blood. It is no small part of the blasphemy of the mass, that God is thus represented as working a standing deception on the senses a practical lie! This consideration has received less attention than it deserves. The sensible properties of objects are our Creator's own language, testifying to us the real existence of the objects themselves. It is nothing to the purpose to say that our senses may deceive. Partially, and within certain limits they may. But a permanent, universal deception, affecting the minds of all persons in all ages, by which they invariably see, taste, smell, and handle bread where no bread is, but flesh; and wine where no wine is, but blood; if it really occurs, is a stupendous and unparalleled delusion, that can be accounted for, not from any fault of the senses, but only by such an act of divine power as has no parallel in all that we know of God; and must, if we admit it, shake all confidence not only in the whole fabric of human knowledge, but in the Divine veracity. The Romish church can evade the charge of palming a hoary imposture upon the minds of its members only by the awful blasphemy of ascribing to the God of truth such a deception of the senses as mediæval superstition was wont to ascribe to the devil.

It is plain, at a glance, how utterly irrelevant are all those instances of transformation recorded in Scripture, such as the changing of Moses' rod into a serpent, or of the water at the marriage-feast into wine. These were precisely what transubstantiation is not,―changes in the outward sensible properties of objects patent to the senses. Modern chemical science enables us (without presumption) to add, that they were not what transubstantiation claims to be,-a change in the occult substance of matter. These miracles did in an instant what God is constantly doing in the processes of nature. No man in his senses doubts that God can change bread into flesh. Bread is every day converted into flesh, and wine into blood, by the process of digestion and assimilation; not by any change of their ultimate substance, (as chemical analysis proves,) but by certain combinations and recombinations which alter their sensible qualities. If our Saviour, instead of changing water into wine, had assured the wedding guests that what looked and tasted to them water was really wine, would this have manifested forth his glory,' or been recorded among his miracles?

Neither is transubstantiation fitly styled a mystery. A mystery is a secret. The mysteries of religion are facts, of whose reality we are assured, but of whose rationale we are ignorant. The Trinity in Unity is such a mystery, transcending our experience, but in no way contradicting our reason. Dr. Wiseman, in order to force an unholy parallel, has wickedly spoken of the dogma of

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the Trinity as 'at first sight repugnant to every law of number;' which if it really were, no mind would receive it without an act of insanity. But the fact that God is in one sense Three, in another sense One, is no contradiction to reason, though it is a mystery, or secret, how it is. If the Romish church merely asserted that the bread and wine are in some way, we know not how, the body and blood of Christ, this might have been called a mystery; but, happily, they have attempted to explain their mystery. They have defined its theory. They have lashed this vital dogma of their faith to the foundering hull of an obsolete philosophy. The orthodox belief is entirely based on the supposed possibility of separating in fact what can be separated in thought-substance and attribute, matter and its essential and accidental properties. The sensible properties remain-taste, weight, form, &c., but they do not inhere in the new substance, which is the body of Christ; they inhere in nothing; that is to say, qualities, properties, or accidents, whose essential nature it is to have no existence whatever in themselves, but only as attributes of a substance, do nevertheless exist, when the substance of which they were the properties has ceased to exist. With all respect for the authorities pleaded by Dr. Wiseman against the charge of absurdity, and with every wish not to utter that charge vaguely, we must confess, that the degree by which this proposition is separated from a metaphysical absurdity is, to our vision, quite imperceptible. Absurd or not, an abstruse and subtle theory, whose validity rests wholly on the recondite speculations of a philosophy which was not developed for a thousand years after the New Testament was written, has no analogy with the mysteries of revealed religion.

Whatever attempts may be made to discover transubstantiation in Scripture, the real bulwark of the dogma is ecclesiastical tradition. In the form in which it was finally adopted by the Council of Trent, it cannot be reckoned a very ancient tradition. But the germs of it are discoverable at a very early period, in close connexion with those of the still more fatal corruption which represents the eucharist as an atoning sacrifice. It is easy, indeed, to cite passages from many of the fathers, which, if strictly taken, would seem to countenance the Romish doctrine. It is equally easy, on the other hand, to cite passages of a very different complexion. We regret that our limits merely permit us to refer the reader to Dr. Halley's learned and judicious, though brief, historical remarks on this subject. His conclusion is, that the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, repudiated by Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, 'the Gregorys, Cyril, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Athan

asius, Ambrose, and many other ancient ecclesiastics, with 'their successors down to Saxon, German, and French writers of the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, was not the 'ancient and catholic doctrine of the Christian church.' (p. 361.) Of course, Dr. Wiseman has skilfully marshalled an imposing array of extracts, from many of these very same writers, in support of his doctrine. One extract, however, on which he lays great stress, affords a striking illustration of the loose and highflown rhetoric to be found in the patristic writings. When, therefore,' says Chrysostom, thou seest the priest presenting the body to thee, think not that it is his hand, but the hand of Christ, that is stretched towards thee.' Did Chrysostom mean that the hand of the priest was transubstantiated into the flesh of Christ? This would be quite as legitimate an inference as that drawn from similar expressions in favour of transubstantiation.

