We have already, in former numbers of this Review, spoken at length on transubstantiation; and would only, on this occasion, add a few words concerning sacrifice and sacraments in their large and general sense. One of our Reformers, in showing wherein we differ from the Romanists, but agree with the primitive Church, says that the fathers do, with one consent, call the Lord's Supper a sacrifice; which that it is hath also been willingly granted, and openly taught by the Reformers; but this in the sense of the fathers, and not according to the glosses of the Romanists. For in the Lord's Supper there are four kinds of sacrifice, and not one of these is the sacrifice which the Romanists assert; for there, besides the sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving which we must then offer to God for our redemption, and all other graces which he bestowed on us in Christ his Son; besides the dedication of our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, living, and holy sacrifice, to serve and please Him; besides the alms and oblations then given for the relief of the poor, and other good uses-all of which are enjoined as sacrifices, and are offerings incident to the table of the Lord-the Supper itself is a public memorial of that great and dreadful sacrifice in the death and blood-shedding of our Saviour, and a most assured application of the merits of his passion for the remission of sins; not to the gazerson, or standers by, but to those that with faith come to the dae receiving of those holy mysteries. The visible sacrifice of bread and wine St. Austin enforceth in these words :

Hold most firmly, neither doubt of this in any case, that the only begotten Son of God, taking of our flesh, offered himself a sweetsmelling sacrifice to God: to whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, the patriarchs, prophets, and priests, under the law, sacrificed brute beasts; and to whom now, in the time of the New Testament, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church throughout the world doth not cease to offer the sacrifice of bread and wine in faith and charity. In those carnal sacrifices there was a figuration of the flesh of Christ which he should offer, and the blood which he should shed for the remission of our sins. In this sacrifice there is a thanksgiving and remembrance of the flesh which he hath offered, and the blood which the same God-man hath shed for us.”—(De fide, c. 19). And again:

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"Was not Christ once sacrificed in himself? And yet in a sacrament is he offered, for the benefit of the people-not every paschal feast only, but every day. Neither is it false to say Christ is offered ;" for if sacraments had not a certain similitude of the things whereof /¡they be sacraments, they should be no sacraments at all; and by reason of this similitude, they usually take the names of the things themselves.". -(Ad Bonif. c. 231.

woud W If it were possible, by any such miraculous change as is meant by transubstantiation, to make atonement for sin, it might have been done at any time, and with any bread, and wine, before the coming of Christ, as well as after; and if it were possible, we may be sure it would have been done the sufferings of Christ would have been spared the Son of God would not have died if it were possible, the incarnation was unnecessary, and Christ died in vain. But it was not possible; it was by taking the nature of man, and no other, that the sin of man could be atoned for; and all other sacrifices only pointed to the one sacrifice which alone had any efficacy the Lamb of God.lt esbizod orift 101: 1192ch 29

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And the mistake of the Romanists begins earlier than transubstantiation earlier than the sacrament itself: for, they are in error concerning the meaning of sacrifice in general, what it was that constituted it, and what were its real intention and effects! The meaning of sacrifice is not exhausted by the death of the victim, and by its being laid upon the altar; for, being there, the fire must be kindled, showing that it must ascend into heaven, and must be an accepted act, in order to bring out the full meaning of sacrifice. And the blood, as we have already stated, was no part of the sacrifice: it was the preparation for it, and was washed away from the sacrifice before it was laid upon the altar, being as strictly prohibited from being offered as its being eaten was forbidden. The blood denotes the natural life which must be renounced, in coming to God and the blood of Christ is applied to our souls in baptism, in which sacrament we are represented as buried with him, and raised to newness of life. And for effecting this in us, the Holy Spirit is the agent, symbolized by the water; and therefore it is the washing of regeneration, and renewal of the Holy Ghost The fire consuming the sacrifice, d especially when that fire came down from heaven, as in so many instances, it did, showed the acceptance of the offering, and the changing its form from earthly to heavenly; sublimating, rarifying, and spiritualizing its grosser qualities, and translating it in smoke to the clouds. All sacrifice denoted thus the extinction of one form of being, and putting on a new and higher form in the act of sacrifice. It is, in short, death, resurrection, and glorification, as these were exemplified in Christ Jesus, whom they all typified, and whose sacrifice alone gives the true key and explanation of them all. For the sacrifices were nothing in themselves: "It is not possible (says: St. Paul) that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away şin:" no creature thing could take it away: the Son of God

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alone could take it away, and that by assuming the body prepared for him.....

Therefore all preceding sacrifices had no other intent-no other efficacy than as representations of Him who was about to come, and quickening faith in that which he was about to do. And all succeeding sacrifice keeps our faith alive in what he hath done, and shows forth his death until his kingdom come. And to show their similarity, whether before or after his coming, the Supper was instituted before his death, to commemorate that death ever after. But, as a sacrament, it is more than this; it is what no mere sacrifice was, or could be; it is a sacrament, as well as a sacrifice-it is a means of grace, as well as a memorial. For it is a channel of the Holy Ghost for the sustenance of that heavenly life which was brought into the world by Christ Jesus, and for the imparting of which to us Christian baptism is the appointed ordinance. That theology is shallow which overlooks this sacramental aspect of the Lord's Supper-an aspect which nothing in the Old Testament can pretend to which belongs exclusively to the New, the Christian dispensation-and overlooks it to dwell almost exclusively upon the sacrificial aspect which it has in common with the Mosaic and patriarchal rites. Christian ordinances, as being channels of the Holy Ghost, and especially this, the chiefest of them all, are lifted immeasurably above all sacrifices, and types, and symbols-as life-giving realities, when compared with beggarly elements.

