MiWWWIMiWinMWIIMWWMWMWIWIfMWWWIIIMIIilW^ 
 
 mmmmmmmmmmmm Mmmmmmwmm^. 
 
 mmmmmm^ 
 
 wnmrnmimmmmm 
 

 PBESENTED TO THE LIBRARY 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 Professor fienry van Dyke, D.D., IxIi.D. 
 
 BX 5949 .CT M35 1887 
 Mallory, George Scovill, 
 1838-1897. 
 ^i Lord's Supper: the continue 
 •^ feast on the one completed 
 
?> 
 
 f«V«"i , 
 
 -.:^\ -vA 
 
 > .* . 
 
 

 -yt^.pfu^'' 'W 
 
 A^n^JL^. 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER: 
 
 THE 
 
 CONTINUED FEAST 
 
 ON 
 
 THE ONE 
 
 COMPLETED SACRIFICE, 
 
 BY GEORGE S. MALLORY, D.D. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 E. P. DuTTON & Co., 31 West 23D Street. 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER: 
 
 THE CONTINUED FEAST ON THE 
 
 ONE COMPLETED SACRIFICE, 
 
 An examination of our Lord's Words at the 
 institution of His Supper, in the hope of finding 
 out their exact meaning and the true nature of 
 that greatest act of Christian worship, led grad- 
 ually and irresistibly to the theory which the 
 writer confesses not to have held before, that in 
 the Lord's Supper, our Lord handed down as 
 the chief worship of His Church, a sacrificial 
 feast — the feast on His own sacrificed Body. It 
 was not simply a feast, it was the feast, the 
 feast which pertained to, belonged to, was the 
 necessary corollary of, our Lord's sacrifice on 
 the cross. Its individuality, its definiteness as 
 the particular feast which necessarily followed 
 
4 
 
 the sacrifice of our Lord's Body, appears in St. 
 Paul's solicitation, " Christ our Passover is sac- 
 rificed for us, therefore, let us keep the feast." 
 It does not appear, for instance, it has been lost 
 sight of, in the invitation in the communion 
 office of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., 
 " Christe our Pascal Lambe is offered up for us 
 once for all, when He bare our sinnes on His 
 Body upon the crosse, for He is the very Lambe 
 of God that taketh away the sinnes of the 
 worlde; wherefore let uskepe a joyfull and holy 
 feast with the Lorde." 
 
 That the crucifying of our Lord was a sacri- 
 fice all men must admit. It was not, indeed, 
 done in accordance with the ritual of God's 
 Church, nor was it the official act of the priests, 
 though one of Christ's own disciples conspired 
 with the chief priests to bring it to accomplish- 
 ment. It was not a sacrifice that could be 
 made by God's priests, for the victim was a hu- 
 man being — nay, was the God-man. The death 
 must needs be, but the doing it was an offence, 
 and woe to those by whom the offence should 
 
come. The trial, the judgment, and the death, 
 were the processes of a mistaken observance of 
 human laws, and Roman soldiers compassed 
 the death of the Victim. Yet all Holy Scrip- 
 ture points to the death of our Lord as a sacri- 
 fice. Jesus Christ offered Himself, offered His 
 life for the sins of the whole world, and His life 
 was taken. As often occurs in the world's his- 
 tory, the wickedness and weakness of men were 
 made to be the instruments for carrying out 
 God's plans. " Him, being delivered by the 
 determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, 
 ye have taken, and by wicked hands have cru- 
 cified and slain " (Acts ii. 23.). The sacrifice 
 was made. The making, the performing of the 
 sacrifice, so far as the crucifixion is concerned, 
 was the work of the Roman soldiers — the offer- 
 ing of Himself for the sacrifice was Christ's own 
 propitiatory offering. 
 
 Our Lord's body, then, was sacrificed, was 
 made a sacrifice, and the feast upon that sacri- 
 fice, its particular sacrificial feast, was enjoined, 
 or, rather, provided for by Him. In doing this 
 
6 
 
 He introduced no new idea of worship, estab- 
 lished no new principle. Sacrificial feasts were, 
 at that time, practised all the world over, and 
 their meaning and scope were perfectly familiar 
 to all, of whatever religion. They had been 
 established by God in His earliest commands 
 regarding the worship to be addressed to Him, 
 and heathen nations had borrowed them from 
 His chosen people. Their establishment was 
 the embodiment of a principle divinely or- 
 dained. The principles of God's dealing with 
 men never change. Therefore Christ, being 
 God, did not, and we may say could not, dis- 
 honor, or disregard this establishment of the 
 sacrificial feast. We may rightly reason that 
 such a disregarding would not have been in ac- 
 cord with that attribute of God which we dis- 
 cover by the unchangeableness of His work- 
 ings. One might safely have argued in advance, 
 from the nature of God, that the principle which 
 He laid down in establishing the Passover, long 
 before the giving of the Ten Commandments, 
 would probably be observed by the Son. In- 
 
deed, that Christ is our Passover necessarily 
 involves the duty or the privilege that we should 
 keep //^^ feast. To say that Christ is "our 
 Passover" is to say that He is "our Paschal 
 Lamb of which we are to partake." 
 
 The sacrificial feast was the means by which 
 those who partook of it were joined with the 
 offerer in making his offering, and so became 
 sharers with him in all the blessings to be 
 gained by the offering. Therefore in command- 
 ing to eat and to drink the broken bread and 
 the wine poured out as His body broken and 
 His shed blood, our Lord made it possible for 
 His disciples always and everywhere to be 
 joined with Him in offering Himself for His all- 
 sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, 
 and so to share in all the blessings gained by 
 that sacrifice. In other words. His disciples 
 are to partake of Christ dead, i.e., sacrificed, in 
 order that they may be joined with the living 
 Christ in offering Himself for that sacrifice. 
 Christ is the true Paschal Lamb. As in the 
 Passover the head of the family offered the 
 
paschal lamb for sacrifice — provided the paschal 
 lamb — and called upon the members of the 
 family to eat of it when sacrificed, so Christ 
 offering Himself for sacrifice, providing the true 
 Paschal Lamb, calls upon the whole human 
 family, of which He is the Head, to partake of 
 the sacrifice. By this partaking His great act 
 becomes ours, in effect, through His blessed in- 
 vitation, and the benefits of the sacrifice of the 
 true Paschal Lamb which He thus provided are 
 made ours. The contemplation of this great 
 privilege of such a unity with our Elder Brother, 
 thus calling upon all the household to partake 
 of the slain Lamb, and of the unity of all His 
 disciples through all time and everywhere join- 
 ing in this same one continued sacrificial Feast, 
 and the new clearness that it gives to many 
 parts of the Old and New Testaments have 
 been so great a source of satisfaction to the 
 writer, that he publishes this essay, in the hope 
 that it may help to lift others above the clouds 
 of discordant teaching into the clear light of 
 Christ's own words. 
 
