The' hour of supper comes unearned. Milton. His physicians, after his great fever that he had in Oxford, required him to eat suppers. Fell.

Suppose a man's going supperless to bed should introduce him to the table of some great prince. Spectator. She eyed the bard, where supperless he sat, And pined, unconscious of his rising fate. Pope. A SUPPER of heavy food should be avoided, because the stomach is more oppressed with the same quantity of food in an horizontal posture than in an erect one, and because digestion goes on more slowly when we sleep than when we are awake. It should be eaten long enough before bed-time, that it may be nearly digested before going to sleep; and then a draught of pure water will dilute that which remains in the stomach.

SUPPER OF THE LORD, otherwise called the Eucharist, is a sacrament ordained by Christ in his church, of which the outward part is bread and wine, and the inward part or thing signified the body and blood of Christ, which the majority of Christians believe to be in some sense or other taken and received by the faithful communicants. See SACRAMENT. There is no ordinance of the gospel which has been the subject of more violent controversies between different churches, and even between different divines of the same church, than this sacrament; and, though all confess that one purpose of its institution was to be a bond of love and union among Christians, it has, by the perverseness of mankind, been too often converted into an occasion of hatred. The outward and visible sign, and the inward and spiritual grace, have equally afforded matter of disputation to angry controvertists. Many members of the church of Rome condemn the Greek church and the Protestants for using leavened bread in the Lord's Supper, contrary to the example set them by our Saviour; whilst the Greek church in general, and some Protestant societies in particular, unite with the church of Rome in censuring all churches which mix not the wine with water, as deviating improperly from primitive practice. See EUCHARIST. That it was unleavened bread which our Lord blessed and brake and gave to his disciples as his body, cannot be questioned: for at the time of the passover, when this ordinance was instituted, there was no leavened bread to be found in Jerusalem. For the mixed cup the evidence is not so decisive. It is indeed true that the primitive Christians used wine diluted with water; and Maimonides says it was the general custom of the Jews, as well at the passover as at their ordinary meals, to add a little water to their wine on account of its great strength; but that this was always done, or that it was done by our Saviour in particular, there is no clear evidence. Origen indeed affirms that our Lord administered in wine unmixed; and he was not a man to hazard such an affirmation, had there been in his days any certain tradition, or so much as a general opinion to the contrary. On this account

we have often heard with wonder the necessity of the mixed cup insisted on by those who without hesitation make use of leavened bread; for, if it be essential to the sacrament that the very same elements be employed by us that were employed by our Saviour, the necessity of unleavened bread is certainly equal to that of wine diluted by water. But the mixed cup is said to be emblematical of the blood and water which flowed from the side of our Lord when pierced by the spear of the Roman soldier, while the absence of leaven is emblematical of no particular circumstance in his passion. This argument for the mixture is as old as the era of St. Cyprian, and has since been frequently urged with triumph by those who surely perceived not its weakness. The flowing of the blood and water from our Saviour's side was probably the consequence of the spear's having pierced the pericardium. But, whatever was the cause of it, how can the mixing of wine with water in the sacrament be emblematical of the flowing of blood and water separately? We urge not these objections to the mixed cup from any dislike to the practice. It is unquestionably harmless and primitive; and we wish that greater regard were paid to primitive practices than most of Christians seem to think they can claim; but let the advocates for antiquity be consistent; let them either restore, together with the mixed cup, the use of unleavened bread, or acknowledge that neither the one nor the other is essential to the sacrament. This last acknowledgment must indeed be made if they would not involve themselves in difficulties from which they cannot be extricated. If either the mixed cup of unleavened bread be absolutely necessary to the validity of the sacrament, why not wine made from the grapes of Judea? But the controversies respecting the outward part of the sign of the Lord's Supper are of little importance when compared with those which have been agitated respecting the inward part or thing signified; and of these we hasten to give as comprehensive a view as the limits prescribed to such articles will admit.

