bodily but spiritually;" and if so, it must needs be eaten spiritually not bodily.

And it being thus only after a spiritual manner that we receive the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament, there can be no other means whereby we can receive him but faith. And therefore saith Origen, "That food which is sanctified by the word of God and prayer, as to the material part of it, it goes into the belly, and is cast out into the draught; but as to the prayer which is added to it, it is made profitable by the proportion of faith." And St. Cyprian, "Drinking and eating belong to the same reason, whereby as the bodily substance is nourished. and

liveth, and remains safe, so is the life of the spirit nourished by this proper food: and what eating is to the flesh, that faith is to the soul; what food is to the body, that the word is to the spirit, working eternally by a more excellent virtue, what the carnal elements do temporally and finally."

In St. Augustine we meet with many expressions to this purpose. "How," saith he, "shall I send up my hand to heaven to lay hold upon him sitting there? Send thy faith, and thou hast laid hold on him." And again, "For to believe in him, this is to eat the living bread; he that believeth in him eateth; he is invisibly fattened who is invisibly regenerated." And again, "This therefore is to eat the food that doth not perish but endureth to eternal life. Why dost thou prepare thy teeth and belly? Believe, and thou hast eaten." So that it is faith whereby we feed upon the body and blood of Christ, and therefore it is not carnally but spiritually that we receive it. "The sacraments of the Lord's Supper were not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped."

The sacramental bread and wine being vainly fancied to be changed into the very body and blood of Christ, it was presently conceived that something more than ordinary honour should be conferred upon it, yea that it was not only to be eaten, but laid up privately, yea carried about publicly, lifted up, and worshipped too, and that with the same worship which is due to the true and living God: and therefore have they appointed a certain holyday too, which they call Corpus Christi " day, wherein the sacramental bread might be annually carried about and religiously worshipped.

Now we having before proved, that this bread is not the very body of Christ, but bread still after as well as before consecration, we have overthrown the very foundations of these gross superstitions; it being only upon that account that they perform so much homage and worship to it, because they think it is not what it seems to be, real bread, but what it doth not seem to be, even the very body of Christ. And the foundation being thus destroyed the superstructure falls of itself, or if it still stands it must be like a castle in the air, without any foundation. To what was therefore before proved, I shall wish the opposers of this truth, or the maintainers of the reservation and adoration of the sacraments, to consider these things.

First, That the doctrine is contrary to Christ's institution. For he said expressly, Take, eat, Matth. xxvi. 26; not, take and reserve it, not, take and carry it about, not, take and worship it, but, Take and eat; this is my body. Neither need I heap up many arguments to prove, that according to Christ's institution, the sacramental bread is not to be reserved, much less worshipped, but eaten; for our adversaries themselves, the reverend fathers in the council of Trent, do acknowledge it. And therefore, howsoever or whensoever this superstition first crept into the church, by their own confession it is contrary to Christ's institution. Secondly, That it quite overthrows the nature of the sacrament. For according to St. Augustin's rule, "If sacraments have not a certain resemblance of the things whereof they are sacraments, they are no sacraments at all." Now wherein is there any resemblance betwixt the body of Christ and bread, but only in the eating? Even because the one received by faith nourisheth and preserveth the spiritual, as the other received into the stomach doth the natural life. The bread itself hath no resemblance at all of his body, neither bath the bread as reserved, or carried about, or worshipped,

any such resemblance; all the resemblance it hath, is in its feeding the body as Christ doth the soul. Christ is the nourishment of our souls, as bread is the nourishment of our bodies; and therefore doth he sometimes call his body bread, and at other times bread his body. And all the resemblance betwixt them consisting only in the bread's nourishment of the body as Christ doth the soul. If the bread should lose its nourishing faculty, it would not be any whit like to Christ body, nor could it be the sacrament of it; and whensoever bread is not eaten, but reserved or carried about, though it may have it, yet it doth not exert any such virtue, and by consequence loseth its resemblance to Christ's body, and so ceaseth to be sacramental bread any longer. And therefore they must know, that the bread they reserve and carry about is not the Body of Christ, nor hath any relation to it upon that very account, because they reserve and carry it about, and do not eat it.

And if these considerations will not convince them, let them in the last place take notice of the testimonies of the primitive church. Origen (or as others think St. Cyril) saith, "The Lord said to them, concerning the bread which he gave to his disciples, Take and eat: he did not defer it, nor command it to be kept till to-morrow." And St. Cyprian, shewing the difference betwixt the sacramental bread and the shew-bread saith, the sacramental bread "is incorporated not injured, received not included." As if he should have said, the shew-bread was included in the ark of the covenant, but so is not this; it is only received, not included or shut up in any thing, and by consequence not reserved. And in the Second Epistle to St. James, attributed to Clemens Romanus, we find it written, "Let as many sacrifices be offered upon the altar as may suffice the people; and if any remain, let them not be reserved until to-morrow, but with fear and dread be consumed by the diligence of the clerks."