9 
 
 We are celebrating the Festival of the Na- 
 tivity. The blessed revelation of the Incarna- 
 tion is before us. The Son of God is become 
 the Son of Man. He has taken humanity to 
 Himself, and henceforth Deity and humanity 
 are ever joined together. The atonement is 
 begun. The God-man is become the head of 
 the human race. He is the second Adam. As 
 in the first Adam all died, even so in Christ 
 shall all be made alive. As in Adam all sinned, 
 even so in Christ shall all gain redemption from 
 that sin. Humanity shared in the deed of 
 Adam; so also it is to have part in Christ's 
 work. He is become the representative of hu- 
 manity. He has gathered humanity into Him- 
 self. The embodiment of humanity is now the 
 perfect man — Christ Jesus. Not that we loved 
 God, but because He first loved us — of God's 
 own will and favor — humanity is hereafter 
 united with Deity in working out its own re- 
 demption and salvation. Humanity, not of its 
 own power, but by the Grace of God, humanity 
 in the person of the man Christ Jesus, is to 
 
10 
 
 overcome the evil wrought by the first man. 
 But while this season of the Christian year 
 brings the Incarnation more immediately before 
 our minds, we cannot but remember that in fact 
 the Saviour's redemptive work on earth is fin- 
 ished. He has returned into the heaven to pre- 
 pare a place for us. He has resumed the glory of 
 which He emptied Himself that He might take 
 upon Him our nature. In great triumph He 
 has entered again into the joy of His Father's 
 presence. At the right hand of the Father He 
 now sitteth, and ever maketh intercession for 
 us, thus continuing there the work begun in the 
 redemption. On the earth His Vicar, the Holy 
 Spirit, is come and is now present in the Church, 
 sent by the Son to bestow upon its members 
 the inestimable gifts which He gained for them 
 by His meritorious Cross and Passion. In the 
 immediate contemplation then of the Incarna- 
 tion, and also with the eyes fixed on our Lord 
 at the right hand of the Father, and the Holy 
 Spirit upon earth striving with and for man, 
 that all mankind should be partakers of Christ's 
 Resurrection, this essay is begun. 
 
11 
 
 In entering upon an inquiry into the nature 
 of the Lord's Supper, resort must be had at 
 once to the words of our Lord in which He in- 
 stituted and by which He explained it. For 
 two propositions may be laid down axiomatically 
 as bases of our belief: 
 
 First, we must accept, and we do accept, 
 reverently and gladly, whatever statement our 
 Lord thus made to His disciples, and we assert 
 the same to be true; 
 
 Secondly, we must not assert, and we cannot 
 believe, anything whatever regarding the nature 
 of the Lord's Supper contrary to or differing 
 from what our Lord Himself declared. 
 
 Our Lord said, "Take, eat; this is My body, 
 which is broken for you." Therefore we accept 
 this statement. He did not say, " this is not My 
 body," nor "in this is My body," nor "under 
 this is My body," nor " this bread is a form or 
 veil under which My body is present," nor 
 "with this is My body," nor "I am in this 
 bread," nor " this is changed into My body," 
 nor " this becomes My body," nor " under each 
 
12 
 
 atom of this bread is whole Christ," nor "this 
 bread ceases to be." Any of these statements' 
 could, of course, have been made by our Lord, 
 if they had been true. But the statement which 
 He did make is not in the least synonymous 
 with them, is entirely different from them. 
 Therefore we are not to make or believe those 
 statements. 
 
 Our Saviour's words were the expression of 
 His will. If man reads into them any meaning 
 of His own, they become so far the expression, 
 not of Christ's will, but of man's. They were 
 the expression of the Saviour's will, on whose 
 will alone their value or efficacy depends, and 
 by whose will alone they became true. They 
 express, therefore, Christ's truth, and man 
 must neither add to nor subtract from that 
 truth. 
 
 As they are, then, such a complete expression 
 of our Lord's will, it is our duty as loving dis- 
 ciples, to seek to know that will thus expressed. 
 They are a gracious declaration of our Lord, 
 and therefore of inestimable value. With lov- 
 
13 
 
 ing care we should seek diligently to find their 
 exact meaning. 
 
 That we can thus know the exact and full 
 meaning of our Lord's zvords there is no doubt, 
 for they are words of human language, and 
 their meaning is determined by the rules of hu- 
 man language. As the wine into which the 
 water had been miraculously changed, would 
 have responded perfectly to whatever test man 
 could have applied to it, whether as to taste or 
 as to color, or, by a chemical analysis, as to its 
 component parts, so the words of our Lord, 
 which like the wine are the outcome and expres- 
 sion of His will, may be tested reverently, per- 
 fectly, by the rules of language. 
 
 He chose to express His will in words and 
 He chose these words in which to express His 
 will, and therefore they are the perfect expres- 
 sion of His will. They are words standing in 
 certain relation to each other, and all, together, 
 containing and giving a meaning which is per- 
 fectly and absolutely determined by the rules 
 of language and the usage of man's speech. 
 
14 
 
 The entire sentence conveys its meaning as 
 clearly and distinctly as any single word con- 
 veys its own meaning. It is as impious to sup- 
 pose or to teach that Christ meant something 
 which He did not say as that He said something 
 which He did not mean. In short, the divine 
 thought found perfect expression in man's 
 language, and being thus expressed, the rules 
 of man's language determine what that thought 
 is. 
 
 We cannot suppose that Chiist did not ex- 
 press Himself perfectly, for that would be to 
 suppose His own imperfection. We need not 
 assert that the whole of the divine wisdom, 
 which is infinite, can be expressed in man's 
 language which is finite, or conveyed to man's 
 mind which is finite. But we must believe that 
 what God chooses to express to man. He can, 
 and, by the necessity of His nature, must ex- 
 press accurately and adequately. Man must 
 not, therefore, presume to substitute any phrase 
 of his own for that chosen by Christ. 
 
 " The Lord Jesus, the night in which He was 
 
15 
 
 betrayed, took bread, and when He had given 
 thanks, He brake, and said, 'Take, eat; this is 
 My body, which is broken* for you; this do in 
 remembrance of Me.' After the same manner 
 also the cup, when he had supped, saying, 
 'This cup is the new testament in My blood;t 
 this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance 
 of Me.' For as often as ye eat this bread, and 
 drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till 
 He come." (I. Cor. xi. 23-26.) 
 
 It is to be noted here, and it should always 
 be kept in mind that drinking the cup has 
 equal place with eating the bread, in this in- 
 junction of our Lord. For our present purpose, 
 however, it is sufficient to consider now only 
 that sentence which refers to the bread. 
 
 Having in mind the circumstances narrated 
 in the context we find that as it was bread 
 
 * In the version of the late Revision Committee, and by 
 Westcott & Hort this word "broken" is omitted, but on the 
 whole there seems to be good reason for retaining it. 
 
 f " This is My blood of the new testament which is shed 
 for you " (St. Matthew and St. Mark). 
 
16 
 
 which Jesus took, so also it was bread which 
 He brake, and which He gave to the disciples. 
 Examining the sentence itself strictly by the 
 rules of language, we find that the pronoun 
 "this," also, plainly and necessarily refers to 
 the bread which He was thus distributing, being 
 used without the noun, because the action suf- 
 ficiently directed the attention of the hearers. 
 It is true, of course, that in the inspired record 
 "this" is in the neuter gender, while the Greek 
 word for "bread" is masculine. But it is im- 
 possible to base any doctrine on the difference 
 in gender, as implying that "this" does not re- 
 fer to, stand for, and mean, bread. The rules 
 of the Greek language required that "this" re- 
 ferring to a masculine noun should be neuter in 
 this sentence by attraction to the Greek word 
 for " body," which is neuter. 
 
 It is also certain that the words " My body " 
 referred to His own, His one. His only body, 
 which was once born into the world, which was 
 to be crucified, to be buried, to rise again in a 
 glorified state and to be taken up into heaven, 
 
17 
 
 where it is now seated at the right hand of the 
 Father. 
 
 We note also that our Lord speaks of His 
 body in only one aspect, or in one condition, at 
 one point of time, as crucified, sacrificed, 
 "broken for you." He did not say "This is 
 My body which is glorified''' 
 
 These words ("this," meaning bread, and 
 " My body which is broken for you ") are joined 
 together, associated, by the word " is." 
 
