ON THE HOLY EUCHARIST: OR, A REFUTATION OF THE HOADLYAN SCHEME OF IT. BY HENRY CARD, M. A. OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, oxford, RECTOR OF UPPER SAPEY, HEREFORD, AND CHAPLAIN TO THE "Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the COL. ii. v. 8. σε Μεγα κακον αγνοιειν γράφας.” Chrysost. Opera. In Act. Ap. Hom. 34, tom. 9, p: 265. "Propterea errant, quia scripturas nesciunt; et quia scripturas ignorant, consequenter Hieron. Comment. in Matt. xxii. WORCESTER: PRINTED BY J. TYMBS AND SONS, JOURNAL OFFICE, 53, HIGH-STREET; FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, No. 62, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND FOR RICHARD REES, No. 62, PALL MALL, LONDON. 1814. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND JOHN LUXMORE, D. D. LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD. MY LORD, ON finishing an Essay, humbly designed to serve the cause of religion and virtue, nothing could be more natural or more proper than the wish I felt of addressing it to my Diocesan. But though to lead men to just notions and conclusions on the nature and end of the Holy Eucharist, is merely in the attempt, an undertaking which may find pardon even for the efforts of the weakest understanding, yet I should never have presumed to ask permission of your Lordship to place your name at the head of these sheets, if I had not flattered myself, whether right or wrong, it is for others to determine, that they possessed some other merit, than the merit of intending well. The prompt and friendly manner with which your Lordship acquiesced in my request, suffer me to say, much enhances the distinction you have thus conferred on me; for I must ever esteem that to be one, which allows me to inscribe any production of mine to the Bishop of Hereford. Others, my Lord, may admire in you, the urbanity of the Gentleman, so happily blended with the dignity of the Prelate, maintaining to all an unaffected civility and attention, yet never forgetting your elevated station, nor suffering others to forget what is due to it ;-but that warm philanthropy, which gives you the good word of high and low, learned and unlearned, in your Diocese,—that strict impartiality, which makes zealous exertions in your Clergy the most sure and effectual recommendation to your notice,—and that earnest desire, so worthy the real christian and patriot, (but which is even more shewn by the force of your example, than the influence of your high station,) to promote the education of poor children under the admirable improvements of the Bell system, and thus to render them blessings, instead of pests to society,-these, I own, are the features in your Lordship's public character, which, did I not fear that this address might be thought by some to appear in a garb which adulation commonly assumes, I could expatiate on with the greatest complacency. My Lord, he is a poor observer who, after counting up the heresies daily swelling into importance, does not see, that to despise orthodoxy, is not in the sentiments of a large portion of the community, to despise happiness. Its very name indeed, seems hateful to many, who have no design in wishing it to be so. No wonder then, that when so many thousands are blown about by every wind of new-fangled doctrine, that the true idea of the Sacrament should be undervalued by that class of people, and a pretty numerous class they are, who from not looking beyond the surface of things, are easily dazzled and captivated with ingenious paradoxes. But can they, who espouse the opinions of Hoadly on this subject, pretend to have in view, the supreme delight of doing good, when they must confess, that the very success of their principles would be highly detrimental to mankind: since, by depriving the Sacrament of its essential signification, they would deprive the devout communicant of a sure anchor of hope by which to hold, a sure haven where he can fly for shelter, in the distresses and afflictions incidental to human nature. Yet amid all the evolutions of religious opinions, and amid every strong propensity of the mind to rush headlong into the most shocking extremes, when unchecked by a firm conviction of the truth, that the wisdom of God, is not our wisdom, nor his ways, our ways,—it was surely, my Lord, never to be expected, that a Dignitary of the Church of England, in open defiance of a doctrine to which he so solemnly gave his assent, would put forth the following declaration, or that it would meet with supporters in those, who at all times profess to be zealously affected for the diffusion of genuine Christianity. "If ever the bread and wine are received, whether by the well, the sick, or the dying, as an appointed means of obtaining the remission of sins; or in any other light than merely as an act of due obedience to a positive command of our Lord, naturally expressive of faith in him, |