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Untitled Article
in a figurative sense , the eucharistic sentiments both of the Catholics and Protestants might be respectively resolved into the two following propositions ; the former declaring that the natural or
real bread and wine are actually transmuted into two * metaphors , find the latter , that this same bread and wine are the two representatives of those two metaphors . - —Propositions more absurd and senseless perhaps than any thing else that can be uttered or
conceived ! and } et these are the profound and accurate principles On which all our eucharistic interpretations are built . —But this is not all , for to figures arbitrarily and capriciously transmuted into
realities , as the eucharistic body and blood constantly are , there were ingeniously annexed the devices of systematic and technical theology ; an augmented signification and a meritorious
efficacy : hence we have , from the figurative body and blood , the all-atoning but ( unfortunately the ) metaphorical sufferings and death of Jesus Christ ; and to crown all , our great benefactor , for the
manifold and extensive fcenefils of his figurative sufferings and death , claims from us by the authority of explicit injunction , the tribute of our solemn and
perpetual commemoration of his person and performances on our pehalf . But duly considered , Avhat is the true nature of religious commemoration ? Is it not in
* In the vulgate version of the Bible there is , I am told , a note on the eucharistic pbrase , —* this is my body , * expressed ( if I recollect aright ) in the following l ^ atin teims— ' Corpus meumj ( i . c-j * re ipsd nonjisrurate . ' * For the truths sake one 'would wish that the commentator had used only the word Ji gurate ; but in its Catholic form , the note maiiifestly answers its intention ; for it effectually confutes and explodes the representative interpretation of the Protestant ' s unwarranted assumption and redundancy : a thing and its representative cannot possibly be identical .
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fact , tantamount or perfectly equivalent to religious worshi p ? The religious worship that hath prevailed or doth prevail , under
every dispensation , cannot be resolved in its sum , substance and essence , into any thing more or less than a series of religiously commemorative thoughts , words and actions . Was the
eucharistic ritual then set up and introduced for the personal and posU humous commemoration of Jesus Christ ? contrary to the maxima and laws of every other legislator , human and divine , that was ever known or heard of , hath Jesus instituted a law to exact for
himself the explicit , stated , posthumous and perpetual attachment of his disciples and subjects ? Were not our Lord ' s benevolent principles and actions , by their number and their intrinsic merit and
amiableoess , sufficient to obtain and secure our perpetual love and gratitude , without the protecting aid pi a particular and positive law ? Would not the characters and actions of those persons of our own condition and class in
society , be deemed extremely suspicious , which needed the security and guard of human laws to perpetuate our memory , approbation and respect of them ? Why then will we depreciate the character and actions of Jesus Christ
so far as to think that they have , or need to harve any such prop * and fences ? Considered as the mediator between God and man ,
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498 Notes on Matthew xxvi . 28 ; or , the Eucharistic Ritual *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1808, page 498, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2396/page/42/
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