The institution of the Lord's Supper, as recorded in the gospel by St. Matthew, St. Paul, St. Mark, and St. Luke, we need not quote. That it was the bread which Christ blessed and brake that is called his body, and the wine over which he gave thanks that he styles his blood of the new testament, will admit of no reasonable doubt; but in what sense they became so has been the subject of many controversies. The church of Rome, which holds that, after consecration, Jesus Christ, God and man, is really, truly, and substantially contained under the outward appearance of the bread and wine, informs us that, about the middle of the mass, when the priest, taking into his hand, first the bread, and then the wine, pronounces over each separately the sacred words of consecration, the substance of these elements is immediately changed by the almighty power of God into the body and blood of Christ; but that all the outward appearances of the bread and wine, and all their sensible qualities remain. This more than miraculous change is called transubstantiation; and has been traced to the philosophy of Aris

totle, which resolves all bodies into matter and form (see PHILOSOPHY); for it is only the matter or imperceptible substance which supports the forms or sensible quantities of bread and wine, and is changed into the substance or matter of the body and blood of Christ, so that this divine matter, coming into the place of the former earthy matter, supports the same identical forms which it supported. Hence we are told that Jesus Christ, now present instead of the bread and wine, exhibits himself to us under those very same outward forms or appearances which the bread and wine had before the change.' See TRANSUBSTANTIATION. The churches of England and Scotland, in their established doctrine respecting the Lord's Supper, appear to be Calvinistical; but the compilers of the Thirty-nine Articles and of the Confession of Faith must have been much more rational divines than Beza and Peter Martyr. They agree in condemning the doctrine of transubstantiation as contrary to common sense, and not founded on the word of God; they teach that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the sacrament, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and the cup of blessing a partaking of the blood of Christ; and they add that the body and blood of Christ are eaten and drank, not corporally and carnally, but only after a heavenly and spiritual manner, by which the communicants are made partakers of all the benefits of his death. In one important circumstance these two churches seem to differ. The Confession of Faith affirms that, in the Lord's Supper, there is no sacrifice made at all. The thirty-first article of the church of England likewise condemns the popish sacrifice of the mass as a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit; but in the order for the administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion, the celebrator beseeches God most mercifully to accept the alms and oblations of the congregation,' and again, to accept their sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving from which petitions many have inferred that, in the Lord's Supper, that church offers a commemorative and eucharistical sacrifice. This inference seems not to be wholly without foundation. In the order for the administration of the Lord's Supper, according to the form of the book of Common Prayer set forth by act of parliament in the second and third years of king Edward VI., the elements were solemnly offered to God as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; but the prayer containing that oblation was, at the review of the liturgy some years afterwards, removed from the prayer of consecration, to which it was originally joined, and placed where it now stands in the post-communion service. The English church, however, has not positively determined any thing respecting this great question and whilst she condemns the doctrine of the real presence, with all its dangerous consequences, she allows her members to entertain very different notions of this holy ordinance, and to publish these notions to the world. Accordingly, many of their most eminent divines, particularly archbishops Laud and Wake; the bishops Poynet, Andrews, Bull, and Patrick; the doctors Hickes, Crabe, and Brett; Messrs.

Bingham, Johnson, Mede, Wheatly, Scandaret, Bowyer, &c., have maintained that, in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, the elements of bread and wine are offered to God as a sacrifice commemorative of Christ's one sacrifice for the sins of the whole world: that these elements, though they undergo no substantial change, yet receive such a divine virtue, by the descent of the Holy Ghost, as to convey to the worthy communicant all the benefits of Christ's passion: that they are therefore called his body and blood; because being, after their oblation, eaten and drunk in 'remembrance of him, they supply the place of his body and blood in the feast upon his sacrifice; and that it is customary with our Saviour to give to any thing the name of another of which it completely supplies the place, as when he calls himself the door of the sheep, because there is no entrance into the church or kingdom of God but by faith in him. They observe that the Eucharist's being commemorative, no more hinders it from being a proper sacrifice than the typical and figurative sacrifices of the old law hindered them from being proper sacrifices: for as to be a type doth not destroy the nature and notion of a legal sacrifice, so to be representative and commemorative doth not destroy the nature of an evangelical sacrifice.