 The verb " to be " is a marked verb in every 
 language. It is the most commonly used, and 
 yet the most useless of verbs. In some of the 
 most ancient languages, as for instance, the 
 Aramaic, or ancient Syriac, spoken by our 
 Saviour, "is" was always omitted. It: is quite 
 certain,* for instance, that He did not say 
 "Take, eat; this is My body," but "take, eat, 
 this My body." It is probable that He said, 
 
 * The Peshito Syriac New Testament was probably trans- 
 lated in the first or second century from the Greek. In such a 
 translation it would have been natural to bring in "is " which 
 is found in the Greek. But in a copy of the ancient Syriac 
 version, which is now lying before the writer, "is" is not 
 
18 
 
 " I the vine, ye the branches." The meaning 
 of this is perfectly clear, quite as clear as if He 
 said, " I am the vine, ye are the branches." The 
 higher polish of the Greek language required 
 the use of the verb " is " where the Aramaic 
 did not use it, but the meaning of the inspired 
 record is exactly the same with the original 
 utterance. " This is My body" in the Greek, is 
 identical with "This My body" in the Aramaic. 
 
 In Arabic, again, the verb is found, but there 
 is no form of it for the third person of the pre- 
 sent tense; there is no "is" in Arabic. 
 
 " Is " is called the substantive verb because 
 it betokens existence. Added to a noun it 
 directs one's thought regarding the noun to the 
 mere existence of the thing, animate or inani- 
 mate, which the noun denotes. " The man is " 
 leaves out of present view all considerations re- 
 garding him, except his existence. 
 
 found in the records of St. Matthew, and St. Luke, and St. 
 Paul, and does appear in St. Mark. This copy of the Pe- 
 shito version is only seven hundred years old, which shows 
 how slow the Aramaic language was in adopting the use of the 
 present tense of the verb " to be." 
 
19 
 
 "Is" is in all languages an "intransitive" 
 verb, that is to say, it does not govern any "ob- 
 jective case." Intransitive verbs are so called 
 because the action expressed by them does not 
 " pass over " to, does not affect the objective. 
 The verb "to be " is an intransitive of intransi- 
 tives, because it does not express any action, 
 or even feeling, but simply the barest, baldest 
 existence, the mere individuality of the subject, 
 of that of which it is affirmed. So complete is 
 this intransitiveness of the verb " to be " that 
 grammarians ordinarily style it a copula. By 
 this they mean that it serves merely to connect 
 two nouns for the purpose of affirming one of 
 the other.* 
 
 * It is better to treat "is" entirely as an intransitive verb, 
 and to apply to it the rules which govern verbs of that class. 
 When an intransitive verb, having a noun for its subject, is fol- 
 lowed by a noun, this noun is called in grammar a predicate. 
 This noun, following the intransitive verb, is predicated, af- 
 firmed, of the subject of the verb, especially in respect to the 
 action or condition expressed by the verb. 
 
 Take for examination the sentence, "She walks a queen." 
 The word "queen" is predicated, or affirmed, of "she" in 
 the action of walking. Again, we say, " She is a queen." In 
 
20 
 
 The effect of the intransitive verb is tempo- 
 rarily to strip the subject of its other qualities, 
 in order to give distinctness, definiteness to the 
 affirmation in the noun predicate. 
 
 The noun which follows the verb is a distinct 
 affirmation or predication concerning the sub- 
 ject. This predication or affirmation by means 
 
 this case the verb expresses, not a special action, but a gen- 
 eral, continued, and necessary state, which is so completely 
 identified with the noun as to present no distinguishable or 
 separable idea. It is " she " in her very being, in her existence, 
 it is she herself of which " queen " is affirmed. 
 
 It will be of service in getting a clear conception of the 
 office of the verb " to be," to substitute for it the verb " exist." 
 "She is a queen " is equivalent to "She exists a queen." "This 
 is My body " is the same as " This exists My body." "Is" 
 and " exists " are interchangeable words. Milton writes: 
 " By whom we exist and cease to be." 
 
 Here plainly only the requirements of verse determined 
 whether he should write " exist " or " are," " be " or " exist." 
 Whatever, therefore, can be said of " She exists a queen," can 
 be said of "She is a queen." They have absolutely the same 
 meaning. She is, she exists, and of this is affirmed the idea of 
 " a queen." Of each alike of these expressions, "she walks, 
 she is, she exists, a queen," it may be said that the action or 
 state expressed by the verb refers only to its subject, not pas- 
 sing over to or affecting the noun predicate, and that noun is 
 another and independent affirmation. 
 
21 
 
 of intransitive verbs in cases where the nouns 
 are not names of different things, is sometimes 
 absolute and sometimes partial; and this is 
 always determined by the circumstances. She 
 tvalks a qneen, she is a queen, may be spoken of 
 either Queen Victoria or of any untitled lady. 
 Of Queen Victoria the predications are unlim- 
 ited; of the untitled lady it is affirmed either 
 that she walks with that grace and dignity 
 which rightly pertain to a queen, or that she, in 
 her being, in herself, has those qualities, those 
 graces of heart and mind which are or should 
 be the characteristics of a queen. In cases 
 where the nouns are names of different things 
 the predication is invariably partial. In the ex- 
 pression His creditor is adamant, because credi- 
 tor and adamant are two distinct material ex- 
 istences, the predication is necessarily limited 
 to a quality, to the hard and unyielding quality 
 of the adamant. In our Lord's saying, " I am 
 the vine, ye are the branches," He plainly did 
 not attribute the wood or any of the substance 
 of the vine to Himself and His disciples. It 
 
23 
 
 was the single quality^ or circumstance, of the 
 closeness of the relationship between them, of 
 their vital dependence upon Him. So also it 
 was this same quality which St. Paul attributed 
 to the Ephesians when he wrote, " Ye are the 
 body of Christ," or, again to all Christians when 
 he wrote, " the Church which is His body." 
 When we say of a piece of paper. This is a dol- 
 lar, we predicate the dollar, not as to the in- 
 trinsic substance of the gold, but only as to the 
 purchasing quality, as to the power, or virtue, 
 or efficacy in commercial transactions. The 
 gold or silver of which the dollar is made, be- 
 came a dollar by coinage. As a coin, it had 
 the added quality of being a means of exchange 
 in commercial transactions. This added quality 
 the Government bestowed also upon the almost 
 worthless paper. 
 
 To say, therefore, of the paper, TJiis is a dol- 
 lar, is to predicate of it this added quality, to 
 affirm that it shares with the dollar not the sub- 
 stance or the intrinsic qualities of the gold dol- 
 lar but the quality of a certain value in buying 
 
23 
 
 and selling, that the paper and the dollar have 
 an equal power, the same efficacy, though they 
 are two different and distinct things. From 
 this it results that predicating the value or 
 power in one thing, of some other thing, makes 
 the one thing a representative of the other. 
 The verb " is " means always the same thing, 
 namely, "being," but the idea of "represents," or 
 " stands for," etc., is the result oi the partial pre- 
 dication, the predication of this or that quality.* 
 There are certain unalterable rules which 
 
 * When one material thing is predicated of another thing, 
 only its qualities are thus predicated and almost or quite inva- 
 riably it is only one quality. The substance of a material thing 
 is never predicated of another thing. Thus, curiously enough, 
 Romanists place themselves in ulter opposition to the absolute 
 meaning of language in expressions of the class adopted by our 
 Lord, — "This is My body," — wlaen they assert that He predi- 
 cated the substance of His body, of the bread: that while its 
 form, taste and appearance remain in all respects the same, its 
 substance is that of the body of Christ. A change of substance 
 is never expressed or intimated by such forms of speech. They 
 always, invariably, declare a sameness of some quality and that 
 only between the two material things. This quality may be an 
 inherent quality, as the hardness of the adamant, or an extran- 
 eous, conveniional, added quality, as the purchasing power of 
 the dollar. 
 
