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to believe on pain of damnation that the cup is converted into a new Testament?

2nd. We object to this mode of interpreting the word of God as exceedingly dangerous, and in the last degree injurious to the interests of Christianity. The serious student of the Bible sincerely and simply inquiring after the truth, and examining its contents with due caution, in a humble reverential spirit, will find little difficulty in perceiving which passages are to be understood literally, or in distinguishing them from those which require a figurative or symbolical interpretation. But if the advocate of any religious theory be allowed to ring the changes between a literal and metaphorical interpretation, strictly demanding for one half of a sentence a literal explanation, and taking the remaining part figuratively, and adopting the method best suited to his purpose in each particular case, the holy scriptures may be made to seem to countenance the wildest enthusiasm, or the most fatal heresies. If we are to understand the words of our Lord, in the institution of the last supper, in a strictly literal sense, consistency demands that we pursue the same course in several other instances, in most of which the effect would be to make the sacred word appear ridiculous.

For example: our Lord, in the "Sermon on the Mount" to enforce the abandonment of all evil practices, gives the exhortation,-"If thy right

eye offend thee, pluck it out; if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off." Let these expressions, and the arguments they are used to illustrate, be submitted to this process, and instead of the wost solemn admonition we have sentences which could scarcely be read with a serious countenance. Again, he applies to himself several striking metaphors. He says, "I am the door." "I am the vine." The apostle Paul says, "That rock was Christ." And the beloved disciple John says, "The seven candlesticks are the seven churches." Who would ever allow the irreverent thought that our adorable Lord was changed into a literal door, or a literal vine, or a bare rock, or the absurd conceit that the seven candlestick were literally transubstantiated into seven churches? Pursuing the scriptural and Protestant mode of interpreting the figurative language of the word of God, we are not only relieved from all difficulty respecting these expressions, but perceive them to be beautiful illustrations of the sublimity, consistency, and harmony, of the sacred volume. The rock describes the sure foundation of our best hopes, "the rock of ages," the vine is the symbol of the union of believers to the Redeemer; it represents him as the fountain of vital influence to all the faithful; the door, the one medium of access to God-to heaven. The seven candlesticks are symbols of the seven churches; and, by a parity of reasoning, the bread is not transubstantiated into the real flesh

of Christ; but is an expressive and appropriate symbol, to represent his body, which he gave for the life of the world.

The learned and laborious Dr. Adam Clarke, in his commentary on the words, observes, "That in the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Chaldee-Syriac languages, there is no term which expresses to mean, signify, denote, though both the Greek and Latin abound with them, hence the Hebrews use a figure and say, it is, for it signifies; * this he illustrates by several conclusive examples. The truth is, that there is scarcely any more common form of speech in any language, than this. We use it every day in our own, and the connection always fixes the meaning. If in a gallery of painting or statuary, I should say to you that is Cromwell, or that is Milton; or if in turning over the maps of an atlas with my children, I say this is France, or that is Europe, or that is England, in neither case could there be any mistake, unless I should encounter a more than ordinary amount of stupidity or perverseness. Before we conclude our remarks on this unsatisfactory mode of scriptural interpretation, it may be well to notice the manner in which it has been applied to one of the most important discourses of our Lord. When he

* An excellent Protestant writer on the Lord's Supper, considers this argument not deserving of particular stress,-because, he says, "the Evangelists wrote in Greek, in which they could easily have found a suitable verb." But surely it was their desire in this instance to record the very expression the Saviour used.

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reproved the unworthy motives of the multitudes who followed him, after the miracle of feeding the five thousand in the wilderness, he enforced the necessity of a spiritual participation of the benefits of his mediation in figurative language.-" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." The Roman Catholic contends that this is so explicit an avowal of the doctrine of transubstantiation, as to amount to irresistible evidence of its truth; to which we reply:-It would prove too much, because it is immediately followed by the declaration, "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life." We admit that the church of Rome has founded on these words the soul-destroying delusion, of sacramental efficacy, and impiously and cruelly places in the mouth of the expiring man, as a certain passport to immortal bliss, the consecrated wafer; but this is but an aggravation of the error. We know that the repenting malefactor who was crucified with Jesus, was by him received into heaven; and we have unquestionable proof that he never partook of the Lord's Supper; but may we not fear that numbers who have received the sacred symbols, have never been partakers of Christ. Again, when these words were spoken, the eucharist had not been instituted, and could not therefore be the subject to which they were designed to refer. But if any doubt of their figurative import remain, it is decided by a sen

tence in the subsequent part of the same discourse, in which our Lord reproves the carnal idea the Jews attached to his words, when they inquired, How can this man give us his flesh to eat, by saying, "THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK UNTO YOU THEY ARE SPIRIT AND THEY ARE LIFE." That is, they relate to spiritual realities, they illustrate spiritual truths, they promise a spiritual life. Even if it were possible to eat of my flesh, and drink my blood literally, it could not in the least degree promote your salvation, for "

THE FLESH

PROFITETH NOTHING." See John vi. 51-63.

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3. This method of interpreting the Saviour's words in the institution of the eucharist is directly opposed to the characteristics ascribed to his human nature, since his resurrection from the dead, in the plainest passages of Scripture. When he first appeared to his disciples they were alarmed. He composed their minds by inviting them to obtain satisfactory proof of his personal identity ;Behold," said he, "my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet." Luke xxiv. 39, 40. It is evident then, that the presence of the body of Christ may be discovered by the senses; how then can I admit that the wafer is transubstantiated into that body, when all my senses testify to the contrary? We are taught that in respect to the

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