The true doctrine of the eucharist we believe to be that ably unfolded by Dr. Halley, that it is a symbolic exhibition of truth, and most especially of the truth of the atonement. In regarding the sacraments as symbols, and nothing but symbols, we are not afraid of degrading or dishonouring them. Wonderful is the might of symbols; incalculable their influence on the history of the world. What empire was ever founded, what religion ever taught, what victory ever won, what revolution ever completed, without their aid? Rob an army of its ensigns and decorations, its symbols of honour, unity, and command, and you would rob it of half its valour, and more than half its discipline. Give men a sign, though it be but a blacksmith's leather-apron on the point of a lance, and they will follow it to victory or death. Emblems are, as it were, the incarnation of abstract ideas, making them palpably present to the imagination. Through the eye, they speak direct to the heart, and speak more in a moment than words could do in an hour. The colour of a ribbon will often do more to keep men together, and urge them forward, than the power of principle, the attractions of profit, or the charm of eloquence. Many who knew little of the character of the Bourbons, or of the pedigree of the Plantagenets, died cheerfully for the white cockade or the red rose. In providing, therefore, appropriate symbols of the grand truths of his religion, and badges of discipleship and unity among his followers, our Saviour displayed his wise foresight and profound knowledge of the wants of human nature. But in making those symbols so simple and so few, the application of water in the name of the Trinity, and the partaking of bread and wine in memory of his own death,— our Saviour showed that foresight and wisdom to be superhuman and divine. If even these were corrupted, what would have been

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the result had a more elaborate system of symbolic teaching been divinely instituted? The corruptions cast no shadow of suspicion on the wisdom of the original institutions. Doubtless our Saviour foresaw that the evils resulting from the absence of any such symbols would be far greater than those to arise from their perversion. Considering to what an extent, even in the darkest ages, they still bore a struggling witness for truth, and, amidst much ignorance and superstition, comforted the hearts, and strengthened the faith of millions, we may well believe this. Their corruption destroyed much, it could not destroy the whole, of the benefits they were designed to convey.

These corruptions were the natural, if we may not say inevitable, growth of the centuries during which, by the setting light of the worn-out empire, and by the lurid glare in the darkening sky of the watchfires of barbarian invasion, the human intellect sunk into a troubled slumber, to awake, at the Divine voice, with renewed and gigantic strength, and gird itself to its unsleeping and victorious work in the bright daylight of these happier ages. That the sacraments were symbols, rendered it inevitable that they should be regarded as something more than symbols. The tendency which soon obscured the perfect symplicity of their true doctrine, lay in the natural mysticism of the human mind, the fruitful parent of such an endless brood of superstitions, and which nothing but the stern discipline of modern physical science can restrain within its due limits. The belief in magic prevailed, not only amongst Oriental nations (where its proper home seems to be), but throughout Greece and the West. Amid all the vagaries of popular belief touching magic, the leading idea was always that of the mystical power of symbols, whether visible or verbal; but more especially of visible signs in conjunction with certain words of might. Such words and signs, it was thought, could control the whole order of nature, transform both the sensible and the occult qualities of all material objects, and render the invisible orders of spiritual beings obedient to the magician's will. Beliefs such as these, not confined to the ignorant multitude, but influencing the minds of the wisest and most learned, could not fail to modify, gradually, but powerfully and surely, the views popularly entertained of the Sacraments. The words of consecration, at first repeated in memory, or imitation, of their first utterance by our Saviour, assumed by degrees the character of an incantation, possessing power to invest the bread and wine with new and mysterious attributes, and to make them the channels of supernatural gifts. Magic, like idolatry, had been vigorously attacked by the first preachers of the gospel, but, like idolatry, though

overthrown by that mighty and impetuous outburst of spiritual truth and power, it was not destroyed. It rallied its strength, became the treacherous ally of the conquering faith, and at last enthroned itself in the very core of its creed and on the very altar of its sanctuary. The theory of sacramental salvation, which gradually developed itself, was neither more nor less than magic applied to religion. It powerfully aided, and was powerfully aided by the transformation of the Christian ministry into a priesthood. As the sacraments, instead of emblems of truth, were regarded as channels of grace, so the ministers of the gospel, instead of teachers of Christ's word, claimed to be dispensers of his salvation. The elements changed by the spell of the priest into the veritable body and blood of Christ, were the direct means, when received by the faithful, of uniting them corporeally to Christ, and transfusing through their bodies, and by that means through their souls, the saving virtues of his passion. The crowning invention of the whole system was that which ascribed to the priest not only the power of dispensing, but of actually procuring the benefits of Christ's passion, by repeating the offering which He made of Himself for the expiation of sin. Oh, height of human blasphemy and audacity! that the impure hands of a sinful mortal should be imagined capable of presenting to the Eternal Father a repetition of that blessed and only sacrifice which the Scripture so emphatically declares to have been once offered' 'for ever' by Him who is the only priest of the church of God!

We have already transcribed Dr. Halley's forcible remarks on this subject; and we had marked for extract a spirited passage in which Dr. Anderson describes the fierce dispute that was waged in the Council of Trent, upon the incredible question, whether Christ in the Last Supper offered himself (i.e., under the 'species' of bread and wine) as an expiatory sacrifice to the Father! Even the Tridentine fathers dared not, in the face of the opposition of the best and most honest of their number, go the length of thus utterly making void the sacrifice on the cross. They left it doubtful, whether this offering, which they affirm Him to have made when He took the bread, was eucharistic or propitiatory! And having already ascribed to the priest the power, by simply repeating the Latin translation of our Lord's words, to do what they assert Christ to have done-change the bread and wine into his flesh and blood-they shrank not from ascribing to the priest a power to do what they dared not declare Christ himself to have done, to offer this transubstantiated flesh and blood as an atonement for the sins both of the living and of the dead.