Had our Lord spoken in Latin, following the idiom of the vulgate, he would have said, -panis hic corpus meum significat, or symbolum est corporis mei-hoc pocu

both natures, Gelas, de duabus naturis in Christo." The drift of his argument is evidently this-that the nature of Christ's humanity remained, because the nature of the elements remains.

The doctrine of transubstantiation is so novel, that it was never entertained by the church of Rome, till the eighth century. John Damascene who lived about the middle of that century, Paschase, the abbot of Corbee, who wrote at the beginning of the ninth, and Theophylact, Landfranc, Alger, and Guitmond, in the eleventh, were the first fomentors and patrons of this opinion.

In the year 840, Ruban, (Archbishop of Mentz) who for learning and abilities, was accounted the greatest man of his time, speaks so clearly of the sacrament of the holy eucharist, and with such exact conformity to the word of God, and all Christian antiquity, that his arguments are sufficient to convince any person of sense and

reason.

"Because it was necessary," says he, "that Christ should ascend into heaven, he hath left in the bread and wine, the figures and characters of his flesh and blood, which we receive by faith. The sacrament is taken by the mouth, but the virtue of the sacrament by the inward man. The sacrament turns to the nourishment of the body, but the virtue of the sacrament is eternal life to us. Now as the sacrament incorporates itself to us, when we eat and drink it, so are we turned into the body of

lum sanguinem meum representat, or symbolum est sanguinis mei. This bread signifies my body, this cup represents my blood. But let it be observed, that in the Hebrew,

Christ, when we live in purity and obedience. When we are commanded to eat the flesh, and drink the blood of the Lord, it is a figurative speech, and a spiritual mystery." De sacrament euch. lib. 42, &c. &c. The church of England believes Christ to be really, though spiritually present, with all devout and faithful communicants; and that although his body and blood be verily and indeed (for every saving and beneficial purpose) taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper, yet the body of Christ is given, and taken, and eaten, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. The mean by which it is so eaten and received, being faith.

As it has been strongly asserted that the British churches believed the doctrine of transubstantiation till the time of the reformation, and that the reformation was in that case, a manifest innovation on the ancient faith, I beg leave to add a few extracts from a Saxon homily, and Elfric's epistles, written in Saxon, about A. D. 936, to Wulfsine, bishop of Sherburne.

Throughout the whole of this homily the bread and wine are stated to be understood ghostly and spiritually as the body and blood of Christ. Quoting 1. Cor. "They ate the same spiritual meat, and drank the same spiritual drink." It is said, "Neither was that stone from which the water ran, bodily Christ, but it signified Christ, because that heavenly meat that fed them forty years, and that water which from the stone did flow,

Chaldee, and Chaldee-Syriac languages, there is no term which expresses to mean, signify, denote, though both the Greek and Latin abound with them; hence the Hebrews use

had signification of Christ's bodie and his bloude, that now be offered daylye in Gode's churche. It was the same which we now offer, not bodily but ghostly. Moyses and Aaron saw that the heavenly meat was visible and corruptible, and they understood it spiritually, and received it spiritually. The Saviour saith, He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life; and he bad them eat, not that body which he was going about with, nor to drink that blood, which was to be shed for us, but he meant by that word the holy eucharist, which spiritually is his body and his blood."

Writing to Wulfstane, Archbishop of York, Ælfric says, "the Lord, which hallowed the eucharist before his sufferings, saith, that the bread was his own body, and that the wine was truly his blood, and yet that lively bread is not bodily so, not the self-same body that Christ suffered in, nor that holy wine is the Saviour's blood which was shed for us, in bodily thing or meaning, but in spiritual understanding." The preceding extracts are taken from a very rare work, entitled, "a Testimonie of Antiqvitie shewing the auncient Fayth in the church of England, touching the Sacrament of the Body and Bloude of the Lorde here publickly preached, and also believed in the Saxon's Tyme, above 600 years agoe." Imprinted at London, by John Day, Svo. without date. At the conclusion of the sermon, is the

a figure, and say, it is, for it signifies. So Gen. vii. 26, 27. The seven kine are (i. e. represent) seven years. This is (represents) the bread of affliction, which our fathers ate

following attestation :- "The full and whole discourse of all the former part of the sermò is about the understanding of the sacramental bread and wine, by which is revealed and made known what hath been the common taught doctrine of the church of England on this behalf, many hundred years agoe, contrarye unto the unaduised writing of some now a dayes. For the more faithfully reporting of the same, and therefore for the better credite hereof, these here have subscribed their names.

Mathewe, Archbishop of Canterburye

Thomas, Archbishop of Yorke

Edmunde, Bishop of London

James, Bishop of Durham
Robert, Bishop of Winchester
William, Bishop of Chichester
John, Bishop of Hereford
Richard, Bishop of Elye

Edwine, Bishop of Worcester

Nicholas, Bishop of Lincolne

Richard, Bishop of S. Dauys

Thomas, Bishop of Couentry and Lichfield

John, Bishop of Norwiche

John, Bishop of Carlyll

Nicholas, Bishop of Bangor

with divers other personages of honour and credite sub

scribing their names, the recorde whereof Remains in

in the land of Egypt. The ten horns are (i. e. signify) ten kings. Dan. vii. 24. They drank of the spiritual Rock which followed them, and that Rock was (represented) Christ. 1 Cor. x. iv. And following this Hebrew idiom, though the work is written in Greek, we find in Rev. i. 20. the seven stars are (represent) the angels of the seven churches and the seven candlesticks are (represent) the seven churches. The same form of speech is used in a variety of places, in the new testament, where this sense must necessarily be given to the word, Matt. xiii. 38, 39. The field is (represents) the world; the good seed are (represent or signify) the children of the kingdom: the tares are (signify) the children of the wicked one: the enemy is (signifies) the devil: the harvest is (represents) the end of the world, the reapers are (i. e. signify) the angels.

the handes of the moste Reverende Father, Mathewe, Archbishop of Canterburye."

The above testimony is of considerable consequence, as it shews that the pure evangelical doctrine of the church of England, relative to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, was so far from being only Protestant, that it was held by the British churches 600 years before the Reformation.