have contended for the literal meaning of our Saviour's words; leaving it as a matter of inference that the Eucharist, after consecration, is the body and blood of Christ."

Consistently with this doctrine of transubstantiation, and linked with it, as a matter of course, is that of an appointed priesthood, a separated body to consecrate. On what is called the Sacrament of Orders, the first canon is,

"If any one shall say that there is not in the New Testament a visible and external priesthood, or that there is not any power of consecrating and offering the true body and blood of the Lord, and of remitting and retaining sins, but only an office and bare ministry of preaching the Gospel, or that those who do not preach are not priests at all; let him be anathema."

Having presented the Roman theory of the Eucharist, we will now exhibit the Anglican.

The Church of England theory is, that the Eucharist is commemorative, and that the One Atonement is "a full, perfect, and sufficient Atonement, Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." This is the language of her Communion Service, and in her Articles the teaching is similar. She repudiates the doctrine of transubstantiation, and maintains that those only who worthily receive the communion partake of the body and blood of Christ "after a spiritual and heavenly manner."

We give these as the sentiments of a partially reformed Church; and, as far as stated, we heartily concur. But, as we do not hold with her entire constitution, we will touch upon the defects, with regard to the Eucharist, we think we discover. And we do so because, in bringing them forward, we shall prepare an explanation for the sentiments of the High Church party within her pale.

The defects, we think, to be found in the language she employs in her Communion Service, and in the levitical element maintained in her constitution in reference to Ordination and the Sacraments.

We think the language she employs in the Communion objectionable, but chiefly inasmuch as it sometimes gives a perverse tendency. Mention is made of "a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving," of "a lively sacrifice of ourselves, our souls, and bodies," and of being unworthy to offer "any sacrifice." Now, though this language is not intended to convey the impression, that by the Eucharist a true sacrifice, or a sacrifice at all is offered, yet it leads some to the conclusion that a sacrifice is intended. The employment of the word sacrifice has helped, no doubt, together with other causes, to carry some of her members into the arms of the Church of Rome. The Church of England does not view the rite as a sacrifice, but as "a continual remembrance of Christ's death." She holds the Eucharist to be commemorative; and the language of her service should so conform to this leading idea as never to lose sight of it, or render it secondary. We do not deny the language employed is Scriptural, and if it did not mislead, we should not wholly object to it. The sacred writers use it with propriety, because properly applied. They use it as affording figures of speech, derived from a Hebrew ritual, to express spiritual meanings which the respective Hebrew rites indicated. Thus "a sacrifice" of praise and thanksgiving with peace-offerings, made under the Hebrew polity in a material ritual (Lev. v. 11, 12), under the Gospel, consists "in the fruit of our lips giving thanks to God's name" (Heb. xiii. 15). The language, then, is not inapt, of course, as employed by the sacred New Testament writers. But it becomes inapt in a service commemorative of a finished work, which is neither heightened or diminished by men's acts. The Lord's sacrifice may become more spiritually sustentatious as accepted with more or less faith, but its efficacy, as a finished work, is in no way affected. It needs no sacrifice on man's part to render it efficacious. No sacrifice is intended by the Anglican Communion Service, and, therefore, the word sacrifice may, with propriety, and we think with advantage, be left out.

Another cause for misapprehension exists in the maintenance of a levitical principle in Ordination, which is made to bear on the Eucharist. It is supposed that "a ghostly power" is bestowed, at Ordination, needful to the due consecration of the Eucharist. By this supposed power only is it thought that the bread and wine become changed and fitted for the celebration of the Communion. This opinion is common to all the Anglican divines. It impresses some one way, some another. The Evangelicals suppose the bread and wine thereby spiritually to convey grace; the High Churchmen that they thereby not only spiritually convey grace, but actually present the very corporal body and blood of our Lord. Herein is a further reason for journeying to Rome. Nor need the journey be much wondered at. Divines brought up in the Anglican Church have so much of the false principles of Rome instilled, that when enquiry is awakened they pass onward by a natural movement. They do not all at once plunge headlong into all the errors of Rome, but being educated in principles falsely based, they cannot but pass onward to wrong conclusions if the principles be legitimately and honestly pursued out. Properly, there is no midway resting-place. The wonder is, that those who linger half-way fancy themselves Protestants. Protestantism is based on the Gospel of Grace and Free Justification. Romanism is based on men's Mediation and Justification by Works. Both cannot be right; or one a little right and a little wrong, and the other a little right and a little wrong. The truth lies not midway. It is wholly with the one or with the other. Protestantism carries direct to a belief in a completed Atonement and Free Justification; Romanism carries to a belief in external helps and aids of a mediating, ministering, consecrating priesthood. Protestantism views the Atonement as final and all-sufficient; Romanism views it as aided and strengthened, and its full virtue brought out in the acts of a delegated priestly power.*

