with weak and superstitious notions. Every well-conducted attempt to elucidate its nature, and the scriptural mode of its celebration, is therefore intitled to a candid reception, from all who are desirous to shew that they are the friends of Christ, by doing whatsoever he has commanded.

Of this description is the valuable and learned tract of which we are now to give an account. It is distinctly characterized by strong sense, sound learning, unaffected piety, and a devout reverence for the authority of the scriptures. To many readers, the statements it contains will appear as novel as they are interesting; to others, whose habits and studies have previ ously led them to an accurate examination of the subject, it will recal many pleasing and important views of this distinguishing ordinance of the New Testament; and if on some dubious and controverted points they should differ from the learned author, they will cheerfully approve the genuine candour and manly simplicity with which his opinions are stated.

Dr. Clarke justly considers" the eucharist as a rite designed by God to keep up a continual remembrance of the doctrine of the atonement." As this view of the subject would lead him to speak of the Jewish passover, he has prefixed to his discourse, "an examination of the question, did our Lord eat the passover with his disciples on the last year of his public ministry?" As this is a subject on which the Christian world has been divided for at least 1500 years, Dr. C. observes, that a decision on the case is not to be expected; but he has fairly stated the principal opinions and the reasons by which they are supported. The chief opinions are the four following: 1. Christ did not eat the passover on the last year of his ministry. 2. He did eat it that year, and at the same time with the Jews. 3. He did eat it that year, but not at the same time with the Jews. 4. He did eat a passover of his own instituting, but widely different from that eaten by the Jews." The first opinion, as maintained by Dr. Wall in his critical notes on Matth. xxvi. 17, is quoted at large. The second is that of Archbishop Newcome, whose argument is given from his harmony and notes. The third was espoused by the learned Cudworth, who supposed that our Saviour observed the passover on the evening of the 14th of Nisan, reckoned from the true change of the moon, and that the Jews, in observing the following day, reckoned from the decree of the Sanhedrim, 'in announcing the phasis, which was not correct. The fourth opinion is that of Mr. Toinard, who 66 that supposes our Lord at this time instituted the eucharist in place of the paschal lamb." To this sentiment Dr. C. inclines. Our limits will not permit us fully to discuss a question which has employed the pens of many learned men in

different ages, and our remarks must be brief. Epiphanius, was perhaps the first who maintained, that Christ ate the passover on the 13th of Nisan. Grotius, on Matth. xxvi. 18. ex-. presses the same opinion. Scaliger and Casaubon thought that Christ ate the passover on the proper day, but that the Jews deferred it this year according to certain rules by which they regulated their feasts, one of which was that the passoover should never be celebrated on a Friday, lest two sab-` baths should come together. (Godwin's Moses and Aaron, B. iii. c. 7.) We are disposed to think that the weight of evi dence preponderates in favour of the second opinion, which was adopted by Newcome, Whitby, and many other divines,, English and Foreign, viz. that Christ did eat the passover in the last year of his ministry at the same time as the rest of the Jews did, that it was slain on Thursday the 14th of Nisan before sun-set, and eaten the same evening, which was the beginning of the 15th. In the accounts of the Evangelists, there is no intimation, that our lord ate it at a different time from the other Jews, nor is it supposable that the priests at the temple would have slain the paschal lamb for him, at a different time, contrary to their general usage. Neither is there any intimation in the gospels, that it was not the real Jewish passover that our Lord then ate. The opinion that the eucharist is intended by the term " passover," in Luke xxii. 15, is altogether hypothetical, and unsupported by direct proof. We are fully sensible of the dif ficulties arising from three passages in the gospel of St. John; but we do not think them incompatible with the opinion we have expressed. John xviii. 28, does not decide that the Jews had not eaten the passover on the preceding evening, for the term sometimes signifies not the paschal lamb, but other sacrifices offered at that time, and particularly on the first day of unleavened bread; see 2 Chron. xxxv. 7-9, Luke xxii. 1, which prove that the Jews were inaccurate in speaking of the passo ver, and applied the term to the whole festival of unleavened bread, and the various sacrifices offered at that period. John xiii. 1. before the feast of the passover, may mean just before they partook of it; and Save yoμEve, in verse 2, does not mean supper being ended, but supper being prepared, or while they were at supper, see Doddridge and Guise in loco. John xix. 14, where the day on which our Lord was crucified is called the preparation of the passover, probably means the preparation of the sabbath in the paschal week, which was a high day, and had peculiar sacrifices appointed by the law, (Lev. xxiii. 7.) Iti exceedingly remarkable, that the same day, which in this passage of St. John is called the preparation of the passover, is in Mark xv. 42, and Luke xxiii. 54, called the preparation of the sabbath. The saσxen тOU Tα seems therefore to

