REMARKS ON THE BISHOP OF DURHAM'S EXPLANATION OF THE ANTEPENULTIMATE ANSWER IN THE CHURCH CATECHISM. THE last subject which the right reverend Prelate discusses, and that for which the whole pamphlet appears to have been written, is an attempt to explain, in a rational manner, the established doctrine respecting the Lord's supper. In the prosecution of this plan, he does not spare the character or feelings of his adversary. He condemns him of blasphemous levity, pronounces him unworthy of religious toleration, and reminds him of the laws enacted against those who attempt to malign the doctrines and ordinances of the Established Church.* There was a time when the Bishop of Durham deprecated the "revival of impassioned controversy;" but his pru Grounds, p. 37, 44. 66 dence has at last been subdued by his zeal and his present conduct, joined to his promise of many more publications of a similar tendency, call to my recollection those lines of the poet : Furor iraque mentein Præcipitant, pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis. Allow me, however, to ask what sufficient cause I have given for this angry language, these opprobrious insinuations, these threats of vengeance? Had I forged a false creed for my unoffending neighbours, and, on the strength of this forgery, held them out to the derision and hatred of the public: or had I, at a moment when the very existence of the nation was at stake, attempted by misrepresentation to divide it against itself, and arm five millions of British subjects against the Established Church; then indeed I might think myself deserving of the vengeance of the laws, and unworthy of toleration in civilized society. But I have done none of these things. I have only repelled a most illiberal and unprovoked aggression; and have taught the aggressor to feel that he is not himself invulnerable. In the Remarks, I gave him a gentle hint, that his language might easily be retorted on himself. But that hint was despised; and his advocates, with all the pride of conscious superiority, rushed forward to trample into dust the man who had presumed to question the accuracy or the judgment of the Bishop of Durham. They met, however, with a resistance which they were not taught to expect; and now, unable to overcome him in argument, they vent their disappointment in threats and insults. Yet, what is in reality the crime of which I am accused? of saying that the established doctrine respecting the Lord's supper appeared to me a paradox, and something like nonsense. "This is the head and front of my offending." Let the reader compare this with the Bishop's charges against us, of blasphemy, sacrilege, and idolatry, of patronizing ignorance, encouraging vice, and adulterating the scriptures, of derogating from the ho 66 nour of God the Father, from the mediatorship of God the Son, and from the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and, instead of condemning me of intemperance, he will, I trust, praise my moderation: instead of thinking that I have transgressed the bounds of decorum, he will thank me for chastising that temerity, which, because the thirty-nine articles have been confirmed by act of parliament, arrogates to itself the privilege of defaming and calumniating every other church. The Bishop of Durham begins this part of his pamphlet by observing, that the difficulty which the Remarker finds in conceiving the Established doctrine respecting the eucharist, originates in the duplicity of that writer. Without returning the compliment, I shall inquire in what manner that doctrine has been explained by the Bishop and his advocates. If their explanations prove discordant, I shall infer that it is not so very easy to understand: if the very teachers of Israel cannot agree respecting its meaning, I trust it cannot be a very great crime, if others do not perfectly comprehend it. The first of these expositors (the first, if not in reputation, at least in time) was Elijah Index, of facetious memory, who, with his accustomed naïveté, acknowledged that the eucharist is nothing more than a plain, simple, commemorative rite: that the words of the catechism are at first sight repugnant to the real doctrine of the Church of England; and that the faithful communicant receives verily and indeed, not the body and blood of Christ, but the benefit of the sacrament.* How far this answer was admired by his diocesan, I know not: but the next writer, who made the attempt, and whose labours were honoured with that Prelate's approbation, offered to the public a different exposition. He contended that the answer in the catechism was accurate: that to eat the body and to drink the blood of Christ, is to partake of the blessings which his body broken, and his blood shed, have pur * Protestant's Reply, p. 14. Reply to the Review, p. 21. 66 chased for us: and that the hallowed elements are an instrumental cause, by which actual possession is given of all the graces which his sacrificed body can yield: that they are to us his body and blood.* This interpretation was permitted to assume the honours of orthodox doctrine during the long period of ten months: at the expiration of that term a new discovery was made; and the same writer assured us, that to receive the body and blood of Christ was no longer" to re"ceive the graces which his sacrificed body can 'yield," but to be put in possession of the title to that inheritance, which Christ purchased for us with his blood. To this decision also I bowed with becoming respect, under the persuasion that the obligation of assenting to it would not be of very long continuance. Nor have I been disappointed. The right reverend Prelate, sensible of the errors of his advocates, has taken his cause into his own hands, and has transmitted to his clergy a letter of instruction on this very important subject. To this letter I request the reader's attention, trusting that it has set the question at rest, and that for the future the orthodox mind will no more "be tossed to and fro, and carried about with so many "winds of doctrine.' 66 1. The Bishop informs us that the Church of England" acknowledges the spiritual presence of Jesus Christ," that "the faithful receive spiritually at the "sacrament that which exists there spiritually," and therefore" that the body and blood of Christ are verily "and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the "Lord's supper." If these words have any meaning, they must mean that the body and blood of Christ are really though spiritually present at or in the Lord's supper; are really taken and received by each faithful communicant. Here then we seem to have a real presence; but let us not be too precipitate in our conclusions. 2. The learned Prelate proceeds to teach us that Letter by a Clergyman of the Diocese of Durham, p. 23, 24. + Clergyman's Second Letter, p. 41. Grounds, p. 39. "to eat the body of Christ is an act of the mind: that "Christ is our spiritual food, and faith the faculty by "which we eat that food, and therefore that to eat "Christ is to believe in him."* Here he appears to me to pull down with one hand what he had built with the other. 66 To eat Christ is to believe in him." Of course the only presence which he allows is a mental, not a real, presence. Christ is present to the mind only inasmuch as he is the object of the mind's belief. But in this case what is there to distinguish the sacrament from any other religious ceremony? In any of them Christ may be the object of the belief of the mind. The christian, who with a true faith repeats the apostle's creed, as certainly professes his belief, as he who receives the sacrament. Yet, whoever conceived, that in the recital of the creed, the true body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received? This doctrine, if it be properly examined, reduces the real presence of Christ to a real absence. According to it, Christ is no more really present to the communicant, than the Emperor of China is really present to me, when I think on him. 66 66 "To think and believe," says the Bishop of Durham, are as really acts of the mind, as to eat is an act of "the body. What is done by the mind is as truly done as what is done by the body. The body of Christ "is therefore as truly, as verily and indeed, received "by faith, as the bread is by the mouth." This is most singular language. I certainly distrust my own judgment, as I cannot boast, like the right reverend Prelate, of having studied in a reformed university:† but if the prejudices of education do not strangely deceive me, this doctrine is pregnant with the most paradoxical consequences. Whatever is the object of the operations of the mind, is, it seems, eaten by the mind; is as truly, as verily and indeed, taken and received by such operations, as corporeal food is by the body. Thus if you meditate on heaven and the joys Grounds, |