To this purpose also it was determined in the Cæsaraugustane council: "If it be proved that any one, having received the grace of the Lord's supper, hath not consumed or eaten it up, let him be anathema for ever.".

To this we may also add the several ways, whereby the primitive church used to dispose of the sacramental bread and wine, which was left after the communicants had all received. . . . St. Jerome tells us, that "after the communion, whatsoever was left of the bread and wine, the communicants themselves eating a common supper in the church, did consume them together." And Hesychius saith, "What was left used to be consumed in the fire." Whence we may observe, that even what was left after the communion was not reserved; but though some used one, others another way. yet all used some way or other to con sume it, so that it might not be reserved.

And if the primitive church was against the reservation, surely it was much more against the adoration of the sacrament, holding as we have showed before, that no person or thing, under any pretence whatsoever, ought to be worshipped besides God. I know it is not bare bread our adversaries say they worship, but Christ in the bread, or the bread in the name of Christ. But I wish them to consider what Gregory Nyssen long ago said, "He that worshippeth a creature, though he do it in the name of Christ, is an idolater, giving the name of Christ to an idol." And therefore, let them not be angry at us for concluding them to be idolaters, whilst they eat one piece of bread, and worship the other; and for asserting that the sacraments ought to be reserved, carried about, or worshipped.

ence to it, and chanted hymus, and heard God's Word in their assemblies both read and preached; but these were not duties peculiar to the faithful, and therefore, when practised by them, were not viewed as the substance of their sacrifice, but rather as accessories to the one great distinctive rite of the Christian liturgy. The first believers at Jerusalem did not forsake the public worship of their countrymen, but after their conversion "continued daily with one accord in the Temple." If they assembled by themselves "in a house or chamber," it was specifically to "break bread." When the disciples at Troas, nearly thirty years later, were gathered together on the first day of the week, it is not said that this was to hear Paul preach, but again, "to break bread." That this was the great recognised and stated object of the assemblies of the first Christians is also implied in the Apostolic rebuke of the disorderly Corinthians :- "When ye come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper; as if he had said, "The very purpose for which Christians meet is the celebration of the Supper of the Lord; but you, by your diserders, defeat that object, and deprive your celebration of every title to that character." To the same effect Ignatius, the disciple of S. John, speaks as if this ordinance was identical with common prayer, or, at least, inseparably connected with it, when he relates of certain heretics, that they "abstained from Eucharist and prayer because they did not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Christ. "3

Much later also, at a time when other offices of public prayer are known to have been provided, the morning service, of which the holy Communion was an inseparable part, was still regarded as the essential and proper worship of the Church. This is apparent from the language of S. Macarius, who died in 391. Illustrating the spiritual service of the Christian in the "temple of the heart" by the external service of the Church, he refers still to the breaking of bread and prayers of the Apostles, though speaking of them, of course, as they were exhibited in the more elaborate ritual of his own day:-"Unless the lessons, psalm-singings, and the whole sequence of the Church's order came before, it would be improper for the priest to celebrate the Divine Mystery itself, of the Body

and Blood of Christ; and again, even if the whole ecclesiastical canon were observed, but the mystical thanksgiving of the oblation by the priest, and the communion of the Body of Christ did not take place, the order of the Church would not be fully kept, and the Divine Service of the Mystery would be defective." It appears from S. Chrysostom, who became Archbishop of Constantinople in 398, that at this period the general term uvažu, a gathering, was in perfect strictness employed to denote solely those general assemblies for public wor ship at which the Eucharist was celebrated. This could only have arisen from its universal recognition as the great purpose for which Christians met together. His words are:-"The awful mysteries. . which are celebrated at every synaxis, are called the Eucharist (thanksgiving), because they are a commemoration of many benefits." By a still more remarkable modification of its meaning, the word was also used, and unquestionably owing to the same cause, to signify the Sacrament itself.

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It is evident that, if the object for which the brethren came together" was "te break bread," all who were present on any such occasion must have been expected to take a part in that holy action. To decline would be to renounce the communion of the faithful. Nay, so universal was the desire to partake of the sacred symbols at every celebration, that before the middle of the second century a custom was es tablished of sending portions to those who were unavoidably absent. We learn this from Justin Martyr, who, in a brief account of the Christian worship, intended to correct the false notions of the heathen, after mentioning the consecration of the elements, describes their distribution in the following terms :-"Those who are called Deacons with us give to each of those present of the bread and wine tempered with water, that have been blessed, to partake of, and carry thereof to those who are not present.”

The Clementine Liturgy cannot be cited as a cotemporary witness to the opinions and practice of the very first age; but it is competent to show what they were thought to have been at a somewhat later, but still early, period. Now in this ancient formulary we find it ordered that, after the Bishop, Presbyters, Deacons, &c., 4 De Caritate, c. xxix. In Gilland, tom. vii. p. 207.