24 
 
 are tacitly made the basis of the use of these 
 predicative expressions. In what respect or 
 degree one noun is predicated of another, what 
 quality of one noun is predicated of another, is 
 determined not by the predicating sentence, 
 but by some circumstance or statement outside 
 or beyond it. As we have seen, a title, or 
 office, for instance, though it is not a material 
 thing and has no material substance, can be pre- 
 dicated not absolutely, but only as to certain 
 qualities, or in certain respects, of one who does 
 not hold that office or title. Still more impos- 
 sible is it that one material thing can be abso- 
 lutely, completely, altogether, predicated of 
 another thing. For that would be to declare 
 that there is no respect in which they differ — to 
 declare their physical identity, and the fact of 
 their being two things prevents their being one 
 and the same thing.* They must, for instance. 
 
 * This impossibility of two things being one and the same 
 thing leads Roman theologians into a singular illogicalness. 
 We will quote from MuUer's " Familiar Explanation of Chris- 
 tian Doctrine," a book having the approbation of the Sacred 
 
25 
 
 in order to be cognized by us, in order to exist, 
 occupy each its own space and not the space 
 held by the other, and this is absolute proof of 
 
 Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, and the impri- 
 inatiir of Dr. Bayley, late Archbishop of Baltimore. 
 
 " Q. How do you know that Jesus Christ gave His true 
 body ? 
 
 " A. Because Jesus Christ did not say in this bread, or with 
 this bread — but He said, ' This is My body.' 
 
 " Q. As soon as Jesus had spoken those words what became 
 of the bread in His hands? 
 
 "A. Quicker than a flash of lightning that bread was 
 changed into His body. 
 
 " Q. What follows from this? 
 
 "A. That, after these words, the bread did not remain, 
 because it is impossible that that which is flesh should be at the 
 same time bread." 
 
 The Roman doctor has well stated that our Lord said, 
 " This is my body," and that He did not say in this bread or 
 with this bread ; but He should have added that He did not 
 say under this bread, or this bread is changed into or becomes My 
 body, or this bread does not remain. 
 
 The Roman doctor, too, is thoroughly illogical in saying 
 that because, as he claims, the bread was changed into Christ's 
 body, therefore the bread did not remain. Plainly the bread 
 muht have continued to be, if it was to be anything whatever. 
 If it zvere true that the bread became Christ's body, that which 
 was His body previously must have ceased to be, or at least 
 must have ceased to have the quality of being His body, must 
 have ceased to be His body. 
 
26 
 
 their not being physically identical. This alone 
 shows that they are not wholly the same, but 
 the same in some respect. To declare that two 
 
 And again, the Roman theologian ought to know that he 
 must not be driven by one impossibility into inventing another. 
 He acknowledges that it is impossible for one thing to be at 
 the same time another thing, but he does not cure the difficulty 
 by saying that the one thing becomes another thing. For that 
 also is an impossibility. The Romanist is fond, for example, 
 of quoting the miracle of the water turned into wine. But 
 that was not the changing of one thing into another thing. It 
 was not, for instance, the placing of two firkins, one of water 
 and one of wine, side by side, and changing the firkin of water 
 into the firkin of wine. The miracle was the changing of the 
 nature of one and the same thing — of the same water in the 
 same firkin. It was not the changing of one thing into another, 
 but simply the changing of one thing. 
 
 When the Romanist, or theologian of any other school, 
 argues for a miracle underlying our Lord's declaration, from 
 the miracle of the water changed into wine, he is reasoning 
 from analogy. But the miracle at Cana and the alleged mira- 
 cle of transubstantiation are not analogous. If they were anal- 
 ogous the miracle at Cana must have been performed thus: 
 Two firkins, one of water and one of wine, must have been set 
 before our Lord, the firkin of water corresponding to the bread, 
 and the firkin of wine to Christ's body. Then the one firkin (of 
 water) must have been changed into the other firkin (of wine). 
 This is not what St. John recorded and is inconceivable, not 
 supposable (if it were possible, it would require the displace- 
 ment, the destruction, of the firkin of wine). Analogy further 
 
27 
 
 things are one, or that different things are the 
 same, or that one thing is identically another, 
 which is only one form of saying that two things 
 are one and the same thing, is to declare that 
 words have no meaning. To predicate one 
 thing of another, therefore, is not to predicate 
 it altogether, not to declare its identity, its 
 sameness with the other, but to declare the 
 sameness of some one or more of their qualities 
 or their sameness in some respect. What or 
 wherein or for what purpose that partial same- 
 ness is, does not usually appear from the predi- 
 cating sentence.* 
 
 requires that the firkin of water, being changed into the firkin 
 of wine, should still retain its separate, independent existence, 
 apart from the other, and moreover, that the taste and the 
 color and all the other qualities of the water should remain the 
 same as before, still unmistakably water. Verily this would 
 be a barren miracle! God be praised that the miracle at Cana 
 was a miracle indeed! 
 
 The Romanist ought to recognize that it is impossible to 
 change one thing into another already existing, and still more 
 inconceivable is it to effect such a change that the same thing 
 may have two or more separate existences at the same time. 
 
 * An essential part of the identity of anything is its history. 
 One human body for instance differs from another human body 
 
28 
 
 In the declaration of our Lord, "This is My 
 body," the words "My body" are predicated 
 of" this," which is a pronoun standing for the 
 noun " bread."* In what respect, how far, as 
 
 in respect to the fact of its birth, and this difference can never 
 be done away with. Completed history cannot be changed. 
 Our Lord's body was born of the Virgin Mary, but the bread 
 was not born of Mary and that quality could never be imparted 
 to the bread. When our Lord from the cross said to His 
 mother, " Behold thy Son " and to the beloved disciple, " Be- 
 hold ihy mother," He declared that St. John was the son of 
 Mary, but He did not declare that he was born of her nor did 
 He make it so. He simply attributed to or bestowed upon St. 
 John a single quality of sonship to Mary, namely, the relation 
 and duty of dependence and protection that arise from sonship. 
 Nor did this mislead the beloved disciple. Strong and unre- 
 served as the expression was, St. John yet understood it, "and 
 from that hour that disciple took her to his own home." So 
 as to the bread, our Lord asserted it to be His body, but in so 
 doing He did not assert that it had all the qualities and sub- 
 stance of His body. 
 
 The analogy between our Lord's sayings. This is My body, 
 and, Behold thy son, is much more complete than is commonly 
 supposed. He attributed in the one case a certain quality of 
 His body to the bread. In the other case He attributed a 
 quality of His soul and heart to St. John. The expressions are 
 equally unreserved and explicit, but their limitations are equally 
 apparent. 
 
 * It does not matter, so far as our inquiry is concerned, 
 whether "this" referred to the bread, or, as the Romanist 
 
29 
 
 to what quality, or purpose, or use, does He 
 thus predicate it ? That is to say, inasmuch as, 
 occupying each its own space and so being dif- 
 ferent things, they are not the same things, and 
 therefore the predication cannot be absolute, 
 complete, in how far is the predication made ? 
 What attribute, or quality, or use, of His body 
 does our Lord attribute to the bread ? What of 
 His own body does our Lord lend to, or bestow 
 upon the bread ? There is a sameness in some 
 respect, of the bread with Christ's body. As to 
 what the partial sameness is, the words them- 
 selves convey no intimation. If our Lord had 
 said or done nothing further than to utter the 
 words, " This is My body," the disciples would 
 have had no clue as to His meaning. 
 
 Hence it appears that theological writers 
 have commonly done great despite to our Lord, 
 by garbling His saying, in separating the words, 
 " This is My body," from the remainder of His 
 
 says, to a something into which the bread had been changed. 
 In either case it had a distinct, distinguishable existence. 
 