2

mean the παρασκευη oι προσάββατον which occurred in the pas chal week. With these hints we must take leave of the question, referring the reader who may wish to pursue it further, to Dr. Jennings's Jewish Antiquities, vol. ii. pp. 176--181, and the authors mentioned in his notes; at the same time expressing our thanks to Dr. C. for the pains he must have taken in drawing up this neat summary of the controversy.

R

We now turn to the discourse itself, in which, after an appropriate exordium, Dr. C. proposes to lay before his readers some observations, on the nature and design of this institution, the manner of its celebration, the meaning of the different epithets given to it in the scriptures and by the primitive church, with a few reasons to enforce the due and religious celebration of it. Considering this ordinance as a substitute for the passover, he shews, under the first division of his subject, both from the scriptures, and the ancient Jewish and Christian writers, that the paschal lamb was a sacrifice of a piacular nature. The evidence on this important point is satisfactorily stated from Maimonides, the Mishna, and Justin Martyr, in collecting which Dr. C. acknowledges his obliga. tions to Dr. Cudworth's learned and excellent tract, and sub. joins, from Dr. Waterland's review of the doctrine of the eu charist, the points of resemblance between the Jewish and Christian passover. Dr. C. is not to be classed with those, we pres me, who believe or who assert it as self-evident, that there is such an analogy between these rites, and between circumcision and baptism, as will sustain a regular and decisive argument from the former to the latter respectively; but it was obviously inconsistent with his plan, to discuss this celebrated ques-, tion minutely, or to examine the arguments of those who suggest, that the analogy is rather illustrative than demonstrative; that in asimilar vague sense, Christian places of worship are substitutes for synagogues, apostles for prophets, and ministers for priests; that substitution does not necessarily imply perfect siniilarity, or warrant analogical inference; that in this particular instance the similarity is clearly incomplete, the Christian church being purely spiritual without respect to family or nation, and the subjects of the several rites being different, inasmuch as females are admitted to baptism, and infants are excluded from the supper; and that the substitu ti, more properly, is that of baptism for Jewish ablutions, and of the eucharist for Jewish sacrifices.

In considering, under the second branch of his subject, the manner of celebrating this divine rite, our author distinctly notices every circumstance in the original institution, as recorded by the Evangelists, and St. Paul in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, and makes many judicious critical remarks. He pleads earnestly and cogently for the use of unleavened

bread, and for the practice of breaking only, to the exclusion of cutting. We read with peculiar satisfaction the following observations, on the act of our Lord in giving thanks when he instituted this ordinance.

< But what was it that our Lord blessed? Not the bread, though many think the contrary, being deceived by the word IT, which is improperly supplied in our version. In all the four places referred to above, whether the word blessed or gave thanks is used, it refers not to the bread but to God, the dispenser of every good. Our Lord here conforms himself to that constant Jewish custom, viz. of acknowledging God as the author of every good and perfect gift, by giving thanks on taking the bread, and taking the cup at their ordinary meals. No blessing therefore of the elements is here intended; they were already blessed, in being sent as a gift of mercy from the bountiful Lord: but God the sender is blessed, because of the liberal provision he has made for his worthless creatures. Blessing and touching the bread, are merely popish ceremonies, unauthorised either by Scripture, or the practice of the pure church of God; necessary of course to them who pretend to transmute, by a kind of spiritual incantation, the bread and wine, into the real body and blood of Jesus Christ; a measure, the grossest in folly, and most stupid in nonsense, to which God, in judgment, ever abandoned the fallen spirit of man. What, under God, generated PROTESTANTISM? The Protestation of a few of his followers in 1529, against the supremacy of the Pope, the extravagant, disgraceful and impious doctrine of transubstantiation, and the sale of indulgences connected with it. But let the Protestant take care that while he rejects a doctrine teeming with monstrous absurdities, and every contradictious sentiment, he also avoid those acts and ridiculous rites, such as blessing and touching the sacred elements, by which it was pretended, this fancied transubstantiation was brought about.' pp. 45, 46, 47.

