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SECTION XVI.

The Expreffions of Body and Blood, as ufed by our Saviour, in the Inftitution of this

IF

Ordinance,
Figures.

not barfb and uncouth

F the Lord's Supper be a feast after a facrifice, as I think it is proved to be, the expreffions of eating the body and drinking the blood of our Saviour, that is, of the VICTIM SACRIFICED, are not only fignificant in a high degree, but elegant, and, in every refpect, the most eligible that could have been used, because the most proper.

Whatever figure conveys the true idea of the speaker's mind, in the livelieft manner poffible, fo as to paint an, IMAGE on the hearer's mind, and to effect what Quintilian calls an ENARGEIA, is an elegance. This beautiful figure of rhetoric renders what is addreffed to the ears an object

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of mental vifion. It reprefents things fo much to the life, that they feem to be going on before the eyes, and not merely defcribed by language. It forms a vivid picture on the retina of the mind, if I may use the expreffion; and not only delineates the object more clearly, but caufes it to be more easily remembered. Things fenfible are often not only the best but the only means of explaining, in a lively manner, things intellectual.

It is one of the moft admired kinds of the ENARGEIA not to defcribe a thing fully and circumstantially, but to select one or two of the moft ftriking parts, which at once give the reader or hearer a strong and clear impreffion of the whole. Brevity adds to vivacity; one of the chief beauties of all eloquence *.

"Take,

* « Ornatum eft quod perfpicuo et probabili plus eft.-Itaque Fragyar, quia plus eft evidentia, vel, ut alii dicunt, repræfentatio quam perfpicuitas, (et illud quidem patet, hæc fe quodammodo oftendit,) inter ornamenta ponamus. Magna virtus eft, res, de quibus loquimur ut cerni videantur, enuntiare, non enim fatis efficit, neque, ut debet, plene do

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"Take, eat, this is my body.This "is my blood; drink ye all of it."

Though these words have, in modern times, founded strangely in the ears of fome, yet they were perfectly intelligible to those who heard them, and conveyed the fpeaker's mind with fingular force. Thofe who heard them expreffed no furprise at them. They knew that they referred to a feaft after a facrifice; and this was an emphatic mode of ordering it to confift of the elements of bread and wine, in the place of the VICTIM, which, in this cafe, could not be for a moment fuppofed, in a literal fenfe, to conftitute the holy repaft. The idea of cannibalism would have been fhocking to the feelings of humanity, and cannot, even now, be contemplated but with abhorrence. Those who were prefent faw real bread and real wine in the

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QUINTILIAN, lib. viii. cap. 3.

Inftitutor's

Inftitutor's hand; they took them without surprise, when told that they were his body and his blood; because they knew he meant to establish a facrificial feaft in: analogy to their paffover; in which the pafchal lamb was actually eaten by those who were to receive the benefits of the facrifice.

I will, with due humility, attempt to explain the terms to modern apprehenfions in a liberal paraphrase.

"You and your forefathers, as well as the Gentile world, have been for ages facrificing animals, as your most folemn act of devotion, with a view of partaking: of benefits from the propitiated Deity, by fharing in the facrificial feaft, which the victim fupplied; all thefe facrifices were types and adumbrations of the grand facrifice to be offered up for all mankind, to-morrow, by the oblation of myself on the cross.

"In this inftance, for obvious reasons,, I celebrate the facrificial feaft with you

before

before the facrifice. I celebrate it with you in perfon, in order to give you my example and my command, in what manner you, and all that follow me, are to celebrate it after my death on the cross; after my oblation of myself, when all facrifices fhall ceafe, and nothing fhall remain but the feast on the facrifice, in which all who partake worthily shall be partakers of the benefits of the facrifice once made for you and for all.

"But in this feaft which I now inftitute, there can be no real blood, no real flesh, as was the cafe when you partook of the flaughtered animal in the former typical facrifices; for the victim, in the prefent cafe, is not one of the animals, but myself, whose body will shortly afcend to Heaven, and become glorified.

"I therefore ordain a feast, emblematical of my body and blood. I appoint the two great supplies of ftrength and nourishment, bread and wine, to stand in the place of the facrificed victim; but

they,

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