30 
 
 declaration and considering them by them- 
 selves.* 
 
 It is the first principle of exegesis that a pas- 
 sage of Holy Scripture shall be considered in 
 connection with the context. It is a most fla- 
 grant violation of this principle to take from the 
 middle of a sentence, of a single statement, 
 three or four words only and on them to build 
 human doctrine. It is against all honesty to 
 quote certain words of a man's saying, without 
 also giving his qualifying words. It is, there- 
 
 * In this flagrant mutilation of our Lord's declaration, is 
 found the true explanation of the strange fact that what our 
 Lord intended, as is evident from His prayer made in the same 
 hour, to be a very bond of unity among all Christians, has 
 been an unceasing cause of strife and division. This state of 
 things has seemed to be a reproach not only to Christianity, 
 but to its Founder as well. It has seemed as if He must have 
 ill chosen His language to be so misunderstood, or to be un- 
 derstood so variously, or as if He had purposely made His 
 meaning ambiguous, like the Delphic oracle, which uttered dis- 
 connected words, that were afterward put together, or inter- 
 preted, by the priests to suit their own purposes. The real 
 fault lies in this, that Christ's words, clear and distinct as He 
 uttered them, have been disconnected, we will not say by his 
 priests, but by theological writers, and being thus made life- 
 less and unmeaning, have been interpreted by each, or by each 
 
31 
 
 fore, against the fundamental principle of exe- 
 gesis, and against common honesty to quote the 
 words, " This is My body," apart, separated 
 from the remainder of the sentence. 
 
 It is a curious fact that the cutting out of the 
 words, " This is My body," from the rest of the 
 sentence in which they occur, and by which our 
 Saviour gave them meaning and explained 
 them, has made them so perfectly unmeaning, 
 has so emptied them of meaning, that men have 
 found it possible to put into them any and 
 every meaning, 
 
 school, to suit their emergency. Hence has come the fact 
 that the vast body of theological writing on this simple and 
 sublime saying of our Lord, is a mass of controversy. 
 
 It is a grave acccusation, but it needs no proof here that all 
 this theology is based positively or negatively, on the words 
 " This is My body" taken by themselves, torn from their con- 
 text, nay, even from the remainder of their own sentence. 
 Rome and Geneva alike have been guilty in this respect. 
 
 It follows, of course, that every theory which has no other 
 basis than this grave error, must itself be erroneous. 
 
 For the confirmation of our faith let us repeat to ourselves 
 here that our Lord made no uncertain or ambiguous utterance, 
 but that the ambiguity and uncertainty which have been thrown 
 around the Lord's Supper, have been manufactured by men, 
 even devout men, out of a mutilation of our Lord's saying. 
 
32 
 
 Others again, forgetful or unknowing that the 
 context supplied the meaning, and being un- 
 able to find definite meaning in the words thus 
 wrongly, impiously taken by themselves, have 
 concluded that the Saviour meant to conceal 
 His meaning in them, and so have resigned 
 themselves to a darkened, uncertain, undiscern- 
 ing, unreal, and unhelpful worship in the Lord's 
 Supper. 
 
 Plainly our Lord did not attribute the per- 
 sonal appearance, the figure and face of His 
 body to the bread. He had not moulded the 
 bread into such form that He could attribute to 
 it a likeness of Himself, as the sculptor can say 
 of his clay or marble, " This is Csesar." He did 
 not say that it had flesh and bones and the 
 power of suffering, as His body had. He did 
 not say that it was to stand in judgment, to be 
 buffeted, to be scourged, to be crucified, nor did 
 these things come to it. It had not hands and 
 feet to be pierced by the cruel nails, nor a fore- 
 head to wear the crown of thorns. His body 
 was to be buried, to be raised again, to beglori- 
 
33 
 
 fied, to be taken into heaven, but it was not so 
 with the bread. In none of these respects did 
 Christ predicate His body of the bread. That 
 is to say, the bread was not His body in any of 
 these respects. 
 
 What then ? For what purpose was the 
 bread our Lord's body .'' He Himself declared 
 this, He gave definiteness and the necessary 
 limitation, when He said, "Take, eat." It was 
 in respect to being eaten that our Lord's body, 
 sacrificed, " broken for you," was predicated of 
 the bread. 
 
 This is quite as far as the words of our Lord, 
 carefully weighed and tested by the rules of 
 language, carry us, His disciples in this far-off 
 century. Why His sacrificed body was to be 
 partaken of does not appear at this point in our 
 investigation, but from the very nature of things 
 it is evident that if there were such a condition 
 or necessity, there was equally a necessity that 
 some equivalent substitute for that body must 
 be found for this partaking. For if it were pos- 
 sible to partake of the crucified body of our 
 
34 
 
 dear Lord, it was certainly impossible to think 
 such a thing. If it were physically possible, it 
 was morally, ethically impossible. That our 
 Lord's meaning was apparent to His disciples 
 is indicated by the fact that no explanation of 
 His words is here recorded. We must there- 
 fore place ourselves in their circumstances if we 
 would know the full import of this institution of 
 the Lord's Supper. The meaning of our Lord's 
 words in instituting the Holy Communion is 
 made evident by an analysis of them through 
 the rules of language; the reason for them, for 
 the wonderful results that flow from them, must 
 be sought in the circumstances under which 
 they were spoken. We therefore leave the 
 study of the sentence here, and go back to 
 those circumstances. 
 
 The disciples were gathered with our Lord at 
 a celebration of the Jewish Passover. The 
 paschal lamb had been sacrificed, and they 
 were partaking of the same in accordance with 
 the divine command. This partaking was ac- 
 
35 
 
 cepted, looked upon, by them as a necessary, 
 an essential part or adjunct of the paschal sac- 
 rifice. At the institution of this sacrifice, cen- 
 turies before, God had ordered not only that the 
 lamb should be slain and its blood sprinkled 
 upon the lintel and two sideposts of the door of 
 the house, but that the lamb should be eaten by 
 the household. It is specially to be noted also, 
 that the Passover — which was the most solemn 
 sacrifice among the Jews, and which God gave 
 to that nation, not only before the law, but 
 even before the Ten Commandments — was the 
 one essential offering of the Jews, and must be 
 partaken of, if one would avoid the penalty of 
 excommunication. 
 
 There must always be some personal act of 
 obedience or faith, in connection with God's 
 saving ordinances, for each individual to appro- 
 priate, to make his own, to take for himself the 
 benefits. Those who would be saved must 
 look upon the brazen serpent that was lifted up. 
 He who would not thus look, must die even 
 though he were in the very shadow of it, even 
 
36 
 
 though his arms were clasped about it. The 
 ten lepers were commanded to go show them- 
 selves unto the priests, but as they went they 
 were healed. The paschal lamb was slain on 
 that first awful night, in the midst of the Egyp- 
 tians, but the destroying angel passed over 
 only the houses in which the lamb had been 
 eaten. 
 
 It seems to have been a divinely ordained 
 principle that he who would partake of the 
 benefits of a sacrifice, must, as the doing of an 
 act of faith, partake of the sacrifice itself 
 
 With this practice and obligation, then, of 
 partaking of the lamb sacrificed, the disciples 
 were perfectly familiar. Indeed, when our Lord 
 came to earth, all mankind joined sacrificing 
 and feasting together, heathen nations, as we 
 have said above, having borrowed the practice 
 from the chosen nation. Among the Jews 
 some sacrifices, as the burnt offerings and sin 
 offering, were not accompanied with feasting. 
 But the greater number of their sacrifices were 
 so accompanied. They were, in fact, called in- 
 
37 
 
 discriminately "feast" and "sacrifice," even 
 so that the same Hebrew word signifies " feast " 
 and " sacrifice." Even before the giving of the 
 law, Moses and Aaron, appealing to Pharaoh 
 (Exod. V. I, 3), use the expressions "holding a 
 feast to God " and " sacrificing to the Lord " as 
 meaning the same thing. It is to be noticed 
 also that Pharaoh's answer shows clearly that 
 he understood perfectly the meaning of the first 
 phrase. His answer was, "Who is the Lord 
 that I should obey His voice .'' I know not the 
 Lord " {i.e., He is not one of my gods, to whom 
 I make feasts). Jacob offered sacrifices upon 
 the Mount and called his brethren to eat bread, 
 and they did eat bread (Gen. xxxi. 54). " Eat- 
 ing bread " is a phrase used in Scripture for 
 feasting, and thus it is evident that Jacob made 
 a feast to his relatives of the cattle which he 
 had offered in sacrifice. A further explanation 
 of this may be found in Lev. xxi. 6, 17 and 21, 
 where animals slain in sacrifice are called " the 
 bread of God." 
 
