hearers who had heard his previous discourse, they could not possibly convey the same meaning. He now goes on to say, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world." He goes on to say, "Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day: for my flesh is meat indeed; and my blood is drink indeed: he that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me." Now, here we have phrases manifestly upon a simple perusal of them of a totally different character from the preceding phrases; much stronger, and, of their own nature, of a more gross, if I may so say, or literal import. But let us examine the difference between the two. The first is that which I have just intimated-that up to this moment, our Saviour had evidently given up the figures of eating and drinking, and that he here returns to them, not without necessity. For if we have seen that offence had been given by them before, and that to prevent that he had abstained from them, can we believe that if he could have avoided it he would have returned to them in a still more strongly marked and characteristic form? This, then, is one evidence of a transition in the discourse to a new topic.

But there are other very singular peculiarities. In the first part of the discourse, our Saviour always speaks of this bread as given by his Father; throughout he is the bread whom the Father had sent from heaven, which the Father gives to the Jews. In the second portion of the discourse, or that which I have just read, he no longer speaks of the Father giving it, but it is always he himself that gives it. The giver consequently is different in the two cases; and we are therefore authorized to suppose that the gift likewise is different.

In the second place, with regard to the peculiarities, our Saviour, in the first part of the discourse, always speaks of the consequence of this partaking of the bread of life-it is "believing in him,” “being brought to him," "being drawn unto him," "coming nigh to him." These are expressions which, throughout the New Testament, are always used as descriptive of the effects of faith; by faith we are said to be drawn to God. This expression, for instance, occurs in Matthew xi. 28.; Luke vi. 47; John v. 41; vii. 37. In numerous other passages where a person is said to be drawn, to be brought to Christ, it is always meant the being brought to faith in him. Such are the expressions always used in the first part of the chapter expressions precisely characteristic of the virtue of faith, of which the Saviour, as I showed you before, was

speaking. But, in the second part of the discourse, he never speaks again of being brought to him, but of abiding in him, being incorporated with him, expressions which, when found in Scripture, are spoken of love and charity. These expressions occur in John xv. 4, 9, xiv. 23; 1 John ii. 24-27; and various other places.

Now, therefore, if we find, in the first part of the discourse, all the effects throughout it are precisely the effects which, throughout Scripture, are attributed to faith, we see a strong confirmation of what I have said, that the discourse related to faith; but when we find, in the second part, that the expressions used are those which no longer apply to that virtue, but to a totally different one-that is, love and union, by virtue of love to Christ, I am again authorized in considering the phraseology so changed, as that it applies to a different subject, it applies to something directed to unite us to Christ, not through faith, but through love. This, therefore, is another strong distinction between the first part of the discourse and the second.

But the next and most important distinction of phraseology is yet to be explained; and it will require one or two preliminary remarks. One of the most delicate points in the interpretation of Scripture, is the interpretation of its figures, its tropes, and its similies; and it is supposed that this expression of " eating the flesh of Christ, and of drinking his blood," is nothing more than a figure, or an image for believing in him. If this be the case, I might observe, for instance, that if to eat Christ simply means to believe in Christ, it follows that the verb, "to eat,” in that case, is equivalent to the verb, "to believe." And when, therefore, our Saviour says, we are "to eat his flesh," substituting the equivalent, what does he mean? To believe in the flesh of Christ-a doctrine quite different from the other, a totally distinct doctrine, which formerly used to be inculcated in consequence of an erroneous doctrine springing up, regarding the reality of Christ's flesh. If you substitute the equivalent, the passage has an absurd sense; for we cannot believe that our Saviour, speaking to the Jews, who were too much inclined to take the outward, the corporal, the material, the carnal view of things, visibly and sensibly standing before them, and touched by them; not having reason to fear they would believe too little in the corporal or material part of his being, but that their faith had to be grounded with regard to the spiritual-we cannot conceive that he would take such pains to inculcate the necessity of believing in the reality of his flesh, and consequently that test at once shows the metaphor to be exceedingly incorrect. But this merely in a parenthesis, before I proceed to the more important consideration.

The examination of tropes or figures, is undoubtedly, as I said, the most delicate portion of the interpretation of any book; and for this simple reason, that however it may appear to us that these are vague, that nothing is so indeterminate as figures, it is, in fact, precisely the

contrary: there is no part of any language more definite to this extent, that you are less at liberty to vary from the prescribed, the general acceptation of conventional tropical phraseology. So long as you are using terms commonly used in the literal sense, there may be some vagueness; but the moment society has fixed upon a certain tropical or figurative signification, you are not at liberty to depart from it, without risking the most complete misunderstanding in your audience. It would be easy to apply this to any ordinary admitted figure: particularly any thing in the form of a proverbial expression. I will content myself with one simple and obvious illustration. We, for instance, and mankind in general, have attached certain qualities to the idea of character possessed, we will say, by some animal. We say that a man is like a lamb; that he is like a wolf; that he is like any other animal; and to understand the meaning of this expression is easy. We know what a person means instantly, if he says that an individual who has been ill, who has been suffering pain, submitted to it like a lamb. You understand perfectly what is meant; that he was meek; that he did not complain; that he was patient under suffering. If you were to use the expression in a different manner, one which was never used by others, you would necessarily deceive your hearers. We instantly understand by the figure of a lion, a character in which there is a certain intermixture of strength and power, and, at the same, of generous and noble feeling. We understand by the figure of a tiger, great animal, or brute strength; but, at the same time, great fierceness, cruelty, and barbarity, joined with it. These two animals have qualities in common: and if, therefore, in ordinary speech, you were to say of a man he was like a lion, or was a lion, your hearers would immediately understand, from the ordinarily received acceptation, what you meant. But suppose you meant nothing more than that his limbs were beautifully formed; that he had exceeding agility, that his power of running or leaping was very great—I ask, would any body understand you? Would you not deceive your hearers? Most undoubtedly; and more by the wrong use of an ordinary admitted figure of speech, than you would by any other form of language. And for the same reason, if to indicate that a man had great strength of limb, you said he was like a tiger, you would undoubtedly be calumniating him; you would be doing him an injury before those to whom you spoke—because you would have departed from the ordinary acceptation of the trope. Thus, it appears, that if any expression in a language, besides its own natural, simple, obvious, literal acceptation, have an established metaphorical one in that language, you can have no choice of interpretation between the literal one, and the universally adopted figurative one; and you have no right to give it another and a vague sense, unless you can prove it to be in equal use.