See the Canons of the Church of Rome on the Sacrifice of the Mass

Arising out of the two causes stated, it is maintained by some of the clergy of the Church of England that the holy Eucharist is a real and true sacrifice. Among recent writers, a late archdeacon of the English Church, while yet archdeacon, put forth his sentiments upon this subject. They are

That Christ's sacrifice is perfect, complete, final; but that Christ appointed a priesthood, which this writer, like the Romanists, calls an external priesthood, as distinguished from the body of Christians whom he recognises as kings and priests "because anointed in Christ; " and that one office of the external priesthood is to offer the one perfect sacrifice continuously. His idea of the priesthood is, that it is twofold-internal and external : the internal, which is hidden and universal in every member; the external, which is visible and particular delegated to the sacerdotal order by Christ Himself." The priesthood, though to him it presents this twofold aspect, he views as but "one priesthood." The Eucharist, in relation to the external priesthood, he believes to be "a real and true sacrifice." But he does not mean by this "a sacrifice added to the sacrifice of the cross." He deems it "representative and commemorative"-" a visible memorial and representation of Christ's crucifixion and oblation." Though he thinks it a true sacrifice, he yet deems it symbolical. When our Lord brake bread, and poured out wine, and declared them to be His body and blood, "our blessed Lord did truly, in a symbolical act, offer and give Himself to die upon the cross." Though the act of breaking bread and pouring out wine is viewed as symbolical, yet the words spoken-"This is my body, and this is my blood"— are received to have been spoken literally. When "our blessed Lord took bread, and said, This is my body, and the cup, saying, This is my blood, He did not speak in metaphor and figure; His words were spirit and life. What He spake they are; what they are we (the external priesthood) offer. In that holy sacrament He is really present; and by His real presence it is the one and

continual offering of Himself."* The external priesthood the writer views as "the expression and embodying of the internal, which thereby fulfils its ministry of sacrifice and worship. It is as the ministry of the body to the powers and endowments of the soul, as speech is to thought, or power to will. But, whether internal or external, it is all one priesthood still: the priesthood of Christ descending from the head to the body, whether he offers the body in Himself, and the body, in and for itself, offers Him unto the Father. In this, then, we see what is the Christian sacrifice. It is Christ in heaven offering Himself in visible presence; and on earth by this ministering priesthood offering Himself in the sacrament of His body and blood." The declaration of Paul, that Christ "should not offer himself often " (Heb. ix. 25, 26), is held not to be violated, inasmuch as Christ, by the external priesthood, is not offered up often, but “ evermore." "Evermore: not that He should offer Himself often, for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; not often, but evermore; reconciling us continually, after all our sins of wilfulness, ignorance, infirmity; making stedfast the peace He has wrought between God and us upon the cross."+

These sentiments may fairly be assumed to be the sentiments of the Anglican High Church divines. They are put forward by a former member of this body; and it is not because he, with others, are gone to Rome, that those left behind repudiate them. In fact, they are the sentiments of Anglicans.‡

* This sentiment explains the reason for such frequent communions as are in recent times celebrated. The frequent communions of the Anglican is thus held to be analogous to the mass of the Roman Church. + Archdeacon Manning's Sermon xii., "The Only Sacrifice."

"A system of worship upon earth is the necessary correlative to a work of intercession in heaven. The one implies the other. And,