 But we are brought more clearly face to face 
 
38 
 
 with the prevalence of this method of worship, 
 in the New Testament. Very early the apostles 
 wrote letters to the Antioch disciples fActs 
 XV. 22-29) that they should abstain from meats 
 offered to idols.* Again, St. Paul wrote to the 
 Corinthians (I. Cor. x. 18), "Are not they 
 which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar .'' 
 What say I then .'* that the idol is anything, or 
 that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any- 
 thing .'' But I say that the things which the 
 Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and 
 not to God, and I would not that ye should 
 have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink 
 the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils, ye 
 cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of 
 the table of devils." And further on in the 
 
 * The writer has very recently talked with a Syrian Christian 
 of the same nation and speaking the same language with our 
 Lord (though the Aramaic has been modified, somewhat mod- 
 ernized, during the centuries of the Christian era), who has fre- 
 quently seen his Syrian pastor promptly inquire as to gifts of 
 meat sent him by his Mohammedan neighbors, whether they 
 had been offered in sacrifice, and as promptly return them if 
 they had been so offered. 
 
39 
 
 same chapter, " If any of them that believe not 
 bid you to afeasty whatsoever is set before you, 
 eat, asking no questions for conscience' sake. 
 But if any man say unto you, This is offered in 
 sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that 
 shewed it and for conscience' sake." All this 
 shows that eating of sacrifices, partaking of an 
 altar, was looked upon and was actually prac- 
 tised as a part of the sacrifice itself, as an act 
 of worship addressed to the one true God, or to 
 a false god. It was in fact the appointed way 
 in which men joined with the offerer in making 
 a sacrifice. 
 
 All this is enough to show that the disciples, 
 even if they had not been just then engaged in 
 partaking of, in completing, the sacrifice of a 
 Passover, must easily, immediately, have com- 
 prehended our Lord's meaning. No further ex- 
 planation was needed. He had, indeed, for 
 some days been instructing them as to His near 
 coming death, but even if He had not done so, 
 even if He had not added the words " broken 
 for you," His simple command, "Take, eat; 
 
40 
 
 this is My body," could have had no other 
 meaning to them than that His body was to be 
 sacrificed for them, and that the bread was the 
 substitute for, or representative of, the same as, 
 that body, in order that they might partake of 
 the sacrifice. 
 
 Thus it appears from a careful study of our 
 Lord's words, observing the absolute rules of 
 language, that our Lord affirmed or predicated 
 His body of the bread in one and only one re- 
 spect, — as to one quality. Keeping in mind 
 the circumstances under which the words were 
 spoken and the whole sacrificial system of the 
 Jews, it appears that it was not an inherent 
 quality of that body which He thus attributed 
 to the bread. It was the accident, using the 
 term philosophically, the quality, of its being 
 sacrificed. Not as a body, but as a sacrifice, 
 did He predicate His body of the bread. He 
 ascribed nothing human to the bread. It was 
 the quality* of His body broken, of its being 
 
 * The only quality of the paschal lamb that had an essential, 
 a religious, a spiritual value, was its extraneous, not inherent 
 
41 
 
 something sacrificed, of a sacrifice to be eaten, 
 that He thus attributed. In short, our Lord's 
 body was to be sacrificed as a peace offering, a 
 redemption offering.* It must therefore be 
 
 yet real, quality or attribute of being an ordained sacrifice. 
 The fact that the sacrifice on the Church's altar, which is the 
 cross on Calvary, was the body of our Lord, does not change 
 the fact that its relation to the partaker resides in its being a 
 sacrifice. Of it as of the paschal lamb, the quality of its being 
 a sacrifice is all that avails in its eating or that in any way 
 brings benefit to the partaker. The quality of being the body 
 of our Lord gives an unprecedented, a unique value, to the 
 sacrifice, makes it a perfect satisfaction for sin. By that value 
 Christians are gainers when they partake of the sacrifice. But 
 still its only relauon, and its all-sufficient relation, to them is 
 that of a sacrifice, of an all-sufficient sacrifice. 
 
 We are not taught that the purpose of partaking, is that we 
 may partake of the inherent qualities of the body of our Lord, 
 any more than tliat the Jews might partake of those of the 
 paschal lambs. Indeed, rather, it is because we are not, even 
 by the way as it were, to partake of the inherent qualities of 
 that body, that bread is a substitute for that body sacrificed. 
 
 * It is commonly and rightly held that in our Lord's sacrifice 
 on the cross all the sacrifices were fulfilled which had been 
 hitherto enjoined by God upon His people. But we are con- 
 sidering here not the nature or complete significance of that 
 sacrifice, but the significance of our Lord's command " Take, 
 eat." Plainly the command to partake of it had no reference 
 to it, for instance, as a whole burnt offering, which was not to 
 be partaken of, but to Christ as "our Passover." 
 
42 
 
 eaten. But this was impossible, or was to be 
 avoided, for many reasons, which need not the 
 mentioning. Therefore our Lord, before His 
 Father and before men, made bread equal, 
 equivalent to, the same as {i.e.., the representa- 
 tive with full efficacy,* the representative be- 
 cause it had the same efficacy or force for this 
 purpose). His body in the partaking of the altar 
 on Calvary, in the sacrificial feast that must 
 accompany the sacrifice of His body. 
 
 Christ did not command that the bread should 
 be sacrificed. Therefore we are not so to sac- 
 rifice it.t Indeed, His declaring the bread to 
 be His body is in its effect a prohibition of our 
 thus sacrificing it. For that body, it may truly 
 be said, is the one thing which we cannot thus 
 
 * That our Lord had the right and the power to give this 
 equivalence or efficacy to the bread is practically denied by 
 those who assert that He actually changed the bread into His 
 body. Therefore what seems on the face of it to be a trium" 
 phant assertion of divine power is really a denial of it. It is a 
 belittling of Christ's power to declare that in order to convey 
 the benefits of His body by the bread, He actually changed 
 the bread into His body. 
 
 f " Sacrifice isnowno part of the Church ministry" (Hooker, 
 Eccl. Pol. v., ch. Ixxviii., 2). 
 
43 
 
 sacrifice because it has already been sacrificed. 
 It was sacrificed once for all, having been of- 
 fered for that sacrifice by Christ Himself, who 
 alone could thus offer it. It was not to be sac- 
 rificed again. But being thus once sacrificed it 
 remains still to be partaken of. By this par- 
 taking, not by our sacrificing, we are joined with 
 Christ in His making the offering for the sac- 
 rifice. The sacrificial feast upon, the partaking 
 of, our Lord's sacrificed body was begun by the 
 disciples and brethren immediately on the com- 
 ing of the Holy Spirit, and has been continued 
 until now, and will be continued through all 
 time. And this is accomplished, this is made 
 possible, through Christ having declared and 
 made bread and wine to be the same as His 
 body and blood for this purpose. 
 
 The true Christian altar is the cross on Cal- 
 vary which bore, through the hours of that awe- 
 ful day, the precious sacrifice of the dear body 
 of our Lord and Saviour. From that one sac- 
 rifice went the Church's High Priest, the " High 
 Priest over the house of God," by His own blood 
 
44 
 
 entering in *' once into the holy place, having 
 obtained eternal redemption for us," entering 
 into " heaven itself, now to appear in the pres- 
 ence of God for us." At that altar was shed 
 •' the blood of Christ who through the eternal 
 Spirit offered Himself without spot." At that 
 altar was sacrificed " the body of Jesus Christ 
 once," " the one sacrifice of sins forever." At 
 that altar was made " a full, perfect and suf- 
 ficent sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the 
 sins of the whole world." 
 
