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sary to bring his natural powers under subjection, or the genius of the Christian religion is totally changed; either we may now go to heaven upon easier terms than heretofore, with all our unsubdued appetites and passions about us; or that determined opposition between flesh and spirit, which caused so many struggles to be endured, and so many battles to be fought by former christians, is now completely at an end. To judge indeed from present appearances, we should be led to conclude, that the road to heaven had been rendered perfectly smooth and easy; that all lets and hindrances had been moved out of the way; and that those enemies, whose former employment it was to lay in wait for the christian as he passed along, had been so secured, that there was no longer danger of his not arriving in safety at his journey's end. For all those precautions and preparations which were heretofore deemed necessary to enable the christian to pursue his christian journey in safety, are now in a great measure laid aside. Religion and the world seem as it were to have shaken hands together, or, in a degree at least, to have compromised all' former differences. Upon what other idea is it to be accounted for, that so many of those who by their profession renounce the world, are found to be grown in love with it: to set up their rest in it, as if they looked for nothing beyond it; that those who are called upon to practise the wholesome and profitable duties of self-denial, of prayer and meditation, find no inclination for the one, and too little time for the other?

"Still there is one consideration which presents itself upon this subject, which no circumstance should ever put out of sight. The world may change its fashions every day; for it is a matter of little consequence to thoughtless mortals, whether they hunt af ter one shadow or another: but the christian religion, it is to be remembered, bears the unchangeable character of its divine author, “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."-What was christianity therefore 1700 years ago, is christianity still. The professors of it may, and indeed do at times, differ widely from each other; but this makes no alteration in the standard that has been set up, by which the christian character in every age of the church must be measured; and, what is still of greater importance, by which it will be definitively judged. This circumstance considered, it might be expected, that instead of resting satisfied with a form of godliness, a mere outside shew of religion, which is a disgrace to the christian profession; we should be desirous of practising those means, by which christians of a former day arrived at that exalted degree of spiritual attainment, to which modern professors are for the most part perfect strangers. But in this case, as in some others, things have been sacrificed to words. The doctrines of mortification and self-denial, so essential to the success of the christian cause, when properly understood, and judiciously observed, by a mode of thinking and rea

soning

soning habitual to the mind of the protestant, are become so connected with the mistaken practices of Romish superstition, as rarely to admit of proper discrimination; whereas they differ as widely from each other, as the use and abuse of a wise institution can possibly make them to do."

Mr. Daubeny then enforces the duty of religious mortification in a very able and impressive manner, and he vindicates it with great strength of argument against the artful sophistry and misrepresentations of Priestley. We recommend this sermon to the careful perusal of our readers.

In the fifth discourse on Luke xxii. 19. This do in remembrance of me, is considered with much solemnity, earnestness, and perspicuity the great subject of the Eucharistic sacrifice. It is to be feared that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is too little regarded, because it is not properly understood. So many have dwindled it away into a mere indifferent commemorative rite, a ceremony of simple profession of love and friendship, that the people in general have lost all reverence for it. Mr. Daubeny treads the path of primitive christianity, and explains the nature of this holy institution as it always was understood in the apostolic ages.

"When the end of Christ's personal ministry on earth approached, knowing that all things which had been determined concerning him were about to be accomplished; having just obeyed the letter of the law, by celebrating the passover, which was an eminent type and prefiguration of his own sacrifice and death; he began to fulfil the divine counsel, by offering himself up for the sins of the world. And because our blessed Saviour could not, at the time when he was personally present with his apostles at the table, offer up his own body and blood to his Father in reality, he did it in a mystery, under the emblems of bread and wine. Taking bread therefore he blessed it, and consecrated it to be his representative body; having done so, he brake it, to signify and represent the wounding and piercing his body on the cross, a circumstance then soon to take place; he then took the cup of wine and water mixed, to signify and represent the blood and water which flowed from his dead body on the cross. These offerings of his body and blood, under the emblems of bread and wine, though making but one offering of his humanity, were separately made, because his body and blood were thereby not only devoted to be, but were considered as broken, and poured out for the sins of the world.

"Upon the ground then that Christ did, at the institution now under consideration, offer his natural body and blood to God,

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ab expiatory sacrifice for sin under the representative emblems of bread broken, and wine poured out, and consecrated by blessing; and his apostles being commanded to do this, that is to do what he had done; such a command must, in the usual acceptation of language, be understood as an injunction on them to offer bread broken, and wine poured out and consecrated by blessing to God, as representatives of Christ's body and blood, and for a memorial of his offering his natural body and blood to God, which he then did under the same representation. Less than this does not appear to come up to the force of the command in the text, "do this;" do as I have done, "in remembrance of me,” or for a memorial of me.-From hence it follows, that the holy eucharist is not only a memorial of the passion and death of Christ for the sins of the world, but also of that offering of himself, his natural body and blood, which under the representation of bread and wine, he made to God at the institution of this holy ordinance. In this respect it exactly fulfils its type, the ordinance of the Jewish passover. For that was not only a memorial of the deliverance of the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt, in the night when God slew the Egyptian first-born; but also a memorial of the original passover in Egypt, under the protection of the blood of which, put upon the posts of their doors, they remained in safety, when the first-born of the Egyptians were slain.

