burdened and the laden sinner that shall find this favour. It is he that hates his sin and strives against it. These are those whom Christ came to seek and to save. It is not the outward work that will save us, if there be not in us the GRACE OF GOD. There is no Pardon in the GOSPEL for the obdurate and impenitent sinner; and therefore we may not look for it in any of the exterior offices of Religion. He that comes to the Sacrament in his sins with hopes of a pardon for his former guilt, will contract a greater; and instead of preventing will but encrease and enhance his own condemnation,"

SECT.

SECTION XVII.

The Clause in the Lord's Prayer, "Give "us this Day our daily Bread," has a Reference to the Eucharist; and the Clause, " Forgive us our Trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against a similar Reference; both together include the two great Benefits annexed to the Sacrament, to strengthen us in future GRACE, AND THE REMISSION OF PAST SINS,

66

us,

THE

HE depreciators of the Eucharist have maintained, among other strange and conceited opinions, that the prayers, hymns, and thanksgivings contained in our communion Service have no real connection with the Sacrament; which, according to them, consists merely of eating the bread, and drinking the wine, in commemoration of our Lord's death and passion. But I hope to make it appear, that our Lord himself appointed a PRAYER which, though

it might be properly used on other occasions, was FARTICULARLY intended by him for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. If I can prove this point, I think I shall also prove, that our Saviour himself has evidently shewn the nature of the benefits which are annexed to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

The Greek epithet to Bread in the Lord's Prayer, translated “ daily,” is a word peculiar to the Evangelists; and never found, as Origen observes, either in Greek authors, or in colloquial language. The meaning of it is not yet fixed to the entire satisfaction of men who are best able to judge of points like these; but, whatever may be its meaning, it most undoubtedly does not signify "DAILY." How came we then to say, give us this day our daily bread ? An old translator, not knowing how to render the word EPIOUSIOS, inserted at a venture the epithet DAILY; and subsequent translators, equally ignorant, continued to use the same word, under the sanction of the first mistake; our Bible

* ΕΠΙΟΥΣΙΟΣ.

and

and Liturgy retained the error, for the same reason, and the prayer is to this day repeated by millions in a sense never intended by the Divine Author.

Some of the antients, and particularly JEROM, translated the epithet Epiousios, "supersubstantial *, and superessential," instead of "daily," and at this hour it stands so translated in the Vulgate Bible, for ages the only Bible of the PEOPLE.

JEROM, commenting on the eleventh verse of the sixth chapter of St. Matthew, in which is contained the petition for bread, says, "I have consulted the Hebrew, and wherever the Septuagint have used περιουσίες, I find , which Symmachus has rendered perov, that is, select, or singularly excellent; therefore wherever we pray God to give us this singular and excellent bread, (he seems to think περιουσιος synonimous with επιουσιος), which we do when we pray for Artos Epiousios, (translated DAILY bread,) we pray for that Bread which he declares

* Qui super omnes substantias est et universas superat MARTINII Lexicon.

creaturas.

himself

himself to be, when he says in St. John, "I AM THE LIVING BREAD, WHICH CAME "DOWN FROM HEAVEN.”

Athanasius, in his Treatise on the Incarnation, informs us that the Holy Ghost elsewhere calls it the Heavenly Bread, saying, "Give us this day our daily Bread (Epiousion ;) for he has taught us in this prayer to ask in the present life for the Epiousion Bread; that is, for the future Bread, the Bread of Heaven, the Bread which is to be our food in a future state, the first-fruits or foretaste of which we have in the present life, by sacramentally partaking of the flesh of our Lord.

Bishop Pearce, remarking on these passages, says, “The sense given to the word Epiousios by Athanasius and Jerom seems to be the more probable, because no other part of this prayer has any relation to a BODILY want; and this sense of the word comes most naturally after the other petitions." I beg the reader's attention to this circumstance, that no other part of this prayer has any relation to a BODILY want. This petition therefore comes in very abruptly and unconnectedly. Ambrosius,