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this case, I Cor. x. 81. Hence it was, that this right of distributing bread broken continued for a thousand years; and was, as Humbertus testifies, observed in the Roman church, in the eleventh century.

This is my body.- Here it must be observed, that Christ had nothing in his hands. at this time, but part of that unleavened bread which he and his disciples had been eating at supper, and therefore he could mean no more than this, viz. that the bread which he was now breaking, represented his body, which, in the course of a few hours was to be crucified for them. Common sense unsophisticated with superstition and erroneous creeds; and reason unawed by the secular sword of sovereign authority, could not possibly attach any other meaning than this plain consistent, and rational one, to these words." But, says a false and absurd creed, Jesus meant, when he said, hoc est corpus meum, this is my body, and hic est calix sanguinis mei, this is the chalice of my blood, that the bread and wine were substantially changed into his body, including flesh, blood, bones, yea the whole Christ, in his imma

culate humanity, and adorable divinity. And for denying this, what rivers of righteous blood have been shed, by state persecutions, and by religious wars.* It may well

*The sanguinary persecutions raised up in this land in the days of queen Mary I. were levelled principally against the right use of this ordinance. Besides the vast numbers, who suffered by fines, confiscation, and imprisonment, not less than 277 persons fell a sacrifice to the ignorance, bigotry, and malevolence of the papal hierarchy. Among these were one archbishop, four bishops, twenty-one clergymen, eight lay gentlemen, eighty-four tradesmen, one hundred husbandmen, fifty-five women, and four children, who were all burnt alive, with circumstances of cruelty and horror, which surpassed the most violent persecutions of pagan antiquity. But the blood of these martyrs was the seed of the church.

Godlike men! how firm they stood!

Seeding their country with their blood.

The spirit and genius of the christian religion, is every where represented by our blessed Saviour and his apostles, as a spirit of meekness, kindness, gentleness, and love; and nothing but this spirit and temper of mind, can ever constitute us his disciples and followers; without it, though we understood all mysteries, could work miracles, should give our body to be burned, and all our goods to feed the poor, we are nothing.

What then does charity itself oblige us to think

be asked, can any man of sense believe, that when Christ took up a piece of bread, brake

of that religious profession, which breathes the very spirit of cruelty and murder? and if there be any proof in undeniable and repeated facts, this is the spirit of popery; for it has never discovered any thing like the meekness and gentleness of Christ, where it has had any opportunity of exercising its tyranny: it has never shewn the least respect or compassion to dignity, age, or sex, when it has been opposed: all alike have fallen a prey to its merciless and unrelenting power.

The renowned John Wickliffe, equally eminent for his learning and piety, was taken up out of his peaceful grave, some years after his burial, to be burned; and for what? for believing, among other things, that the scriptures are to be preferred to the decrees of the Pope and his cardinals-that the church of Rome is not the supreme head over all churches-and that the bread used in the sacrament, after consecration, is bread still.

Sir William Chatris was burned, because he said he would not worship the cross on which Christ suffered, but only Christ, who suffered upon the cross.

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, was excommunicated and pronounced accursed by the impious sentence of a popish archbishop, with three bishops in council assembled, for opposing the worship of images, the idolatory of the mass, the necessity of pilgrimages and penance, and the adoration of the relics of martyrs, confessors, &c.

John Hus, a very eminent preacher in Bohemia, was burned, notwithstanding the petition and remon

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it, and said, this is my body, that he was at

strances of the king, the nobles, and the commons in his favour; and the articles, for which the sentence of death was passed upon him, were as follows: he believed that the sacrament ought to be administered to the people in both kinds-that the consecrated bread was not the material body of Christ-that John Wickliffe died in a state of salvation--that the predestinate shall infallibly be saved-that the papal dignity was not of divine appointment-that the pope, his cardinals and clergy, did not constitute the true church of Christ, &c.

In a work, entitled "Free Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery," it is stated, in a note, page 127, that "from the year 1540 to the year 1570, comprehending only the space of thirty years, no fewer than 900,000 Protestants were put to death by Papists, in the different countries of Europe: among whom where 235 barons, 148 earls, and 35 princes. In the time of Paul IV., whose pontificate lasted only about four years, the Inquisition alone, according to the testimony of Vergerius, destroyed 150,000." And, "according to the calculations of some, the whole number of persons massacred, on account of religion, since the first rise of the Papacy, amounts to upwards of 50,000,000."

The eloquent, constitutional, inimitable speech and manly conduct of his Royal Highness, the Duke of York, the truly temperate, dignified, and unyielding firmness of the primier minister of this great protestant nation, and the first law officer of the crown of Great Britain, Earls Liverpool and Eldon, noblemen, distinguished not less for their incorruptible integrity, than

the same time, handling, and breaking his own body *

for the splendour of their talents, and the solidity of their acquirements, in opposing (upon the data, the lights, the land marks of history, with the unchanged spirit and constitution of Popery, grounds, which are as firm beneath them as the earth itself), the admission of Roman Catholics to political power, will be repaid, not merely with the esteem and admiration of the Protestant community of their own time, but with the gratitude and benediction of posterity.

*The heretic Eutiches, and his followers, believed that though at first Christ had two distinct natures, yet upon the union of them, the human nature was wholly converted into the divine. Pope Gelasius undertook the defence of the catholic faith against these heretics, and to prove the real existence of our Saviour's human nature, he draws an argument from the then received opinion concerning the nature of the elements in the eucharist; his words I render thus. "Verily the sacraments of Christ's body and blood which we receive are a divine thing, because by means thereof we are made partakers of the divine nature; and yet the substance of the bread and wine doth not cease to be therefore we must think the same of our Lord himself, that as these elements by the operation of the Holy Spirit pass into a divine condition, but nevertheless remain in their own proper nature, so is the principal mystery itself, the effects of which is represented unto us in the elements, which truly and properly remaining still the same, shew one entire and true Christ in the union of

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