Our limits will not permit us to give even an abstract of their arguments; but the reader who wishes to see more of the subject may peruse Johnson's unbloody Sacrifice and Altar unveiled and supported; whence he may discover that their notions are totally irreconcileable with the doctrine of transubstantiation and the popish sacrifice of the mass. Other English divines of great learning, with the celebrated Hoadley bishop of Winchester, contend strenuously that the Lord's Supper, so far from being a sacrifice of any kind, is nothing more than bread and wine reverently eaten and drunk, in remembrance that Christ's body was broken and his blood shed in proof of his Father's and his own love to mankind; that nothing is essential to the sacrament but this remembrance, and a serious desire to honor and obey our Saviour as our head; that the sacrament might be celebrated without uttering one prayer or thanksgiving, merely by a society of Christians, whether small or great, jointly eating bread and drinking wine with a serious remembrance of Christ's death; that St. Paul enjoins a man to examine himself before he eat of that bread and drink of that cup, not to discover what have been the sins of his past life in order to repent of them, but only that he may be sure of remembering Christ's body broken and his blood shed; that, however, it is his duty in that as in every other instance of religious worship, to resolve to obey from the heart every precept of the gospel, whether moral or positive; and that to partake worthily of the Lord's Supper is acceptable to God, because it is paying obedience to one of these precepts; but that no particular benefits or privileges are annexed to it more than to any other instance of duty. The celebrated archbishop Tillotson advances the same doctrine in his Persuasive to Frequent Communion. Bishop Hoadley acknowledges that when St. Paul says,

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?' he has been supposed by many learned men to affirm that all the benefits of Christ's passion are in the Lord's Supper conveyed to the worthy communicant; but this, says he, is an idea which the apostle could not have in his thoughts as at all proper for his argument. The Greek word kovovia, and the English communion, signify only a partaking of something in common with others of the same society; and the apostle's meaning, he says, can be nothing more than that in the Lord's Supper we do not eat bread and drink wine as at an ordinary meal, but as memorials of the body and blood of Christ, in honor to him as the head of that body

of which we are all members. That the word Kovovia is not meant to denote any inward or spiritual part of the Lord's Supper he thinks evident, because the same word is used with regard to the cup and the table of idols, where no spiritual part could be thought of, and in an argument which supposes an idol to be nothing. Other divines steer a middle course between the mere memorialist and the advocate for a real sacrifice in the holy Eucharist, and insist that this rite, though no sacrifice itself, is yet a feast upon the one sacrifice offered by Christ, and slain upon the cross. The most eminent patrons of this opinion have been Dr. Cudworth, bishop Warburton, and Dr. Cleaver, bishop of St. Asaph; and they support it by such arguments as the following:-In those ages of the world when victims made so great a part of the religion both of Jews and Gentiles, the sacrifice was always followed by a religious feasting on the thing offered; which was called the feast upon or after the sacrifice, and was supposed to convey to the partakers of it the benefits of the sacrifice. Now Jesus, say they, about to offer himself a sacrifice on the cross for our redemption, did, in conformity to general practice, institute the last supper, under the idea of a feast after the sacrifice; and the circumstances attending its institution were such, they think, that the apostles could not possibly mistake his meaning. It was just before his passion, and while he was eating the paschal supper, which was a Jewish feast upon the sacrifice, that our blessed Lord instituted this rite; and as it was his general custom to allude, in his actions and expressions, to what passed before his eyes, or presented itself to his observation, who can doubt when, in the very form of celebration, we see all the marks of a sacrificial supper, but that the divine institutor intended it should bear the relation to his sacrifice on the cross which the paschal supper then celebrating bore to the oblation of the paschal lamb?' Thus have we given such a view as our limits permit of the principal opinions that have been held respecting the nature and end of the Lord's Supper. After all a plain Christian, who is not willing to believe more than what is in Scripture, nor is fettered with the prejudices of particular sects or parties, will be apt to think that both Protestants and Roman Catholics have darkened counsel by words without knowledge, upon a very plain, simple, com

memorative ceremony. The late Mr. Barclay, the Berean, often said, the Papists had made a god of it, and most Protestants had made it a demi-god.'