Now, I say, that the expression to eat the flesh of an individual, besides

its obvious, literal, sensible, carnal meaning, had an established, fixed, invariable, tropical signification among those people whom our Saviour addressed; so that the moment you depart from the literal, you can have no choice but the figurative one.

Such is, therefore, the change of phraseology which, I wish to show, takes place here. I say, therefore, that whether we examine through the whole of Scripture, or whether we examine the language spoken at this day, which is but a dialect of that spoken by our Saviour, upon that very law whereby we know that all the customs, and manners, and feelings have not been one tittle changed since that time; or whether, in fine, we examine the very language in which our Saviour spoke at that time, the expression, to eat the flesh of any person, had affixed to it a radical, essentially figurative signification-doing by thought or deed, but more especially by false accusation--doing a serious and grievous injury to the individual. For instance, you have in the twentyseventh Psalm this expression: "While the wicked draw near against me, to eat my flesh "—that is, as all commentors explain it "to oppress, to vex, to ruin me." You have it again in the nineteenth chapter of Job: "Why do you persecute me as God, and glut yourselves with my flesh "—that is, "with eating my flesh "-that is calumniating and persecuting by words, which is the most peculiar, and at the same time, most obvious meaning of the metaphor. Again, it is said in the third chapter of Micah: "Who have eaten the flesh of my people "—that is, oppress them, done them serious injury. We have it again in the fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes: "The fool foldeth his arms together, and eateth his own flesh ”—destroys himself, ruins himself. These are the only passages in which the expression occurs in the Old Testament, though allusion is made to the same idea in the fourteenth chapter of Job. In the New Testament it occurs once or twice-for instance, where St. James, speaking of the wicked, says, "Your gold and silver are cankered: and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh "—in the sense of giving testimony against them. So St. Paul uses the idea in writing to the Galatians, where he

says, "If ye bite and eat one another." These are all the instances in which this expression occurs in Scripture, except where it is spoken of the very act of carnally and materially eating human flesh. It has affixed to it, in every case, a determinate tropical signification—that is to say, the meaning, of doing a serious injury or harm, particularly by caluinny.

The next method of investigating the meaning of this phrase is very natural-that of seeing what meaning it has among the persons who inbabit not only that country, but in the feelings and opinions of all those among whom our Saviour spoke; that is, the Arabs, who now occupy the same country. It is acknowledged by all writers upon

Scripture illustration, that their writings, their phraseology, their customs, manners, and feelings form, perhaps, the richest mine for the illustration of Scripture, in consequence of the exact resemblance which we find in every part. Now it is singular, that among these men, it is a familiar and most common form of expression for designating a calumny, to say, the person "eats the flesh of another." I have collected a number of examples from native writers, and I will just read one or two. We have, for instance, in the very law of the Mahommedans, in the Koran, this expression, "Speak not ill one of another in his absence. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his brother, when dead? Truly you would abhor it." Now all commentators on that passage observe, that it is to be viewed precisely the same as calumniating your brother. You would not like to eat his flesh; so much, therefore, should you abhor calumny. Again, in one of their poets: "Thou sayest I am fasting; but thou art eating the flesh of thy brother" that is to say, as all commentators understand it, "Thou art calumniating him." In Hamasa, another celebrated collection of poems, it is said, "I am not given to detraction, or to eating the flesh of my neighbour." "The rich calumniator," says another poet, "has taken my flesh for food, and has not been cured of his appetite for flesh." "The rich calumniator has taken my flesh for his food." We have allusion to this constantly in their proverbs, but I will only quote another poet who says, "He has been persecuted by falsehood; they have divided his flesh among them for food." Therefore all this is completely understood, by persons conversant with this language; and it is admitted that, among the Arabs, it has no other signification than that of calumniating or wickedly accusing an individual. And observe, it is not in words that this idea rests, but in the opinion-in the mind; because, in all these various instances which I have quoted, in the originals there are a variety of phrases. It is not like any of our terms that may be figurative, and consequently lose their original idea, but literal, and in every instance there is a varied phrase, there is a different verb, used in each case-signifying, therefore, that the ideas in the mind were so conjoined, that the one conveyed the other.

In the third place, if we come to the language in which our blessed Saviour himself spake, it is remarkable that, in the Syro-Chaldaic, there is no expression for accusing or for calumniating, except to eat a morsel of the person calumniated; so much so, that in a Syriac version of the Scriptures, which was probably made in the first or second century, there is no expression throughout for devil-which, in Greek. signifies "the accuser," or "calumniator"--but "the eater of flesh." Whenever it is said that the Jews accused our Saviour, they are said to have eaten a morsel of him—to have eaten a portion of his flesb, In the Chaldaic parts of the Old Testament Scriptures, when we are