fectly, as to be corporeally and literally, the very same flesh and blood which were sacrificed upon the cross, the difference being in the outward appearance merely. But is not this a manifest trifling with their own rule of interpretation? Is it not rejecting the literal sense in one place, while they contend for it in the other place, although in both, our Lord is speaking of the very same thing? Is it not further liable to the fatal objection, that the right and the wrongthe propriety or the abomination of a literal eating and drinking human flesh and blood,—is made to turn, not upon the substantial reality, but on the mere outward disguise? So that while they acknowledge it would be atrocious to eat our Lord's flesh, if it looked like flesh, the sin becomes piety, when it is his flesh under the outward appearance of bread! Surely, however, it must be manifest, that the outward appearance cannot change the quality of the act, when the doer of the act professes to know that it is only an outward appearance; and therefore they are involved in the strange absurdity of asserting, that the eating and drinking human flesh and blood, which is confessed to be an atrocious barbarity in one chapter, becomes an act of the highest religion in the other.

Out of this difficulty I can see no way of escape. For if they allege that our Saviour's body and blood were in the one case natural, whereas in the case of the Eucharist they are produced by miracle, it will be plain that it is no answer, for two reasons. First, because our Saviour's natural body and blood were as perfectly the product of a MIRACLE as his sacramental body and blood can be; and secondly, because it is their own doctrine that THEY ARE THE SAME. Listen to the prayer at the Mass, directed to be offered by the people, when the Host is lifted up; that is, the consecrated bread of the sacrament, which they call the Host, from the Latin word hostia, signifying the victim, or the sacrifice. The bell is rung to give notice to the congrega

tion, the priest lifts up the consecrated wafer or Host on high, all the people fall on their knees, and this is the prayer addressed to it:

"Hail, O victim of salvation! eternal King! incarnate Word! sacrificed for me and all mankind. Hail! precious body of the Son of God. Hail! sacred flesh, torn with nails, pierced with a lance, and bleeding on the cross for us poor sinners." (True Piety, p. 61.)

In like manner, at the elevation of the chalice with the consecrated wine, there is a similar address to it.

"Hail, sacred blood! flowing from the wounds of Christ, and washing away the sins of the world. O cleanse, sanc

tify and preserve my soul." (Ib. 62.)

Thus, too, in one of the acts directed before communion, (True Piety, p. 122,) the communicant uses these words: "Yes, my dear Saviour, I openly confess, and am inwardly convinced, that it is thou thyself I am going to receive; thou who for my sake wast born in a manger; thou who for my redemption didst die on a cross, and who, though now gloriously seated on thy heavenly throne, still continuest on earth, under the sacramental veils, to feed and nourish the souls of men. Were I to behold thee with my corporeal eyes, and examine the impressions of the wounds thou didst receive in thy sacred hands and side, as St. Thomas did, still I could not say with more confidence than I do now, that thou art my Lord and my God. Though my senses may tell me it is nothing but mere bread, yet submitting them entirely in obedience to divine faith, I answer, it is thy real body and blood, accompanied by thy soul and divinity." Here, brethren, it is perfectly plain, that the sacramental body and the natural body are regarded as precisely identical in substance and reality; and therefore the eating and drinking must be substantially and really the same act in the one case, that it would be in the other. Consequently the neces

sity for abandoning the literal sense, for the figurative and spiritual, must be the same in both.