SUPPLANT', v. a. Fr. supplanter; Lat. sub and planta. To trip up the heels; displace by stratagem; overpower.

It is Philoclea his heart is set upon; it is my daughter I have borne to supplant me. Sidney. If it be fond, call it a woman's fear; Which fear, if better reasons can supplant, I will subscribe, and say, I wronged the duke. Shakspeare.

Convinced or suppled them, they cannot chuse, Knaves having, by their own importunate suit, But they must blab.

Id. Othello.

The joints are more supple to all feats of activity in youth than afterwards. Bacon.

Will ye submit your necks, and chuse to bend The supple knee?

Milton. Study gives strength to the mind, conversation grace; the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness. Temple.

No women are apter to spin linen well than the Irish, who, labouring little in any kind with their hands, have their fingers more supple and soft than other women of the poorer condition in England.

Id.
Ev'n softer than thy own, of suppler kind,
Morc exquisite of taste, and more than man refined.
Dryden.
The stones

Did first the rigour of their kind expel,
And suppled into softness as they fell.

Id.

A mother persisting till she had bent her daughter's mind, and suppled her will, the only end of correction, she established her authority thoroughly ever after. Locke on Education.

If punishment reaches not the mind, and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender. Locke.

There is something so supple and insinuating in this absurd unnatural doctrine, as makes it extremely agreeable to a prince's ear.

To supple a carcase, drench it in water.

Addison.

Arbuthnot.

SUPPLEMENT OF AN ARCH OR ANGLE, in geometry or trigonometry, is what it wants of a semicircle, or of 180°; as the complement is what it wants of a quadrant, or of 90°. So the supplement of 50° is 130°; as the complement of it is 40°.

SUPPLETORY, n. s. Lat. suppletorium. That which is to fill up deficiencies.

That suppletory of an implicit belief is by Romanists conceived sufficient for those not capable of an explicit.

Hammond.

Praying with all prayer and supplication, with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.

Ephesians vi. 18. The prince and people of Nineveh assembling themselves a main army of supplicants, God did not withstand them. Hooker.

My lord protector will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our supplications in the quill. Shakspeare.

My mother bows, As if Olympus to a mole-hill should In supplication nod. Id. Coriolanus. Many things a man cannot with any comeliness say or do; a man cannot brook to supplicate or beg.

Bend thine ear

Bacon.

A second sort of publick prayer is, that all in a family that are members of it join in their common supplications. Duty of Man. The wise supplicant, though he prayed for the condition he thought most desirable, yet left the event to God. Rogers. Abraham, instead of indulging the supplicant in his desire of new evidence, refers him to what his brethren Atterbury. had.

SUPPLICATIO, in antiquity, a religious solemnity observed on account of any remarkable success against an enemy; and especially when the army had conferred the title of imperator on their general. On such occasions the imperator sent messengers, crowned with laurel, with letters to the senate, which were likewise adorned with laurel, to demand of them the title of imperator, and the honor of a supplication. The solemnity consisted in sacrificing and feasting in the temples, with giving thanks to the gods for success obtained, and praying for the continuance of their assistance. At first there were only a few days taken up in such festivals; but afterwards they were increased gradually, till they came to no less than fifty. On subduing the Sabines, in the year of the city 304, a supplication of one day only was ordained; on the taking of Veii, Camillus had a supplication of four days decreed him; Pompey had twelve on putting an end to the Mithridatic war; Cæsar had fifteen, tavianus and Pansa had fifty days of supplication and afterwards twenty, for reducing Gaul; Ocfor delivering the colony of Mutina.

SUPPLICAVIT, a writ issuing out of chancery, for taking surety of the peace, when one is in danger of being hurt in his body by another; it is directed to the justices of the peace and sheriff of the county, and is grounded upon the stat. 1 Edw. III., stat. 2, c. 16, which ordains that certain persons shall be assigned by the chancellor to take care of the peace, &c.-F. N. B. 80, 81. When a man hath purchased a writ of supplicavit, directed to the justices of the peace,