The Roman Church, and the Romanizers among ourselves, insist upon the precise words of our Lord,—'This is my body, this is my blood.' But these are words of signification, assertion, and of declaration; and not of operation, conversion, or of transubstantiation. And there is no more reasonable ground to suppose that the 'body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ,' were transubstantiated into a door, a vine, a rock, a lamb, a lion, a rose, a star or a sun, because Christ received all these epithets, than there is to believe that the act of consecration transubstantiates plain bread and plain wine into His human flesh and blood, or His corporeal presence in the Eucharist. It is altogether a spiritual feast upon a commemorative sacrifice. It is as if He had said, 'The bread which I have blessed, and broken, and given to you, is a sacred sign of my body; or, it is my body in sacrament and in symbol; or it is a representation and memorial of it.' In the Hebrew language, in which our Saviour spoke, there is not a proper word which means to signify, instead of which the irregular verb to be, is always used instead of the verb to signify; and in the Bible things are said to be that which they only represent or signify. Instances are abundant throughout the Holy Scriptures. The field is' or signifies the world; the seven stars are' or signify the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks are or signify the seven Churches; the seven good kine are or signify seven years of plenty; and when God commanded Ezekiel to cut off his hair and burn a part of it, He said the part burnt 'is Jerusalem '—that is, it signified or represented Jerusalem. The paschal lamb also, was called 'the Lord's Passover,' and 'the Passover,' although it was only a memorial or representation of their salvation in Egypt. When, therefore, Christ declared that the bread and the wine were His body and blood, after he had blessed them, the eleven, knowing the idiom of their own language, understood him to mean that they signified and represented that which He declared them to be; and which the Church of England, in her communion service after consecration, always calls them—the BODY and the BLOOD of our Lord Jesus Christ—which were given and shed for us; because they contain within them the mysteries of His body and blood. The whole Church, with the exception of the Roman branch of it, have always understood our

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Lord's words of institution to be figurative or rhetorical; the bread and the wine being signs of that which they signified. As Christ's body and blood were a sacrifice or oblation to God, so the bread and the wine in the Eucharist are a commemorative memorial or sacrifice or oblation offered to God; or Christ's meaning is,—this is the representative oblation of my body, and this is the representative oblation of my blood. And it is plain, that this is the meaning that the Church of England puts upon the Lord's supper; for she prays that her oblation' may be accepted; and again, 'mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,' including in it 'ourselves, our souls, and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively [or living] sacrifice.'

We were surprised to see it asserted in a protest by some clergymen of the province of Canterbury, that Judas Iscariot was admitted to the Lord's supper, and received the blessed symbols of our Lord's body and blood from His own hands. We are, however, respectfully of opinion that this is a mistake, and that the son of Peter was not present at the institution of the Lord's supper. He ate the Passover with our Lord and the other disciples; and when they were eating the second course, Jesus passed round the customary cup, and desired them to divide it among themselves. Whilst eating the second course, Jesus declared that one of them was a traitor; and dipping a sop in the sauce of bitter herbs, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon. Along with the sop Satan entered into him, and he went immediately out. As soon as Judas went out, Jesus said, 'Now is the Son of Man glorified;' and after some farther discourse, He instituted the Christian Passover, the Real instead of the typical paschal lamb. But whilst this was transacting, Judas was on his way to the Council of the Sanhedrim, to be 'the guide to those who were to take Jesus.

With this example before us, the Church of England, addressing those of wicked lives, bids them repent of their sins, or else not to come to that holy table, lest the devil enter into them, as he entered into Judas. Our opinion is, therefore, that Judas did not 'come to that holy table,' but was excluded by receiving the sop, and going out during the eating of the second course of the paschal supper. And we are also of opinion that the archdeacon is mistaken when he asserts

that the wicked and unrepentant persons who come to that holy table, do eat and drink the Lord's body and blood to their salvation. Or, as the twenty-ninth article defines it, 'the wicked and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (. . . ) the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, yet, in no ways are they partakers of Christ; but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing."* W. C. P.

THE GUNPOWDER TREASON AND PLOT.

On the 5th of November, the Church of England returns thanks and praise to God the Almighty, for the happy deliverance of King James I. and the three estates of England from the most traitorous and bloody intended massacre by gunpowder.' By the gracious protection of God, the king and the three estates of England (which are the lords spiritual, the lords temporal, and the commons), were preserved from destruction by gunpowder, the very night before its intended execution, by a circumstance which was nothing less than miraculous. This horrible conspiracy was not merely the act of a few fanatical men, of their own wicked imaginations; but it was the hearty design of the Court and Church of Rome, which afterwards canonized, and now actually worships the principal actors, whose well merited execution on the gallows they call martyrdom. This diabolical crime is, therefore, made the approved act of the whole Roman Church, against whose craft and cruelty we cannot be too vigilant. The Gunpowder Plot is without a parallel in the world, for deliberate and cold blooded villainy and cruelty; and we cannot express our praise and thanksgiving to God too faithfully and earnestly, Who confounded the devices of the Papists, and Who wrought out our deliverance with His own right arm, when there were none to help. All glory, therefore, be to Him for this unspeakable mercy; for it was He only who brought deliverance to England. May He still protect and defend that pure branch of His holy Church

* Vide 'Stephen's Popular Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles,' 2nd Edition, published by Batty, Fleet-street, and Graham, Oxford. Price 3s.

which is established in these realms, from the same evil designed agents of Satan, who are still watching for an opportunity to extirpate this Church, and to imbrue their hands in our blood. How terrible must that delusion be, which induces them to believe that their awful butcheries and persecutions can be acceptable at the throne of mercy.

