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was obliged by a moral force, superior to his own, to do justice to the Church in appointing her Bishops. But the danger is, when the ministers and Parliament are a motley mixture of all creeds, and when the minister can glory in his shame, and unblushingly avow his intention of inflicting" a heavy blow and a great discouragement" on the Established Church.

L. Y. PHENIX.

ON THE REAL PRESENCE IN THE EUCHARIST.

SIR, Permit me to lay before your readers the following brief remarks, which, I trust, will be found not inapplicable to the present time, in which the Romish controversy is to all appearance reviving, and with just reason attracting universal interest.

It is not unusual for the Romanist to ask why those who maintain the Real Presence, dissent from the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and why they speak so harshly of a tenet so similar to his own?

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For my own part, I am one of those who believe that it had been better for the Church, if neither the terms "transubstantiation," substantiation," nor "real presence," had been introduced into it. The very retaining of the term appears to have induced men to cloud the true doctrine of Scripture, to introduce new mysteries into the Church, and then to demand a belief in them as the very greatest points of the christian religion. Thus we hear an author declaiming after this manner: "They who marvel with Nicodemus, at the minor mystery-the comparatively earthly' truth of baptismal regeneration will marvel more at being told that the body of Christ was, in a mysterious manner, present at the same time in the heaven of heavens, and on earth among his faithful!" What would be the effect of such a sentence on the mind of the hearer? Would it not be that the body of Christ was in a mysterious manner as truly present to the unworthy as to the penitent and faithful communicant? Our author proceeding to apply the latter part of the sixth chapter of St. John to the Eucharist, remarks, "He then adds, 'For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.' Can we presume to understand this ?—or call it a shadow?-a figure? or shall we be offended at it,' like those who immediately exclaimed, 'This is a hard saying; who can hear it?' The Catholic Church teaches us a humble spirit. Jesus said it, and we believe it. His flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed.' We ask not how it is; we try not to rationalize, or explain away Christ's words. We attempt not to spiritualize them into metaphors. They are realities, and though our understandings see not,' our hearts believe." I would ask if the writer of this passage verily believes that Christ's body is in his hands after he has pronounced the words of institution, why does he not adore it, seeing that he has in his hands in a mysterious manner, and not figuratively, both the flesh and blood of his Redeemer? Certainly, St. Augustine did not conceive that he was rationalizing, when he did explain this very chapter figuratively. Spiritualiter intelligite quod locutus sum vobis. Non hoc

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corpus quod videtis manducaturi estis: sacramentum aliquod commendavi vobis; spiritualiter intellectum vivificabit vos." Understand spiritually what I have said unto you. Ye shall not eat this body which ye see. I have commended unto you a sacrament; spiritually understood, it shall give you life. (Enarratio in Ps. 98.)

Nor did Jeremy Taylor, who has taken up the whole subject of the Real Presence scholastically, conceive he was rationalizing, when, in the sixth section of his book on the Real Presence, he interpreted est by significat in est corpus meum, alleging St. Augustine on the 37th Psalm, "nemo recordatur nisi quod in præsentiâ non est positum." "No one calls to mind a thing already in his presence." And again, St. Augustine, in his memorable epistle (the 23d in the older editions, the 98th in the Benedictine, p. 267, tom. 2, A.D. 1679) says, "Nempe sæpe ita loquimur, ut Pascha propinquante dicamus, crastinam vel perendinam Domini passionem, cum ille antè tam multos annos passus sit, nec omnino nisi semel illa passio facta sit. Nempe, ipso die dominico dicimus, Hodie Diminus resurrexit; cum ex quo resurrexit tot annitransierint. Cur nemo tam ineptus est, ut nos ita loquentes arguat esse mentitos, nisi quia istos dies secundum illorum, quibus hæc gesta sunt, similitudinem nuncupamus, ut dicatur ipse dies qui non est ipse, sed revolutione temporis similis ejus et dicatur illo die fieri, propter sacramenti celebrationem, quod non illo die, sed jam olim factum est? Nonne semel immolatus est Christus in seipso, et tamen in sacramento non solum per omnes Pascha solemnitates, sed omni die populis immolatur, nec utique mentitur, qui interrogatus, eum responderit immolari? Si enim sacramenta quamdam similitudinem earum rerum quorum sacramenta sunt, non haberent, omnino sacramenta non essent. Ex hâc autem similitudine plerumque etiam ipsarum rerum nomina accipiunt. Sicut ergo, secundum quendam modum sacramentum corporis Christi corpus est, sacramentum sanguinis Christi sanguis Christi est. ita sacramentum fidei fides est." And again, St. Augustine, treating of the same place with our author, the 6th chapter of St. John, says, in the 16th chapter of his third Book De Doctrinâ Christianâ, p. 52, tom. 3, ed Benedict. "Nisi manducaveritis, inquit, carnem filii hominis et sanguinem liberitis, non habebitis vitam in vobis. Facinus vel flagitium videtur jubere: figura est ergo, præcipiens passioni dominicæ communicandum, et suaviter atque utiliter recondendum in memoriâ, quod pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa et vulnerata sit." This is all the "real presence " of the primitive Church, or of our own; nor is it the less impressive for its being less mystically expressed. Whoever will carefully peruse the first section of Jeremy Taylor on the Real Presence, will perceive, notwithstanding occasional flourishes rather of the poet than of the divine, that all he intended to convey by the term "real presence," was that "Christ's body is present to our spirits only, so as Christ is not present to any other sense but that of faith, or spiritual susception," (p. 14;)" present not only in type or figure, but in blessing and real effect" (p. 16). And this could as well be expressed without the term real presence as with it.