 The Church has, it is true, always applied 
 sacrificial terms to some of her acts. In her 
 liturgy she bids us pray God to "accept this 
 our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving," but in 
 doing this she does not teach us to presume to 
 think of the fruit of our lips as in any way ap- 
 proaching in kind or in degree the sacrificed 
 body of our Lord. In her liturgy, too, she bids 
 her priests say " Here we offer and present 
 unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and 
 bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sac- 
 rifice unto Thee." But in this she is very far 
 
45 
 
 from likening their offering of themselves to 
 Christ's offering of Himself, apart from the gaze 
 of men, in the silence of Gethsemane, when 
 His sweat became as it were great drops of 
 blood falling down upon the ground, and when 
 He made His tremendous, threefold, thrice re- 
 peated offering* in that solemn prayer, "Fa- 
 ther, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from 
 Me, nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be 
 done." 
 
 The cross on Calvary is the Church's altar, 
 and all her members must be partakers of that 
 
 * It is singular that so little attention has been given to the 
 fact that our Lord's offering was truly made in Gethsemane. It 
 is his agony, not the tremendous significance of His act, that is 
 commonly spoken of. But the author of the Epistle to the He- 
 brews, almost in so many words interpreted our Lord's prayer 
 in Gethsemane to be His offering of Himself. What clearer 
 statement could be made of that offering and of its blessed re- 
 sult, than in the words: " Who in the days of His flesh, having 
 offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and 
 tears unio Him that was able to save Him from death, and 
 having been heard for his godly fear, though He was a son, 
 yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered, and 
 having been made perfect He became unto all them that obey 
 Him the author of eternal salvation." (Heb. v. 7, 8, 9.). 
 
46 
 
 altar. The sacrifice made there must be fol- 
 lowed by the sacrificial feast. We have an 
 altar* whereof they have no right to partake 
 who do not acknowledge that Jesus is the Son 
 of God. But it is the right of Christ's disciples 
 from the day the sacrifice was consummated 
 unto this time and until His coming again. 
 Not alone those few faithful ones who were 
 gathered about the cross, when Jesus cried, 
 '* It is finished," who yet were to wait forty 
 and ten days before they entered upon the 
 feast, not alone these, but all the faithful through 
 all the ages, may join in the feast. For Christ 
 hath declared that, for this purpose, bread and 
 wine are the authoritative equivalents or repre- 
 sentatives of His body and His blood. 
 
 We reach therefore this conclusion, that in 
 what is called the instituting of the Lord's Sup- 
 per, our Lord was establishing no new princi- 
 
 * We have an altar. That altar either is the cross of Christ 
 on which Christ was immolated for us, or Christ Himself in 
 whom and by whom we offer our prayers. — St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 
 Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
47 
 
 pie of worship, and made no new institution. 
 He did not change or contravene God's law of 
 worship. His own body was to be sacrificed, 
 and, by God's law, the sacrifice must be par- 
 taken of by those who would apply or gain to 
 themselves the benefits thereof. The nature 
 and the conditions and the circumstances of 
 His body, of the sacrifice, forbade its being par- 
 taken of even by those immediately present at 
 the sacrifice, still less by all His disciples 
 through all time. Therefore, to enable men to 
 comply with the requirement of God's un- 
 changeable law regarding worship by sacrifices, 
 to meet the difificulties arising from the char- 
 acter of the one great sacrifice, our Lord form- 
 ally, authoritatively, solemnly, substituted 
 bread and wine for His body, and His blood, 
 made them the same as His body and His blood 
 for the purpose of men's partaking of His sacri- 
 fice, gave them the identical purchasing quality, 
 so to speak, which had been given to His body 
 and His blood by its being made " a ransom 
 for all," through sacrifice. 
 
48 
 
 The Lord's Supper differs not, therefore, from 
 other sacrificial feasts in its significatice. It 
 brings in no new form of worship. 
 
 But in its result, its efficacy, it is as far above 
 and beyond all other sacrificial feasts, as the 
 crucifixion is above the sacrifice of the paschal 
 lambs. The Lord's Supper stands out far above 
 all other sacrificial feasts because of the pre- 
 eminence of the sacrifice partaken of. 
 
 Unlike all sacrifices that preceded it, the 
 sacrifice on the altar of the cross, left no room 
 for any other. It was all-sufficient. It needed 
 not to be repeated. It could not be repeated. 
 It had gained for mankind every possible good, 
 every good which even God Himself could con- 
 ceive of. The atonement of God and man was 
 completed. All other sacrifices had been made 
 year by year continually and then without 
 taking away sin. But this Man, this August 
 High Priest, this August Victim, having offered 
 Himself, one sacrifice of sins forever, sat down 
 on the right hand of God. 
 
 The uncertainty, the continual striving in 
 
49 
 
 continual sacrifices found a peaceful end in the 
 sure and steadfast faith of a perfect sacrifice, 
 oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the 
 whole world. 
 
 See, then, how this gracious declaration 
 "Take, eat; this is My body, which is broken 
 for you," annihilates time and space. In effect 
 the hour still is in which the cross is standing 
 on Calvary bearing its sacred sacrifice. They 
 who obey their Lord and Saviour, of all nations 
 and of all times, which have been, which are, 
 and are to be, gather about that self-same cross, 
 joining in the eucharistic participation of that 
 one completed sacrifice. It is a real unity of 
 all the members of Christ's holy Church. It is 
 a real communion of His disciples. In this ser- 
 vice all are at one. It is actually and really 
 the same act in which they engage. It is ac- 
 tually the same sacrifice of which they all par- 
 take, and each partaking by each disciple goes 
 to the making up of the whole, as the seconds 
 make the century. It is not a partaking of a 
 commemorative sacrifice, or a continued sue- 
 
50 
 
 cession of partakings of commemorative sacri- 
 fices which constitutes the Lord's Supper, but 
 that Supper is the continued feast upon the one 
 completed sacrifice, the very body of our Lord. 
 It began at the coming of the Holy Spirit, and 
 will be continued till Christ's coming again, and 
 the sainted dead and the living sinners and 
 those that are yet unborn together are the 
 guests. 
 
 In the very hours in which He offered Him- 
 self to the Father, the Saviour prayed for His 
 disciples through all time " that they all may 
 be one as we are." In this feast He intended 
 that the whole multitude of His Church, priests 
 and people, should be united in the bond of 
 peace, knit together in a continual league of 
 love. He could not have imposed a higher ob- 
 ligation on them to preserve perfect love and 
 peace together, than by permitting and requir- 
 ing them all to join, by its participation, in His 
 ' own sacrifice. 
 
 But not only are disciples brought into 
 one communion and fellowship, in the Lord's 
 
51 
 
 Supper, not only is it the very bond of peace 
 among them, it is also the act in which par- 
 takers are actually joined with Christ. By this 
 we do not mean that in the Lord's Supper we 
 are joined to His nature. That joining was ac- 
 complished long ago, at the Incarnation, when 
 the Son of God took our nature (humanity) 
 upon Him, and became like as we are. His hu- 
 manity is true humanity. In its nature it dif- 
 fers not from that of all men, and so Christ and 
 all men are sharers of humanity, together con- 
 stitute humanity. In Christ, by His Incarna- 
 tion,* Deity and humanity are united. But in 
 the Lord's Supper, we are united with Christ in 
 His two great personal acts as Offerer of the 
 true Paschal Lamb for an all-availing sacrifice, 
 and as the High Priest pleading that sacrifice. 
 