In reference to the language of Christ, This is my body, there are many just and forcible remarks against the doctrine of transubstantiation; and to prove that they are not unnecessary in this enlightened age," Dr. C. has transcribed the eighth Lesson of the "Catechism for the use of all the Churches in the French empire," published in 1806 by authority of Bonaparte, with the Bull of the Pope, and the mandamus of the Archbishop of Paris. We have not room for these documents, but we insert his remarks, as he also introduced them, because popery is always the same.

In the Hebrew, Chaldee and Chaldeo-Syriak 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. So Gen. xli. 26, 27. The seven kine ARË (i. e. represent) seven years. This is (represents) the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. Dan. vii. 24. The ten horns

* Translated by the Rev. David Bogue. See Ecl. Rev. Vol. III.

p. 151.

ARE (i. e. signify) ten kings. They drank of the spiritual Rock which followed them, and the Rock WAS (represented) Christ. 1 Cor. x. 4. And following this Hebrew idiom, though the work is written in Greek, we find, in Rev. i. 20, the seven stars ARE (represent) the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks ARE (represent) the seven churches. The same form of speech is used in a variety of places in the New Testament, where this sense must necessarily be given to the word.-Matt. xiii. 38, 39. The field is (represents) the world: the good seed ARE (represent or signify) the children of the kingdom: the tares ARE (signify) the children of the wicked one. The enemy is (signifies) the devil: the harvest is (represents) the end of the world the reapers ARE (i. e. signify) the angels.-Luke viii. 9. What might this parable BE? Tis EIH n Tagaboλn aurn; what does this parable SIGNIFY?-John vii. 36. Ts E£TIN OUTOS o hoyos; what is the SIGNIFICATION of this saying.-John x. 6. They understood not what things they WERE, TZ HN, what was the SIGNIFICATION of the things he had spoken to them.-Acts x. 17. T av EIH to ogaμa, what this vision MIGHT BE; properly rendered by our translators, what this vision should MEAN.-Gal. iv. 24. For these ARE the two covenants: αυται γας ΕΙΣΙΝ αι δυο διαθήκαι, these SIGNIFY the two covenants.—Luke xv. 26. He asked, τ EIH тavtα, what these things MEANT: see also ch. xviii. 36. After such unequivocal testimony from the sacred writings, can any person doubt that, This bread is my body, has any other meaning than, This REPRESENTS my body.' pp. 51, 52.

But this form of speech is common, even in our own language, though we have terms enow to fill up the ellipsis. Suppose a man entering into a museum, enriched with the remains of ancient Greek sculpture ; his eyes are attracted by a number of curious busts; and, on enquiring what they are, he learns, this is Socrates, that Plato, a third Homer others Hesiod, Horace, Virgil, Demosthenes, Cicero, Herodotus, Livy, Cæsar, Nero, Vespasian, &c. Is he deceived by this information? Not at all he knows well that the busts he sees are not the identical persons of those ancient philosophers, poets, orators, historians, -and emperors, but only REPRESENTATIONS of their persons in sculpture, between which and the originals there is as essential a difference as between a human body, instinct with all the principles of rational vitality, and a block of marble. When, therefore, Christ took up a piece of bread, brake it, and said, this is my body, who but the most stupid. of mortals could imagine that he was, at the same time, handling and breaking his own body! Would not any person, of plain common sense, see as great a difference between the man Christ Jesus and the piece of bread, a between the block of marble and the philosopher it represented, in the ease referred to above? The truth is, there is scarcely a more common form of speech, in any language, than this is, for this represents, or signifies. And as our Lord refers, in the whole of this transaction, to the ordinance of the Passover, we may consider him as saying, “This bread is now my body, in that sense in which the Paschal Lamb has been my body hitherto; and this cup is my blood of the New Testament, in the same sense as the blood of bulls and goats has been my blood