What then is the mystery of the sacraments? No other than is common to every infusion of divine grace. We know not how grace is communicated. All supernatural operation is mysterious, whether in

one or in another act of worship. And thus the mystery is equal in either sacrament. But those who veil a truth in dark and ambiguous phraseology, prepare the people for idolatry and superstition, as do rationalists for infidelity. AUGUSTINUS.

THE LAITY'S DIRECTORY FOR 1838.

THE Laity's Directory for the present year, contains the Romish Calendar, the Plenary Indulgences, and the conditions of them; the names of the Romish Chapels and Clergy in England and Wales, charitable institutions, &c.

From an examination of these pages, it is evident that as yet Romanism has, notwithstanding all its boasts, made but an inconsiderable advance in Great Britain. In the last five years, the number of chapels in Scotland does not appear to have increased at all, and in England and Wales only to the amount of twenty-five. In 1831, there were in England and Wales 403, and, in 1837, but 428 Romish chapels. In Scotland, there are about sixty congregations.*

In p. 78 is the following remarkable passage, singularly illustrative of the charity of the Romish church, and of the readiness of Romanists to catch at an opportunity of identifying the cause of Protestantism with that of falsehood. It is under the head of "Grantham, Lincolnshire." "It is most confidently expected that the building (a new chapel) will be commenced very early in the spring. An orator at a late Reformation-meeting, which was held here, told the saints of Melton, that there should not be a Catholic chapel in their town, but the Catholics of the town and neighbourhood appear determined to make him turn out to be a false prophet, and they humbly petition the Catholic public to enable them to prove to their neighbours that their religion essentially differs from the character given it by these hireling defamers; and that whilst it abhors their calumny and uncharitable misrepresentation, its object is to give glory to God on high, and promote peace on earth amongst men of good will." We imagine, therefore, that to promote charity and piety, these devout Christians ridicule their Protestant brethren with the name of "Saints!"

Nothing can exceed the elegance, if not splendour, of some of the Romish establishments in our country. How is it that, with a religion so zealous for sanctity, charity, and faith, so singular a catalogue of complaints as the following should have found its way into the Laity's Directory?

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"TO THE BENEVOLENT CATHOLIC PUBLIC.

"Sedgley near Wolverhampton. Having witnessed the direful effects of my children going to Protestant penny-a-week schools, I resolved to attempt the erecting one of my own. That I have done. It is capable of holding more than a hundred

A very different statement has lately been made at Exeter Hall. The information published in the Laity's Directory is voluntarily communicated, and may possibly be inaccurate. We shall be thankful if any correspondent will favour us with any statistical information of a similar kind.

scholars; but being obliged to charge the full price of regular schools, in order to support the teacher, it is too much for my poor congregation: the consequence is, that very few scholars attend, for the greater part are kept at home, wholly deprived of every kind of instruction, while those who went before, still continue to go to the penny-a-week schools of Protestants. My own regular means of support, after the necessary deduction of servants' wages, taxes, &c. is but the miserable pittance of 431. a year. I have lain on the bed of sickness, without the means of obtaining a drop of any thing necessary to put to my parched lips, or to raise my drooping spirits. I have been on the mission a quarter of a century, and have never yet had clothes sufficient to screen me from the winter's blast. I, myself, therefore, can do nothing. I am compelled to lay the forlorn situation of my children before the public, in the hope that some benevolent heart may leave ten or twenty pounds a year, in order to furnish them with that religious and other instruction necessary to make them good Christians, and members of society. "THOMAS TYSAN." "Oct. 23, 1837."