Hotices of Books.

-WRESTED TEXTS, Parts I., II, London, Batty,

Are texts of Scripture which are frequently wrested from their true meaning to dangerous or deceitful constructions, by those "that are unlearned and unstable; "the true interpretation is affixed to them, and the fallacy is shown of the common opinions. The author says, in a few introductory remarks; "The true and humble Christian, therefore, hearing such words from Saint Peter (2 Eph. iii. 16), will never lean to his own understanding, but will rather seek every help that he can obtain, especially from those who are set over him in the Lord; that so, through the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon his endeavours, he may come to a right understanding of the Scriptures." We recommend these tracts to our readers, as being most useful helps to the understanding of several texts which "are hard to be understood." They are only fourpence each.

SCRIPTURE BREVIATES, (J. H. and J. Parker)

Are twenty-six sections of Scripture texts, arranged under different heads, for use by the bed of sickness, by Rev. G. Arden, which he compiled "in the hope of giving greater definiteness to his own teaching by the bedside of the sick, especially during protracted cases. With this view he has endeavoured to arrange some of the most striking passages of Holy Scripture, that they may throw their bright rays upon the path of the penitent sinner, while he is being led, step by step, out of darkness into the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ." This little work, which is of a handy size for the pocket, will be an excellent assistant to a clergyman in his visitation of the sick. The texts being all arranged under distinct heads, suggest a multitude of subjects for reproof, for exhortation, for self-examination, for faith, hope and charity, and for thoughts on recovery. Any part may be used by itself at the discretion of the minister; but there is a consecutive train of thought which connects the whole; and the younger clergy will find Scripture breviates a very great assistance either in presenting the terrors of the Lord, or the law of love to the sick whom they are called on to visit.

PATRICK O'BRIEN; OR THE POWER OF TRUTH.
(Wertheim and Macintosh).

This is an auto-biography of an Irish Scripture reader, who died in that capacity, in the parish of Whitechapel; to which the rector, the

Rev. Canon Champneys, has written an affectionate preface. His father was a shoemaker, in a good way of business, and he himself worked at the trade until the whole family were ruined by the parish priest, for embracing the Protestant religion. He was obliged to go to Dublin, where he was soon appointed a scripture reader. He was obliged to use great caution in introducing the Scriptures to the Papists; and his usual mode was to sit down, and enter into conversation on general or local subjects. He would then perhaps speak of the belief among the Irish peasantry of ghosts and apparitions; then he would introduce the subject of our Saviour's walking on the sea, and say he had a small book in his pocket that would tell them all about it. He then drew out St. Matthew's gospel, but calling it a story written by St. Matthew, and read the account to them. As it was printed and done up in cloth by itself, the people had no suspicion that it was a part of the New Testament, which they would have thrown into the fire. When he had excited their curiosity, he left the house, and lent them that gospel, till he should return; and by such simple means, the New Testament was extensively read, without the priest's knowledge. He had all the gospels and the epistles done up in the same way. He describes the horrible persecution which Protestants generally, but especially converts, suffer, and he says, it is the principal cause which prevents the entire conversion of Ireland. Converts can procure neither food nor work, neither are their lives safe after they have been cursed by the priest. And he describes the heartless, cruel, and selfish conduct of the priests during the famine, which he says the people favourably contrasted with the patient and unremitting kindness of the Protestant clergy; and the people themselves commonly said, 'What would we do now, were it not for the Protestant clergy?' It is

a simple but interesting tale of facts, that will do much good; and we conclude in the words of the preface,-'To Him, the only wise God, our Saviour, I commend this record of the power of His own word, and the grace of His own Spirit, in the humble hope that it may forward the truth, as it is in Jesus.'

THE GRAVE AND THE REVERENCE DUE TO IT, (J. H. & J. Parker),

Is a sermon by the Rev. E. Harston, vicar of Sherborne, preached in the Abbey Church, in October,' 1854, in consequence of the desecration of the Abbey churchyard, by the drying of linen, the beating of carpets on the tombstones, trespassing daily over the graves, and making the graves and tombs a playground. This excellent sermon was directed to the cure of these desecrations; and 'the parishoners have cordially responded to the appeal made to them-the above desecrations are no longer suffered; the linen and the carpets have disappeared, (though not without some resistance), the trespass-path, through the exertions of my valued churchwarden, has been stopped, and the children have learned to reverence the resting place of the Christian dead.' So far, so good.

[Several Notices have been omitted for want of room.]