The doctrine of transubstantiation was not heard of in the Church for more than a thousand years; was not partially affirmed till the fourth Lateran Council, 1215; was not fully established till the Council of Florence, 1439; and is, in all respects, absurd. The doctrine rests solely upon a gross and literal interpretation of the words of our Lord, "This is my body" which they have so glossed over as to make them mean, “This is my body, soul, and divinity;" for such is the sense they contend for. The expressions of our Lord, pushed to the utmost, do not g go so far as St. Paul's words, when he says that they drank of the rock that followed them, which rock was Christ." For our Lord only says, "This is my body," not my person; but St. Paul says the rock was Christa far larger expression, and including the whole person. Yet no one is yet mad enough to maintain that the rock Horeb, or rock and stream of water together, became Christ personal-Christ in his body, soul, and divinity.

And when it is considered that the bread is intended to be eaten, the absurdity is seen in its full colours. Men first adore

a thing, and then eat it eat that which they have regarded as a god!—which thing being thus incorporated by them, they themselves should, by parity of reason, be regarded as something more than god-something more than the thing which they have power to incorporate. For sacraments were instituted for the benefit of the Church-for the living members of the body of Christ; and Christ has promised to dwell in them, and abide with them for ever. Christ in us, the hope of glory, is the end of all sacraments and all means of grace. The Church, built up by means of sacraments, shall endure for ever -the sacraments perish in the using. In the Church, perfected through these means, the glory of God is to be manifested -not in the sacraments, however necessary thereunto. MEN are the members of Christ-bread is not. In them Christ abides, and they in him-which cannot be said of the bread. Christ will raise them up at the last day-the bread he will not. They shall reign with him for ever and ever the bread shall not. He is more really in us than in the bread: yet are not we transubstantiated in consequence.

The sacrament is no part of the mystical body of Christ, as we are. We are knit to him, even by the truth of his and our nature, flesh, and substance, which he truly assumed for this very end. We, as fellow-members of that body of which he is the head, are united to Christ more closely than any other creature thing can be. But the soul of man, not the body of man, is the dwelling-place of Christ; to reach man's soul his body is used; and for the impartation of the inward spiritual grace to the soul of man, the outward visible signs in sacra» mental things are employed. ai

And therefore the great Council of Nice directed the whole Church to lift up their hearts, above the bread and wine that they saw; and by faith to conceive the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of man, and proposed and exhibited on the Lord's table in those mysteries. Let us not basely bend our minds on the bread and the cup that are set before our eyes ; but, lifting up our understanding, in faith consider υψάντες την διάνοιαν. Mistel voyawpev, on that sacred table, the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. Which admonition the Church ever after observed, in calling on the people to lift up their hearts," sursum corda." They lifted up their hearts to Him that sat in heaven, and looked down upon them; and their prayers were directed to the same place and person that their hearts were. Not one of the fathers for eight hundred years spake of the real presence in the Roman sense, or according to their gross construction of the words “This is my body.” Hyper

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bolical speeches there are in Chrysostom, and some strained similitudes in Damascene and others; but a manifest testimony for the real and carnal présence there is not; and the primitive and orthodox fathers are clearly against it. But two rules observed in reading the fathers will let us into their whole mind. First, sacraments are, in their nature, visible signs of invisible graces; so that, if they be no signs, they be no sacraments: and though the signs must be carefully distinguished from the things, in our own minds, yet, for good causes, both in teaching and writing, do the signs bear the name of the things whose signs they are; insomuch that no father calls the bread and wine after consecration any other than the body and blood of Christ. The next rule is, that whensoever they teach and propose the dignity, propriety, or efficacy of the sacrament, they mean not the creatures, which our eyes and tongues do better judge of than their wits can teach; but that other divine life-giving and soul-saving part of the sacrament, which our hearts by faith take hold of, and really and effectually possess, as things which be indeed most high and heavenly treasures.

These are the doctrines, concerning sacraments, which were held by our fathers at the time of the Reformation; and, so far, as our limits would allow, we have endeavoured to express them in their language rather than our own; seeking to im bibe their spirit also, that we might retain their thoughts, when obliged to curtail or condense their sentences. We have tried these doctrines in the ways proposed by Vincent of Lirins, and find that they stand his tests, while the doctrines of Rome do not. And we believe that the Church of England, studied in the writings of her martyrs and confessors, and exemplified in the lives of the great majority of her living clergy, who practice diligently, simply, and unpretendingly what they have received from their fathers, will be found far nearer to the truth of Scripture, and to the practice of the primitive Church, that is, more truly Catholic, than will the lofty pretensions of those who call themselves Roman or Anglican Catholics, or still more vauntingly assume the designation without any prefix. Of such a Church our desire and prayer should be –Esto perpetua« } \

And we have good hope that it will stand as long as England shall endure for Church and State are so inseparably blended in the constitution of this land, that they must stand or fall together. And the English are a practical and a reflective people they care little for mere opinions, and the lessons of past history are not lost upon them; Our kings remember