"From hence also it appears, that the holy eucharist is a memorial made before God, for the purpose of shewing forth, as the apostle expresses it, the death of his dear Son, and pleading with the Almighty Father the infinite merits of Christ's sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, for the sanctification of his church, in a word, for the confirmation to us of all the promises of the gospel. This appears, whether we consider the words of the institution, the reason and nature of the thing itself, the practice of antiquity, or that of our own church in particular. For the original word, which in the text is translated remembrance or memorial, is the very action of putting another in mind, which, in the present case, is God. For before whom should the memorial of the offering and death of Christ be made, but before him to whom the offering and death of Christ was the appointed sacrifice for sin? Agreeably to this idea, therefore, the holy eucharist is a commemorative sacrifice, offered up to God by way of memorial, or bringing to remembrance that grand sacrifice once offered on the cross, and for the purpose of applying the merits of it to the parties who in faith offer it up. To confirm which idea it is to be remarked, that the original word here translated remembrance, or memorial, is the same word which is used in the Mosaic law, for that part of the offering, wherewith the atonement was made. When therefore our blessed Saviour, at the time he

*Ανάμνησιν.

Vol. IX. Churchm. Mag. for July 1805. K

devoted

devoted himself a sacrifice for us, said to the apostles*, "do this," (which is a sacrificial term +) for a memorial of me, (which is another sacrificial term) it is plain, that he designed this institution, which we have now under consideration, for a perpetual representation of this sacrifice to God; unless we will depart from the plain, natural, accustomed sense of the expres sion in the Old Testament; for to God were all the memorials under the law offered, and by them the oblation itself was rendered beneficial to the offerers: unless we will suppose that our Lord, in ordaining an institution, should use two known sacrificial terms, and yet not intend a sacrifice.

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"Our Saviour speaks, it is to be observed, in the present tense on this occasion; "This is my body given," &c. from whence the conclusion is, that when he spake these words he gave or of fered his natural body and blood for mankind, under the pledges and emblems of bread and wine. This furnishes us with the plain and true reason, why our Lord called the bread and wine, his body and blood: because he offered them as pledges of his natural body and blood to his heavenly Father; because in giving or offering the bread and wine to God, he did in his own intention at that time offer and resign up his body and blood as a sacrifice for the sins of the world; his actual crucifixion, which soon after took place, being no more than the outward and visible accomplishment of that sacrifice, which had before been offered up to God in type and emblem; when, according to the language of our church," Christ instituted and ordained the holy mysteries of bread and wine duly consecrated, as pledges of his love; and sacramental representations of the sacrifice of his body and blood; and for a continual remembrance or memorial of his death to our great and endless comfort."

"Such was the light in which the primitive church, in the first and purest ages, saw this holy rite; as designed to render God propitious to us, by offering up to him the appointed representa tions of his Son's body and blood, for the purpose of pleading with him for all those benefits and blessings which the passion and death of a crucified Saviour were designed to procure for fallen man."

Mr. Daubeny then considers the Eucharist as a feast upon a sacrifice, and concludes with shewing the duty and advantage of frequently attending upon this holy ordi

nance.

πᾶτο πολιτιThe verb ποιείν proved to have a sacrificial signif. cation by Hicks and Johnson.-Vide Hicks's Christian Priesthood; and Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice,

† eis Tùv iμnv åvápno-Another sacrificial term, alluding to the of fering of atonement made under the law.

(To be concluded in our next. )

A Dissertation on the best means of civilizing the subjects of the British Empire in India, and of diffusing the light of the Christian Religion throughout the Eastern World: which obtained Mr. Buchanan's prize. By the Rev. WILLIAM COCKBURN, A. M. Fellow of St. John's College, and Christian Advocate in the University of Cambridge, 4to. pp. 48.

THE

HE Reverend Claudius Buchanan, vice Provost of the College of Fort William in Bengal, and formerly a member of Queen's College Cambridge, where he proceeded to the degree of B. A. gave to the University, in 1804, the sum of two hundred and ten pounds; desiring that it might be divided into the uudermentioned prizes. 1. One hundred pounds for an English Prose Dissertation, "on the best means of civilizing the subjects of the British empire in India; and of diffusing the light of the Christian Religion throughout the Eastern world." 2. Sixty pounds for an English Poem, "on the Restoration of Learning in the East." 3. Twenty-five pounds for a Latin Poem, on the following subject "Collegium Bengalense." 4. Twenty-five pounds for a Greek Ode on the following subject, « Γεμισθω Φως,

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The present dissertation was crowned with the first. prize; and evidently with great justice; for it is extremely well written and manifests a great extent of reading, and a considerable degree of observation and judgment. short but faithful and masterly sketch of the history of India, justifies the author in concluding, that the almost continual state of warfare which has prevailed there for several centuries past, is the grand obstacle to that degree of civilization which is so much to be desired, "It may then," as he observes, "be recommended as the most important step towards the civilization of his Majesty's Indian subjects, that their governors studiously endeavour to preserve to them that inestimable blessing. Let no plans of conquest induce them to invade the territories of their neighbours, to destroy the happiness of others, or to risque their own; but in all their treaties, and even in the midst of war, let them pursue that line of exterior policy which is most likely to insure the permanence of peace.

This is unquestionably sound advice, and the principle must be admitted to be very good; but we would ask the ingenious

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