itself involved in the mysterious fact of the divine incarnation. To become subject to death, and in this way to mortify and destroy the sinful nature to which this penalty is attached, while by the regenerative power of the Word, quickening and spiritualizing its earthly tabernacle, a new and heavenly nature supervenes, even the HOLY ONE of God, whom the grave could not hold, nor corruption taint;-this on the one hand, and on the other to dedicate Himself, during a period of humiliation and suffering, cheered and supported by angelic visitations and heavenly ministries;-such was the work undertaken been admitted by Athanasius is it, in fact, exist. Spiritually interevident from the above passage, in which he insists so forcibly on the permanency of the original sacrifice and high priesthood, "without tradition or succession" of the Lord Himself. Yet no one can doubt that he regarded the representative system of the Church as fraught with a living efficacy, derived to it from this very source. And in general we find the person, attributes, and offices of the Redeemer exalted, in unlimited terms, by the great catholic doctors of antiquity, as the substance and reality of all true, spiritual, and rational religion, (as may be seen at large in the quotations of the early Protestant controversialists,) while on the other hand, these terms are transferred to the evangelical appointments of the visible Church, with a freedom and unreserve, accompanied with a passionate carnestness, extremely startling to modern feelings, and liable to serious misconstructions of more than one kind. It is plain, however, that they did not so much as suspect any incompatibility between these lines of expression; nor does

preted, they mutually explain and enforce each other. It was not till the mystical power exhibited in the structural ordinances of Christianity was confounded with the eidwλov, or phenomenal representation through which it was exercised, that the outward service and inward life of religion began to be at variance. It was not till this confusion was formally recognised and asserted, that the two became actually disjoined. It then became necessary to reconcile the Church and the Spirit by an appeal to the written word. This was the proper object of the Reformation. Alas! that the destruction of the former as a living body should ever have been hazarded by degrading the spiritual symbol to a mere emblem. But extremes meet: and the importance attached to the latter thus reduced to a mere form, becomes itself a species of idolatry. It is this which has, doubtless, influenced the Quakers to reject the use of sacraments entirely. They have abandoned the substance, not for the sake, but for fear of the shadow.

and gloriously achieved by the Son of God, in obedience to His Father's will, by an express and unlimited unction from the eternal Spirit. But forasmuch as this great mystery, though truly, perfectly, and effectually revealed, in the acts and sufferings of the man Christ Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel history, in whose person "God was manifest in the flesh"-is yet by this union of the Godhead with the manhood, rendered co-extensive with human nature, (a truth, brought to light by the Gospel, for the benefit of all mankind, but stimulated into life and power only by individual faith, the gift of grace,) if, therefore, the earthly course of our divine Head, the Captain of our salvation, be specially represented in Scripture, as a sacrifice and oblation, (with a view to certain practical inferences of the deepest concernment,) these terms may properly be transferred to the new man, in general, as personally realized, through faith, by individual believers. Provided always that we know nothing but Christ and Him crucified, trust in nothing but Christ and the power of His resurrection-crucified on the cross, reviving from the grave, and in heart and mind ascending into heaven with the risen body of the one Redeemer, seeing Him in all that we do, and in all that we are, apart from "the body of this death'." For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living"."

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And again, provided that we carefully distinguish between the living truth and its phenomenal accidents, 2 Rom. xiv. 7, 8, 9.

1 Rom. vii. 24.

"which perish in the using," and accept of no substitute for a true, personal, and spiritual service, approved by reason, and dictated by conscience; a real dedication of the whole inward man of the heart.

Nor is this a mere speculative deduction from Scripture. God forbid-the transference, or to speak properly, the identification here spoken of, not only may, but must be, and is so made, with high and reverend acknowledgments, not only by the apostles and sacred writers, in numberless passages of holy writ, but in the forms and constitution of the visible Church, which they embodied:in its one baptism and profession of faith, in its sacred orders and perpetual succession, in its common assemblies, whether for prayer, for instruction, or for counsel, in its mutual charities of every kind, religious, social, or political, in the confession of its eminent saints, and in the writings of its accredited doctors. In all we discern the presence and power of the incarnate Word, as identified with the new man, and the body of His redeemed. However imperfectly this divine idea may have been actualized, far more than enough appears to prove that it exists as an objective truth, giving birth to those universal tendencies, which, though obscured and travestied, thwarted and overborne, have produced whatever is like Christ, or owns His spirit, in the world of man; tendencies, manifested in time, and traceable backward to the union of God with man, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and forward to that blessed era, when "the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the earth, as the waters cover the seas'." But by especial delegation is this sublime idea, the law of the visible Church, embodied in the Eucharist. "I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I

1 Hab. ii. 14.

say. The cup of blessing, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many, are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread'."

I conclude, for the present, with the sober but spiritual language of our Church in the Collect for the Sunday before Easter, which embodies, in a general and practical form, the doctrine which I have attempted to elucidate in this Sermon.

Almighty and everlasting God, who of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of His great humility; mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of His patience, and also be made partakers of His resurrection, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1 Cor. x. 15, 16, 17.

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NOTE TO SERMON XVII.

PATRISTIC VIEW OF THE EUCHARIST, WITH REMARKS ON THE EARLY FATHERS.

Συνιδὼν γὰρ ὁ λόγος κ.τ.λ. -ATHAN. de Incarn. Verbi Dei. Opera, Vol. i. p. 43. Ed. Pad.

THE general sense of this passage may, perhaps, be thus conveyed to the English reader:-"For the Word perceived within Himself, that the corruption of human nature could in no wise be abolished, except through the actual suffering of death. Now the Word could not die, being immortal, and the Son of the Father. Therefore He took to Himself a body capable of death, that this, being made partaker of the Word, who is above all, might, instead of all, become a satisfaction to death by the offering of an equivalent substitute, and, through the Word indwelling, might continue incorruptible, that corruption might henceforth be stayed from all by the freely imparted power of His resurrection. Wherefore, offering to death the body which He had assumed, as a sacrifice and a victim without spot, He removed death from all His fellows. For the Word of God being above all, by presenting His own temple and organical body, life for life, on behalf of all, fitly and fully discharged in His death the debt that was due: and thus, as we may well believe, the incorruptible Son of God, uniting Himself

1 See last Sermon, note, page 373.