OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

ONE, amongst the many impositions which the Church of Rome has imposed upon a credulous world, is the belief, that Christ solemnized the first Mass; from whom it was transmitted to the Apostles, and from them to future ages. If you read Matthew xxvi. 26. Mark xiv. 22. Luke xxii. 19. and 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25, in which the institution of the Last Supper is handed down to us, you cannot discover any thing that bears the least relation to the Mass, but the plain and simple narrative of the institution: that Christ gave thanks to his eternal Father, took and brake bread, and gave it to his Disciples, saying, “This is my body, this do in remembrance of me;" and likewise, gave them wine, saying, "This Cup is the new Testament in my blood, which is shed for you, &c." This is all that can be collected from the forecited passages. Where, then, in Scripture, is the Mass to be found, either name or thing? That Christ did not institute any words or ceremonies, but what we read in Scripture, is undeniable, and consequently, it must be an assertion totally ungrounded, that Christ either said or sung high or low Mass, or Mass for the dead (the Lord's Supper being instituted for the living and not for the dead) as we have no vestiges of either in Scripture. What the Romish sacrificants now are taught to say, in what they call the Mass, cannot be discovered in any book extant, in our Saviour's or the Apostles' days, nor for many centuries after, except the 43rd Psalm. This is beyond any doubt: this is irrefragably true; conse, quently, what Romanists mean by the Mass must be finally reduced to the words of the institution: and the Church of Rome must ultimately admit, that the whole ceremony of the Mass, with all its pa

geantry, more resembling a theatrical performance, than an humble and solemn address to God, is of hu man and not of divine invention; and, therefore, that Christ, much less his Apostles, never said or heard a word of it: and that the Church of England follows the exact form of the Divine institution. Let Rome will all her sophistry, contradict this, if she can; therefore, as there is no foundation for the Romish Mass in Scripture, I will examine, whether à Sacrificant of the Church of Rome, by virtue of any delegated power from Christ, can transubstantiaté a piece of bread and a cup of wine into the real and identical body and blood, and soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. In this consists the essence of the rite or ceremony called the Mass; and upon this, the main difference, with respect to the Eucharist, rests between Romanists and Protestants.

Before I proceed to the main subject under inquiry, it is previously necessary we should be acquainted with the rites used by the Israelites at their passover.

To omit the manner of killing and roasting the Paschal Lamb, the first remarkable circumstance that occurs, is that on the evening of the Passover, a mah may not eat from near the Minchah, or a little before the evening sacrifice, or until it was dark; and this is founded upon that of Exodus xii. "They shall eat the flesh in that night; and accordingly these words of the Evangelists, relative to our Saviour's Passover, are to be understood, "when the evening was come, he sat down with the twelve." They sat upon beds or pouches with a table in the centre. At their ordinary meals they sat as we do, with their bodies erect; but when they enlarged the freedom of feasting, they sat uon beds, leaning upon the table, on their left elbow, and this or the other posture they used indifferently; but on the Passover night they were obliged to use

this leaning posture, in memory of their freedom, because servants eat standing; therefore, now they eat sitting and leaning, to shew they were delivered from bondage to freedom. A man was bound to behave himself at the Passover, as if he himself had been delivered out of Egyptian thraldom. Therefore, on that night a man was bound to eat and to drink at his utmost ease, and to sit in a posture of freedom.

Upon this principle of freedom they used this manner of discumbency, frequently at other times, but indispensably this night; and quite different from their attitude at the first Passover in Egypt, when they ate it "with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, their staves in their hands, and in haste," Exod. xii. 11. But after their return to the land of promise, the freedom they enjoyed disposed them to use this lolling posture, and to represent it the better, they had their legs and feet as much behind them as they could, to shew they were quite at their ease, and under subjection to no man, see Luke vii. 38 According to this manner of sitting and leaning are we to understand that passage of the Evangelist about the beloved disciples "leaning in the bosom of Jesus, Joha xiii, 25, “and on the breast of Jesus," John xiii. 28. and xxi. 20. From those different expressions some have thought that John, contrary to all reason and decency, reposed himself, or lolled upon the breast of Jesus. But the manner of their sitting together was only this, Jesus leaning on the table on his left elbow, and so turning his face and breast away from the table on one side, John sat in the same posture next before him with his back towards Jesus's breast, or bosom, not so near as that John's back and Jesus's breast joined together and touched one another; but at such a distance, that there was space enough for Jesus to use his right hand at the table, and all the rest

had the like liberty when they sat in this manner. In such a manner and distance did the beloved disciple lean before our Saviour, and yet is said, very properly, to lean in his bosom, because he leaned before his breast, so that whenever Christ put up his arm, he was, in a manner within his embrace. But when Peter beckoned to John to enquire who it was that should be the traitor, then anepesen epi to stethos, he leaned back so far, that his back or shoulders rested upon Jesus's breast, and he lay in a sitting posture to whisper with him.

The Jewish rituals and directories inform us, the first thing towards this Passover supper was, that every one drank off a cup of wine. "The order of per forming the things commanded for the fifteenth night, says Maymony, was thus they first mingled a cup for every one of them, and one gave thanks, and they drank it off.

Among the several viands which accompained the Paschal Lamb at its eating, there were two which they held to be most eminent and most honorable; and those were "bread and wine ;" and amongst other expressions of respect and honor which they shewed to these, this was not a small one, that however they disposed of their posture of sitting at all the rest of the meal, they were obliged to lean (the emblem of their liberty) when they eat their unleavened bread and drank their wine. "When is is necessary," says Maymony, "that they use the leaning posture? Even at the time that they are eating an olive quantity of unleavened bread, and drinking their four cups of wine." And as for the time of eating and drinking any thing else at the Passover, if they sat leaning, it was the more commendable, but if they did not, it was not so very material. The unleavened bread requires the leaning posture, but

the bitter herbs require it not; of the wine ft is said that it requires the leaning posture, and it is said it does not require it; for they say, "that the two first cups require this leaning composure, but the two last require it not."

They were enjoined to eat unleavened bread at this time by a special and express command, Exod. xii. 18., but as for the use of wine they took it up upon this general principle, because a man must cheer up his wife and children to make them rejoice at the festival. And what do they cheer them up with? With wine. And they were so punctual and exact in this matter, that the poorest man in Israel was bound to drink off four cups of wine this night, though he lived of the alm's basket. And if he had no other means to procure so much wine, or if the almoners gave him not enough to buy four cups, he must sell or pawn his coat, or hire himself for a time for four cups of wine. The Jewish doctors are divided, why four cups of wine, rather than any other number, and the result is to the following purpose. "Whence is the ground of four cups?" Rabbi Johchanan says, "in parallel to the four words that are used about Israel's redemption, bringing out, delivering, redeeming, and taking." Rabbi Levi says, "in parallel to the four cups of Pharaoh in these texts, Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I squeezed them into Pharaoh's cup. And I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand, and thou shalt give Pharaoh's cup into his hand." R. Levi says, "in parallel to the four monarchies," Dan. vii. other Rabbins say, "in parallel to the four cups of vengeance which the holy blessed God will make the nations of the world drink off." For which there are those four texts, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel to me, take the wine cup of this fury at mine hand," Jer. xxv. 15. "Babel is a golden cup in the