Although Mr. Tysan very plainly hints that to make a child a Protestant is any thing but to make him a Christian, we do not doubt that had he made his wants known to the Protestants of Sedgley, he might have found something like true christian sympathy, although perhaps they might not have witnessed with the same horror the direful calamity of poor children going to a Protestant penny-a-week school.

It appears that Cardinal Weld has had the good fortune to escape purgatory! In p. 86 of the Directory, it is stated that "his last breath being drawn, his soul arose to heaven, amidst the sighs and prayers of his dearest ones."

This is one of the numerous instances in which the Romanists take the liberty of infringing upon their faith, to exalt the names of such as have signalized themselves by zeal in their service! a liberty upon any principle nothing less than profane. R.

THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.-No. I.

THE doctrine of the Apostolical Succession of the Christian Ministry is most usually met, in the present day, by banter and ridicule on the one hand, or by abuse and invective on the other; and its opponents, in profound ignorance of the several bearings of the subject, seem to treat it as if it were peculiarly a doctrine of Popish origin, fostered and cherished only by certain of the Clergy in the Church, who are fond of overstraining her doctrines and principles up to a very near resemblance to those of the Romish communion. It is assumed, that such are the men who have been known by the name of High Churchmen in every generation, from the Reformation downwards; that they have misrepresented the principles of the Church of England as by law established, and that in this point especially, they have gone so far as to be utterly in opposition to what is understood by the word Protestantism.

But what shall be said as to the accuracy of such opponents of this doctrine, when the very reverse to their assumption is the truth? For

not only is not this a peculiar opinion or dogma of the Romish Church, but it is the doctrine of the Presbyterians and Congregationalists; nay, with the single exception of the Quakers, it is a doctrine which pervades every sect among professing Christians in existence, which we have ever heard of.

For the proof of the above assertion, which will, perhaps, appear incredible to many, we appeal to the following works recently published, viz. Dr. Russell's "History of the Church in Scotland;" Calvin Colton's "Thoughts on the Religious State of the Country (America);" and Maitland's "Voluntary System."

By the act of parliament of 1690, which established Presbyterianism in Scotland, the succession was most carefully and accurately defined; it was provided that the government of the newly-established Church should be vested in those ministers who were ejected from their livings subsequently to the 1st of January, 1661, and in such other ministers and elders as they had already admitted, or might thereafter admit. Of these deprived incumbents, about sixty were then alive; and as the Government thus did not either by its own authority originate a new line of ministry, or suffer the people to invest men of their own choice with the office, but only pointed out to what class of existing ministers the right of ordaining and perpetuating a succession belonged, we suppose no one will dispute that here is a remarkable fact admitting the existence of some sort of succession in the christian ministry. At that time, indeed, there were other ejected Presbyterian ministers in Scotland; but for reasons of State, the succession was legally assumed to exist in the above body alone; and, as they were the more violent adherents to Presbyterianism, who had formed a schism from their own Church previously, as not sufficiently pure, the Government had ample reason, at a subsequent period, to regret the step it had taken, but could not recall the act. Now, here is surely as ample admission of a succession, as in the case of Queen Elizabeth calling over the ejected Protestant bishops from the continent, in order to perpetuate the English line of Episcopal succession. But we suppose that the case of Scotch Presbyterian ordination rests so clearly on the idea of a succession, as every one who reads the standards of the doctrines of the Scottish Establishment must admit, that it is useless to prove the point. The ignorance of the declaimers against all such succession is, however, most remarkable in speaking of it as a Popish or High-church principle alone.

Whatever might have been the original opinions and principles of the English Independents, Mr. Maitland clearly proves that in the present day, their acknowledged ministry rests on the notion of a succession. Not only do they admit the distinction between minister and layman; but, although laymen may preach, and perform other duties of a religious nature, yet the power of administering the sacraments, and the right of ordaining men to the office, is rigidly confined to ministers who have been themselves thus ordained by other ministers. We cannot, of course, undertake to say that these rules are never infringed or neglected among the multitude of sects into which the English Dissenters are divided, which hardly acknowledge any one common standard of doctrine or church-government; but such is the general and acknow

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