5 Hom, xxv. in S. Matt. Ev. Opp. tom. vii. p. 352. Par 1824-1839.

6 Apol. i. c. 65. Opp. tom. i. p. 266. Jenæ, 1812.

have communicated, "the children and then all the people" shall receive. In the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius, which is of great value on the same ground, we have a full account of the manner in which the Eucharist was celebrated, as he and his cotemporaries supposed, in the first century. According to him, after Psalms had been sung and the holy Seriptures read, "the Catechumens, and beside them the possessed and those in penance, went without the sacred precinct, while those who were worthy of the sight and participation of the Divine things remained." Again, he says of the Bishop, that "uncovering the undivided bread, and dividing it into many pieces, and dealing out the cup to all, he symbolically multiplies and distributes the unity." same practice is supposed in the fabulous Lives of the Apostles under the name of Abdias.1 Thus in the life of S. Thomas: blessed the bread, he communicated it to all;" and in that of S. Matthew:-" When they had answered, Amen, and the mysteries of the Lord had been celebrated, and all the Church had received mass, ," &c. In the Liturgy ascribed to S. Chrysostom, is a prayer addressed to Christ (which might, or might not, have had a place in the earlier form on which that Liturgy was founded), that he would "vouchsafe to impart His undefiled Body and precious Blood" to the officiating clergy, and "through them to all the people.'

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The

Having

Even so late as the middle of the ninth century persons were still found who thought themselves bound by the old rule. "There are some," says Walafridus Strabo, "who think it enough for the dignity of the sacraments to communicate once in the day, even if present at several masses; but there are others who wish to communicate, as in one, so in all the masses at which they are present in the day."4 "There were then in the time of Strabo," observes Cardinal Bona, some so tenacious of the original custom of communicating in the mass at which they were present, that they did not hesitate to receive the communion more than

7 Tr. prefixed to Brett's Dissert, on Liturgies, p. 10. Lond. 1838. 8 C. iii. sect. ii. Opp. tom. i. p. 284. 9 Ibid. sect. iii. n. 12; p. 299. Sim. in the paraphrase of Pachymeres, p. 327.

1 Apost. Hist. 1. ix. p. 103. Basil. 1552.

2 Ibid. 1. vii. p. 91.

3 Liturg. PP. p. 103. Par. 1560. Brett, p. 39.

De Reb. Eccl. c. 22, apud Hittorp. de Div. Off. p. 409. Colon. 1568.

Of the original rule, then, it is not possible for us to entertain a doubt. There was, however, an occasional inconvenience in its observance, which led in the course of time to some very important changes. It might happen, in those Churches which had a daily celebration, that a person was indisposed to communicate, though, at the same time, not willing to forego the privilege of united prayer. The scruple about daily communion is treated by S. Augustine in the following manner, in a passage which it may be desirable to give at some length :-"I have observed with grief, that many of the anxieties of the weak are occasioned by the contentious obstinacy or superstitious fearfulness of certain brethren, who, in matters like this, which can never be determined with certainty, either by the authority of holy Scripture, or the tradition of the universal Church, or by their tendency to promote amendment of life, raise disputes so merely factious, that they think nothing to be right but what they do themselves. [For example] because some argument for them, such as it is, has come 5 Rer. Liturg. lib. i. c. xiv. Opp. p. 233. Antv. 172.

6 Justin Martyr, writing at Rome about the year 150, speaks of the Sacrament as celebrated every Sunday, Apol. i. c. 67 tom. i. p. 268. It has been inferred from the expres sion stato die in Pliny's well-known letter to Trajan, that the same custom revailed in Asia Minor in the early part of the same century. Epp. 1. x. Ep. xcvii. p. 566. Ed. Gesuer, Lips. 1805. Tertullian, writing at Carthage about fifty years after Justin, implies a more frequent celebration; for he speaks of those who scruple to receive on the fast days. De Orat. c. xiv.; tom. iv. p. 15. Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus, A.D 220, speaks of the Body and Blood of Christ as daily consecrated. Fragm. in Prov. ix. 1. Opp. tom. i. p. 282. Hamb. 1716 S. Cyprian in Africa, some thirty years later, mentions daily communion, as if it were the usual practice of all. De Oat. Dom. Tract. p. 147; Ep. lviii. ad Pleb. Thibar. p. 120. Eusebius of Cæsarea in Palestine expresses himself in the same manner in the early part of the next century. Demonstr. Evan. 1. i. c. x. p. 37. Par 1625 There can be no doubt that S. Augustine's account of the matter was true of the ages before him as well as his own-There are some customs which vary in different places and regions, as that some fast on Saturday, others nt; some daily communicate in the Body and Blood of the Lord, others receive on certain days; in one place not a day passes without the offering, in another it is only on the Sabbath and the Lord's day, in a third on the Lord's day only." Ep. i, ad. Januar. § 2. Ep. liv. Opp. tom. ii. col. 186. Par. 1896 -1838. Sim. 8. Jerome ad Luc n. u.s, who adds:- Unaquæque provincia abundet in sensu suo, et præcepta majorum leges Apostolicas arbitretur. From Acts xx. 7. compared with ii. 42, 46, it has been inferred that the same diversity of practice existed under the Apostles; there being, it would' seem, a weekly communion at Troas, and a daily at Jerusalem.