 * To suppose that men partake of Christ's humanity by par- 
 taking of His body and blood, is to suppose that His humanity 
 consists only of a body. This is rank heresy. Christ did not 
 take simply a body; He took also a reasonable soul. "Partaking 
 of the body " is not ' ' partaking of the soul. " Therefore it is not 
 partaking of humanity. 
 
52 
 
 As has been clearly shown, a partaking of 
 the sacrifice was a partaking of the benefits 
 gained by the sacrifice, united* the partaker 
 with the offerer. The momentousness of our 
 being thus united with Christ cannot be meas- 
 ured, when we consider the majesty of the 
 Offerer, even Christ Himself, and the greatness 
 as well as the inestimable value, the all-power- 
 ful efficacy, of the sacrifice for which He offered 
 Himself It seems impossible that if, in faith- 
 ful obedience to Him, we are joined with Him 
 in that great offering, we shall not thereby 
 surely be made partakers of remission of sins 
 and all other benefits of His Passion. 
 
 How closely, intimately these great blessings 
 are connected with the eating of the broken 
 bread, Christ's own words well exhibit: " Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you. Except ye eat the flesh 
 of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye 
 have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh, 
 and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and 
 
 * St. Augustine wrote, "To eat bread is the sacrifice of 
 Christians in the New Testament." 
 
53 
 
 I will raise him up at the last day. . . , He 
 that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, 
 dwelleth in Me, and I in him " (St. John vi. 
 
 53. 54, 56). 
 
 But we are also united with Christ as the 
 High Priest ever making- intercession for us. 
 He not only commanded, "Take, eat; this is 
 My body, which is broken for you;" He added, 
 also, "this do in remembrance of Me." There- 
 fore He not only permitted and invited men to 
 join with Him in offering His own body for the 
 sacrifice, He also invited them to join in His 
 priestly intercession. For this word "remem- 
 brance" means pleading and intercession. It 
 has a causative force. It means " causing to 
 remember," " reminder." Do this in " reminder" 
 of Me. The reminder is addressed to the Father. 
 He is the person to be reminded. And this re- 
 minding is the same in character with Christ's 
 intercession. Therefore in eating the broken 
 bread in remembrance (reminder) of Christ, we 
 are actually, by His own provision and permis- 
 sion, joined with Him in that His High Priestly 
 intercession with the Father. 
 
54 
 
 Heaven and earth are one grand Tennple of 
 the living God. In heaven, the holy of holies, 
 stands the High Priest of our race, who is also 
 the Head of the race, our Elder Brother, ever 
 making intercession, ever pleading before the 
 Father, His meritorious cross and passion, ever 
 pleading that the redemption of mankind may 
 be applied to each of us. Without the holy of 
 holies, are gathered all the thronging millions 
 of God's worshippers, of the Church militant 
 and the Church in Paradise, united in the holy 
 continued sacrificial feast, which feast will con- 
 tinue until our High Priest shall again come 
 forth, as a triumphant king, His intercessions 
 within being finished, and all the thronging 
 worshippers shall rise with eucharists alone 
 upon their lips, the feast upon the broken bread 
 being ended when the intercession of their High 
 Priest is ended. 
 
 But the theory of the sacrificial feast involved 
 not only the unity of the worshippers with each 
 other, and with the maker of the sacrifice, but 
 also with God. The heathen corrupted this 
 
55 
 
 spiritual idea into the notion that their god 
 having received the sacrificed human beings and 
 animals, in return asked the offerer to sit at his 
 table, to partake with him of the meats which 
 had been made his by the sacrifice. The truth 
 is that the eating of a sacrifice signified in re- 
 spect to God, the partaking of what was His, 
 that is, of His grace, of His blessed influences, 
 of His goodness and power over evil, all those 
 things which the Church, again and again, in 
 her liturgy and prayers sums up as "remis- 
 sion of sins and all other benefits of Christ's 
 passion." 
 
 This grace is bestowed by the Holy Ghost, 
 the Vicar of Christ. He is a Spirit and there- 
 fore His workings are invisible, hidden, un- 
 known to men except in their results. The 
 spiritual nourishment and growth of man is as 
 secret as the natural growth of a tree or of man 
 himself. All that we do know is that it is the 
 Holy Spirit who worketh that spiritual life 
 within us. He it is that stands, so to speak, 
 at the Lord's table, His hands laden with all 
 
56 
 
 these gifts for them who worship God in Christ's 
 appointed manner. He it is who takes of the 
 things of Christ and shows them unto us. He 
 it is whose presence here on earth, while the 
 Son of Man is pleading in heaven, animates 
 and vivifies our pleading, and also bestows in 
 return the abundant, overflowing mercies of 
 God. In eating the bread and drinking the 
 wine in obedience to and in accordance with 
 Christ's command, we are joined with the Son 
 and with the Holy Ghost in pleading the sac- 
 rifice before the Father, and in return, the 
 Father, through the Holy Spirit, bestows the 
 innumerable blessings which the Son gained 
 for us, and has promised to them who worship 
 God in the eating of the bread and the drink- 
 ing of the wine. 
 
 The Church does well then to surround this 
 great worship with eucharists, with thanksgiv- 
 ings. Carefully and lovingly she fashions her 
 thanksgivings into a liturgy, as a setting of 
 pure gold for the choice gem of the Lord's Sup- 
 per. Let eucharist upon eucharist, thanksgiv- 
 
57 
 
 ing upon thanksgiving, prevent and follow this 
 simple tremendous act, though no liturgy, no 
 words of the Church can add aught to the in- 
 finite power given to it by Christ Himself. 
 
 " All glory be to Thee, Almighty God, our 
 heavenly Father, for that Thou, of Thy tender 
 mercy, didst give Thine only Son Jesus Christ 
 to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemp- 
 tion." 
 
MEMORANDA. 
 
 Two nouns are frequently joined together by the copula 
 "is." 
 
 If one of these nouns is the name of a person or thing, 
 and the other is the name of an immaterial, non-physical 
 thing, having no physical substance, as, for instance, a 
 title, identity may or may not be asserted by such a sen- 
 tence, and this is determined by its circumstances, or its 
 context. 
 
 When two material or physical things, occupying sepa- 
 rate spaces and being therefore distinguishable, are thus 
 joined together by the copula "is," complete identity is 
 never asserted, but only the sameness of some one of their 
 qualities or uses. 
 
 Our Lord chose this form of expression in order to de- 
 clare the relation of the bread to His body. 
 
 He therefore declared that the bread had some one 
 quality of His body, and He declared no further identity 
 between them. 
 
 He, in addition, indicated that this quality given to the 
 bread was that of His body " broken " and " to be eaten." 
 
 His body was to be sacrificed, the true Paschal Lamb, 
 and therefore was to be eaten. 
 58 
 
59 
 
 Because He gave the bread this same quality, the eating 
 of it has precisely the same force and effect as the eating 
 of His body would have. 
 
 The eating of Christ's body would be the eating of that 
 body sacrificed. Such an eating or partaking would be a 
 sacrificial feast. 
 
 Sacrificial feasts united the partakers with the one who 
 provided the sacrifice, and so made them sharers in the 
 merits of the sacrifice. 
 
 Therefore in the Lord's Supper, they who partake are 
 joined with our Lord in giving Himself, as the true Paschal 
 Lamb, to be sacrificed, and so are made personal sharers 
 in the merits of the sacrifice of the Lamb. 
 
I' 
 
m-y 
 
w^^:f 
 

 mnmmf&mmmmmmmmmmm 
 
 m 
 
 immmmmiiimmmmmmtimlimitmHii^, 
 
 '■- ■ ' ' "^ . ^.. . ■^.. r: ^ _^-^ ^_^^ ..,^,_^ ^..^ ^ — a^Jl.^.i£i.....,.,._