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BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
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Mi scellaneous JSotes intended to explain the Christian Eucharist . ( See p . 571 . ) HJG commemorative acts , which T were performed by Jesus Christ and his associated disciples and friends in the primitive rite of the Lord ' s
Supper , seem very clearly and strongly , if not demonstratively , to forbid the belief—that the sufferings , crucifixion and death of Christ were specially commemorated on that occasion ; or indeed that they were ever
intended to be made the special objects of commemoration in any subsequent observance of that rite . For suppose ( what is far from being improbable ) , that Jesus Christ was & communicant at that time , and that
he communicated in common , or on a footing perfect ! y level with his disciples , —will it not necessarily follow , that the object or objects then commemorated , was or were precisely the same both to our blessed Lord
and to all the associated guests ? Now if the object commemorated at that time , both by Jesus and his apostles and friends was precisely the same and if that object , according to common estimation , was the blood ( i . e . the sufferings and death ) of Jesus Christ , must we not infer—That , as
the disciples drank some part of the Encharistic cup , or wine , ( expressly called the blood of Christ ) , so Jesus himself also drank some part of the same cup , or wine ( i . e . his own blood ) to commemorate his own death , even before his decease had actually taken place ? It will perhaps be said that as the blood of Christ is
mentioned twice in this statement , it may be supposed to denote both the resemblance of Christ ' s blood , and also his real or true blood . But , allowing the propriety of this deduction from the present statement , doth it equally result from the words of Christ ' s
institution , in which the term blood is mentioned but once ? In expounding , or rather in administering the Lord ' s Supper , according to its prevalent signification , are not the expositors perpetually obliged to shift their ideas and consider this self-same , single term blood in a two-fold sense ? That is to . say ( I ) as the resemblance
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of Christ ' s blood , meaning the Eu ~ chaiistic wine ; and ( 2 ndly ) as Christ ' s real blood , denoting his sufferings and death , or the commemorated object of the Eucharistic rite ? What then can possibly be more arbitrary or more unscriptural , and consequently more injurious , than the insertion of
the word resemblance in the expositions or administrations of the Lord ^ s Supper ; and employing it with manifest ambiguity ? Even in imagination alone , can any one possibly believe , that the very same word , in one and the same place , hath more than one plain single meaning ?
Considering the time and circumstances of the Eucharistic institution , and its immediate and intimate connexion with the Jewish passover ;— . would it not be far more rational and correct to ascertain the true intention
and use of the Eucharistic body and blood ( i . e . of the Eucharistic bread and wine ) by retrospective , than by prospective means and principles ? In other words , may not the adoption , the use , and the true meaning of the Eucharistic bread and wine
be more commodiously and satisfactory illustrated and justified , by simply deducing them from the ancient passover , than by any arbitrary or conjectural applications of them to the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ , which are neither warranted
by the Eucharistic records nor by any other scriptures of the New Testament . Let this be exemplified only in one of our Christian symbols : at the end of the last Jewish passover , which Jesus ever attended , he transferred from the remains of that rite
some wine , or a cup of wine , and called it his blood . Doth this appear wonderful to us ? Or was there really any thing mysterious in the action or expression ? When Christ had appropriated the wine to the formation of his own
new rite , might he not justly call it his wine , in opposition to that which had been previously used in the paschal rite ? And as to the figurative term blood ? which was given to that wine , may it not be fairly justified by considering that it was now substituted , as a cooamemo-
Biblical Criticism.
BIBLICAL CRITICISM .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1815, page 749, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1767/page/21/
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