t body. Breaking the bread, an act mentioned by three of the evangelists and by St. Paul, is a representation of his body broken on the cross, of his disjointed bones, and of his being pierced by the nail and the spear. The wine represents the blood of Christ, shed for many for the remission of sins. God, who knows our frame has graciously assisted our meditations on the subject of Christ's death by thus addressing our senses. And those who administer this rite with an unbroken wafer, and also withhold the cup from the bulk of Christian worshippers, greatly enervate its significance and expressiveness. When Jesus appeared to the Eleven on the evening of his resurrection, "" he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit." This was a partial communication of that Spirit, the full "effusion of which was received on the day of Pentecost. The sign attending our Lord's words intimated by whose energy the gift was imparted; and also the nature of it, as an invisible but active and vivifying principle. Our Lord' breathed, as it were, into their nostrils the breath of the spiritual life. And, to conclude this enumeration, which I have pursued, like some of the former ones, in the order of time; when our Lord, after his resurrection, had signified to Peter that he should die on the cross, he bands, that we have no preacher of our age who has been so figurative in his most studied discourses, as Jesus Christ was in his popular preaching. Sur l'eloquence, p. 94. Ps. xxii. 14. w Acts ii. 4. * John iii. 8. Acts ii. 2. " John xx. 22. y Gen. ii. 7. See repeated this intimation by adding, " Follow me :" meaning to declare, in giving occasion to this action, that, as Peter then literally followed him, so should this apostle figuratively follow him by dying the same kind of death. a And it has been observed that the beloved disciple, intent on our Lord's words and actions, * followed him uncalled: as if he meant most affectionately to shew, by the same action, a like readiness to lay down his life for the truth. 2 John xxi. 19, 22. Comp c. xiii. 36. lent paraphrase and note on John xxi. 20. See Doddridge's excel CHAPTER III. CONCERNING THE PROOFS WHICH OUR LORD GAVE OF HIS DIVINE MISSION. SECTION I. OF THE PROPHECIES UTTERED BY HIM, AND THEIR COM PLETION. a EUSEBIUS, having quoted the prophecy, "Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," adds these words: "And having collected in a separate treatise numberless other particulars said and foretold by our Saviour, and subjoined the events of things agreeable to his inspired foreknowledge, we demonstrate the undoubted truth of what we are persuaded concerning him." This book is lost; and though some have enumerated the most eminent of our Lord's prophecies, yet I have not seen any writer who has professedly made a complete collection of them. I shall lay before the reader such as at present occur to me on a diligent attention to the subject. Those already accomplished shall be ranged with a general view to the time of their completion: and those shall be a Præp. evang. 1. i. c. iii. referred to in Jortin's discourses on the Christian Religion, p. 194. b Kidder's Boyle's Lectures, fol. i. 96, &c. Whitby's general preface to his Commentary, § xii. Bishop Newton's Dissertations on the prophecies, V. ii. p. 222, &c. Tillotson, V. ii. Serm. clxxxiii. &c. fol. placed last which are now accomplishing, or are to be accomplished hereafter. с While the second passover in the course of our Lord's ministry was celebrating at Jerusalem, he restored on the sabbath one who had been infirm in his limbs for the space of thirty eight years: and declared to the Jews that his Father would direct him to do still greater works than such as he had already done. "Ford as the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, [whenever it pleaseth him to exercise his almighty power,] even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." 66e Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." This is plainly distinguished from the general resurrection as an event just at hand, and indeed is directly opposed to it: " Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation." Our Lord refers therefore to those illustrious acts of power which he was about to display in raising the dead during the course of his ministry: instances of which we have in his restoring to life the widow's son at Nain, the daughter of Jairus at Capernaum, and Lazarus at Bethany which last miracle was John v. 20. I thus understand the former part of this verse. My works resemble my Father's v. 19. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things which he [the Son] doeth. : d v. 21. Comp. John xvi. 32. John v. 28, 29. iib. viii. 51, &c. k John, c. xi. again particularly foretold a few days before it was wrought: Our 1 friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep." As Jesus was proceeding to Jerusalem, and was about to enter that city in a kind of triumph, "he sent two of his disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village overagainst you, and immediately when ye enter therein ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her, on which no man ever sat. And they that were sent departed, and found as he had said unto them." There is another prediction which bears a resemblance to this. On the day before his crucifixion, our Lord, on being asked where the passover should be prepared for him, said to Peter and John; ""Behold, when ye enter into the city, there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him into the house whither he goeth. And ye shall say to the master of the house, The master saith, my time is at hand: where is the guest chamber, where I may eat the passover with my disciples? And he will shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready for us. And they went, and found as he had said unto them." Dr. Benson quotes these two instances in the fifth chapter of his Life of Christ; and refers to some events of a similar kind foretold to Saul by the prophet' Samuel: adding a just observation, that we read the history of these John xi. 11. See also v. 4, 14, 15. ■ Matt. xxvi. 17, &c. and the p. p. washing before meat: as John ii. 6. a gloss on ?σρωμένον. 9 p. 188. m Matt. xxi. 1, &c. and p. p. • Probably for the purpose of PETμer in Mark xiv. 15. is 1 Sam. x. 3. |