This brings me to the second argument, namely, that the doctrine of the Church of Rome obliges us to contradict the evidence of the senses, in a matter which is the proper object of sense; and thus to cast aside the highest testimony which God himself has committed to his creatures. True, indeed, they try to evade this argument by telling us, that it is as contrary to reason that God should be Three and One, as it is contrary to sense that flesh should exist with the appearance of bread, and blood with the appearance of wine. But this appears to me to be a mere sophism. In receiving the doctrine of the Word of God concerning the Trinity, we are not called upon to contradict our reason. The calumny sometimes heard against the Trinity, that the proposition is contradictory, arises from the ignorance of the objector. For we do not hold that God is Three, in the same respect as he is One, but that he is THREE in personality, and ONE in essence or in substance, which, however it may be above our reason, can never be justly said to be contradictory to it. Indeed, so far is religion from demanding a contradiction either to sense or reason, that all its evidences appeal directly to the senses, and through them to the reason. When our Saviour performed his wonderful works, he addressed himself to the senses, in proof of his doctrine. When he changed the water into wine, how did his disciples know the fact! By their senses. When he fed the thousands with a few loaves and fishes; when he walked on the water; when he raised Lazarus from the dead; when he healed the deaf, the blind, the halt and the maimed; when he cast out devils, and said to the raging billows, "Peace, be still;" how did the apostles know what was done? By their senses. When he bowed his sacred head upon the cross, arose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, how did they learn these truths? By the senses. And therefore we see that THE WHOLE

HISTORY OF THE GOSPEL, the divinity, the humanity, the miracles, and the sacrifice of our Lord, derived their testimony from sense, and from sense alone.

Perfectly regardless of all this, the doctors of Rome tell us, when arguing about their dogma of transubstantiation, that we must not trust our senses to inform us whether a certain substance is bread or flesh, and whether a certain other substance is wine or blood. Christ said so, they exclaim, and therefore it must be true. The question, however, is not, what did our blessed Lord say, but how are we to understand him? For his words admit of two interpretations; one of which is consistent with the senses and reason, while the other grossly contradicts them both. The Church of Rome insists that we shall take the contradictory interpretation, because it suits best, as they think, with the words of the Gospel. But how do we know the words are in the Gospel? By our senses. Our eyes testify that the language is recorded. And how do we know that the substance of the bread and of the wine remain unchanged by the prayer of consecration? By our senses. The same eyes that bear the one testimony, bear also the other. The Church of Rome, therefore, places herself in this dilemma, that the same eyes which she commands us to believe one moment, she requires us to disbelieve the next. Neither is this the whole extent of the absurdity. For we have only the sense of sight to satisfy us that the words are in the Bible, but we have the sight, the smell, the taste, and the touch, all testifying that the bread is not flesh, and that the wine is not blood. And yet the Church of Rome commands us, under pain of damnation, TO DISBELIEVE THE WHOLE FOUR SENSES, in order to comply with her claim of infallibility. Truly, my brethren, it is hard to know which we should most admire in such a doctrine, the boldness which demands the acquiescence of mankind under the penalty of a curse, or

the infatuation which has bowed the intellect of millions to such a monstrous proposition.

Now these arguments we think amply sufficient to show, that when our Lord uttered the words: "This is my body which is broken for you, this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for you," he designed not to establish transubstantiation, but to set forth figuratively and spiritually the great truth on which rests the whole application of the Gospel system, namely, that his sincere and faithful people must be incorporated with him in body and soul, in order to their redemption; and therefore that in this blessed sacrament he would give himself to them, and unite himself to them, mystically and spiritually, though really, for that gracious and glorious purpose: while, in the bread and wine, appointed as the outward symbols of this spiritual mystery, he designed to exhibit, not his actual flesh and blood, but an expressive figure or emblem of them. For otherwise, in adopting the literal sense, so as to imagine a total change of the substance of the bread into Christ's natural flesh, and the substance of the wine into his natural blood, we contradict the divine system given to the Israelites, to which the notion of feeding upon human flesh and blood would have been utterly abhorrent; we contradict the evidence of the senses in the proportion of four out of five; we contradict the order of faith, since faith cometh by hearing, that is, by the sense, which is the only avenue to the mind. And this complicated contradiction of Scripture, sense, and reason, is to serve no end; because the incorporation of the faithful with Christ, both in body and soul, and his presence in the sacrament for that purpose, is provided for as perfectly by our doctrine as by theirs, and in a manner which we think much more suitable to the character of the Christian system. For this view of the subject presents a true analogy with the other great sacrament of Baptism. "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit," saith our Lord," he cannot enter