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that is, involved in the guilt of his intentional murderers?" There was more in "it than a mere remembrance," fays Bishop Warburton, "or St. Paul aggra"vates their crime." Was the feftivity of the Corinthians, if carried even to some degree of excess, a crime fo atrocious as to conftitute them no lefs guilty than the murderers of Jefus Chrift, when the very exuberance of their joy might arise from an extreme gratitude to a Benefactor, at a feast appointed by himself, purposely for a chearful commemoration. They might have been guilty of very blamable irreverence and indecorum in their excefs; but not guilty of a crime equal to the murder of our Saviour, unless there was fomething more in the feast than mere remembrance. "To rank thefe criminals," fays the fame able prelate, " with the mur"derers of the Lord of Life, is a feverity "of which we cannot fee the justice."But when we view the Sacrament as a "feast, or rite, in which the benefits of "Chrift's death and paflion were convey

ed, and at the fame time flighted by the

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"Corinthians, we can then account for their criminality. Slighting the benefits, was "rendering, as far as in them lay, the "death and paffion of Chrift ineffectual, " which was the purpose of his murderers;" therefore the crime of the Corinthians, thus viewed, had a fimilarity with that of his murderers, and juftly provoked the Apoftle's indignation.

I fuppofe the modern degraders of the Sacrament will not deny, that St. Paul understood the nature and defign of the Sacrament perfectly; and it appears from his opinion of the Corinthian profanation, that he could not confider it as mere memorial. No method of keeping a feaft of commemoration could render the partakers equally guilty with those who crucified their Saviour; the crime which is implied in the words, "guilty of the "body and blood of Jefus Chrift."

Without repeating all the arguments of those writers who anfwered Bishop Hoadly, I think it will appear from the following pages, that the Lord's Supper is attended with prefent benefits of the highest nature,

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and therefore cannot be a mere memorial, a mere act of obedience, in which neither is the foul ftrengthened and refrefhed, nor any inward and fpiritual grace conferred; though ftrength, refreshment, and Divine affiftance, are the benefits, which the CHURCH in her Catechifm, founded on SCRIPTURE, (particularly the fixth chapter of St. John,) teaches her children to expect from a worthy participation of the Lord's Supper.

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SECTION V.

The Sixth Chapter of St. John contains Paffages (from verfe 25 to verfe 36, and from verse 46 to verfe 64) which refer to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

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the prefent difcuffion, I think it very material, that the paffages respecting the eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man, in the fixth chapter of St. John, fhould be generally understood (as they were certainly meant) to point out, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the Euchariftical Feaft on the one great Sacrifice.

I fhall therefore, for the fake of establishing fo important an opinion, call in a powerful auxiliary on my fide, the prefent Bishop of Chefter; whofe fermon on the subject, is not more admirable for elegance of compofition, than perfpicuity

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and force. I am myfelf convinced that the paffages in queftion refer to the folemn feast of the Eucharift, which our Saviour afterwards inftituted, and for which he gradually prepared the minds of his difciples, by this difcourfe:

"With regard," fays Bishop CLEAVER, "to the objection to the facramental conStruction of these paffages, drawn from the non-inftitution of the Sacrament at the time when this difcourfe was delivered, I will only oppofe to it one plain fact, which is this; that the fame evangelift, St. John, has, in the third chapter of his Gospel, preferved a difcourfe of our Lord's with Nicodemus, which exprefsly mentions the fign and the thing fignified, the neceffity, and the good effects of Baptifm, long before that Sacrament wast inftituted."

"There can therefore be no prefumption drawn against the application of this chapter to the inftitution of the Lord's Supper, from the time when this difcourfe was delivered, which would not equally militate against the application of the third chapter

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