If any thing more were necessary to disconnect this part of the Christian ritual from the work of a priesthood, it would be found in the fact, that the corresponding rite of the Jewish church was, like that of circumcision, a domestic, and not a priestly rite. The Passover, as well as circumcision, was instituted before the priesthood was appointed. After it was appointed, no injunction restricted, to those who discharged its functions, the right of killing the paschal lamb. Though, when the people were led into the possession of the land which had been promised to them, the feast could be celebrated only at the place where the sanctuary of worship was established; yet the lamb was not presented upon the altar, but upon the table of each household, in its own settled or temporary dwelling. No portion of it went to the priest, but each domestic party feasted upon its own victim; and if any thing remained from it at the conclusion of the supper, it might not be left till the morning, but was to be consumed in the fire. It was immediately after he had eaten of the Passover with his disciples, and at the same table on which the paschal lamb had been placed, that the Saviour instituted his own supper. The bread and the wine were to supersede the lamb, and to be the visible memorials of the dying love of our departed

Lord;-of Christ, our Passover, who was sacrificed for us.

And the ejection of the priest, and the reduction of the altar to a table, explodes that master-piece of human ingenuity and effrontery, the imposing fiction of transubstantiation. For if there be no priest to effect the marvellous transformation, the elements must remain, as the Apostle describes them to have been, even after the Saviour's giving of thanks, the bread which we eat, and the cup which we drink; evidently so to the eye, and demonstrably so to any who will submit them to the test of a chemical process.

Should we be told, that the deductions of reason, and the evidence of the senses, on a subject so sublime and mysterious, must be alike rejected; and that the doctrine is proposed to faith, and upheld by the plain declaration of our Redeemer, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,”—we answer, That those who take this declaration literally, must place themselves on a level in understanding with the blind and carnal Jews, who were offended with it; that those who take the words sacramentally,-who suppose that they refer to the bread and wine of the Lord's supper, must be prepared to admit that no individual was or could be, when they

were delivered, nor for a considerable period afterwards, in the possession of life; - that none of the twelve, not even was in the possession of life.

Peter himself,

They must be

prepared to admit, that none of the promises of life, which the Saviour had hitherto given, had been, or could have been fulfilled:-that the great purpose for which Christ came into the world, which was to give life, had as yet, in the case of no individual, been accomplished; because, as yet, there was no such thing as the Lord's supper in existence. This sufficient and palpable reason entirely excludes the sacramental meaning which the words have been supposed to involve. It was impossible that they could refer to an institution which then was not in being; and about the intended appointment of which not even a hint had yet been given. More excusable were the Jews who took the words literally, than are those who, understanding the chronology of the New Testament, take them sacramentally. They libel the Saviour's character as a teacher, and nullify his grace and faithfulness as a Redeemer. If their interpretation of the words be a true one, every gift which the Saviour had previously conferred must have been withdrawn, and the declaration which he delivered must have been an inexplicable riddle, which no creature then

in existence could by any possibility have made out. They must be taken metaphorically and spiritually; as referring to truth, of which Christ is the substance, and on which, by coming to him, the soul must daily feed: and then will there be found in them, according to his own assurance, spirit and life. Experiencing their quickening influence, we shall feel under them, as Peter did when he heard them: knowing nothing about a sacrament in them, we shall come to Christ with powerful emotion, saying, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."*

On the ritual observances of the church, as specified or involved in the commission given by the Redeemer to his Apostles, we have sufficiently enlarged to show, that there is in them no affinity with priestly rites; as in the commission itself there is nothing to countenance the claims of a Christian priesthood.

*John vi. 68.

SECTION IV.

NO PRIESTHOOD CONFERRED IN THE PERSONAL AUTHORITY WITH WHICH THE APOSTLES WERE INVESTED.

BEFORE the Apostles received the comprehensive commission which was given to them at a mountain in Galilee, where by special appointment they had been convened to meet the Saviour, and which, in its most essential partteaching, they execute by their writings to the present day, and will to the end of the world; their divine Master had, on the very evening of his resurrection, when he unexpectedly appeared as a friend amongst them, invested them with authority to tread in his own steps, and, by the exercise of miraculous powers, to become his representatives in the world :

"Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his