always made by the Priest, and that no lay Jew could perform it. -pp. 353-363.

POTTER, ARCHBISHOP.-Discourse of Church Government.

Another power which our LORD has left to His Church, is that of consecrating the Eucharist, or LORD's Supper. The first Eucharist was consecrated by our LORD Himself, a little before His Passion. At the same time He gave His Apostles commission to do as He had done: "Do this," said He, " in remembrance of Me." Yet this office was not so strictly appropriated to the Apostles, but that it might lawfully be executed by the ministers of the second order. . .

In the primitive Church the Bishop consecrated, when he was present. Which appears from the before cited passage of Justin Martyr, where he tells us, that, sermon being ended, the elements of bread and wine mixed with water, were brought to the President of the brethren, who immediately proceeded to consecrate them by prayer and thanksgiving. . . . . In the Bishop's absence, it was common for the Presbyters to consecrate; but they neither did this, nor any other act of their office, without the Bishop's direction or allowance. . . .

What part the Deacons had in this office, may be learned from the fore-mentioned passage of Justin Martyr, where he tells us, that, when the bread and wine had been consecrated by the president, it was customary for the Deacons to distribute them among the people who were present, and to carry them to such as were absent. Which power was not thought to imply any power in the Deacons to consecrate this Sacrament; but they did it as the Bishops' and the Priests' ministers, as we are expressly assured by the Apostolical Constitutions. ...

It will here be inquired, why Deacons, who were allowed to administer Baptism, never consecrated the LORD's Supper? To which this might be a sufficient answer, that Baptism was always reckoned one of the lowest ministries, and therefore was usually committed by the Apostles to Ministers of the lower orders, as

was before observed; or that Baptism, being the rite of admission into the Church, was thought more necessary than the LORD's Supper; which reason is commonly assigned by the ancient Fathers, for permitting laymen to baptize, when any person was in danger of leaving the world unbaptized. But there is yet a further reason, why none but Bishops and Presbyters have ever consecrated the LORD's Supper; viz. Because the LORD's Supper was always believed to succeed in the place of Sacrifices; consequently, as none beside the High Priest and inferior Priests, were permitted to offer Sacrifices under the Jewish Law; so, the LORD's Supper was consecrated by none but Bishops and Presbyters, who alone are Priests in the Christian sense of that name. It is not my design to explain the nature and ends of the LORD'S Supper, any further than these may lead us to the proper minister of it, and therefore I shall only hint a few things necessary

to this purpose.

Here, then, it may be remembered, that, in the ancient Sacrifices, both among the Jews and Heathens, one part of the victim was offered upon the altar, and another reserved to be eaten by those persons, in whose name the Sacrifice was made; this was accounted a sort of partaking of GOD's Table, and was a federal rite, whereby He owned the guests to be in His favour and under His protection, as they by offering Sacrifices acknowledged Him to be their GOD. . . . In the Christian Church there is only one proper Sacrifice, which our LORD offered upon the cross; and consequently Christians cannot partake of any Sacrifice in a literal and strict sense, without allowing Transubstantiation. Lest, therefore, they should want the same pledge, to assure them of the Divine favour, which the Jews enjoyed, our LORD appointed the elements of bread and wine to signify His Body and Blood offered in Sacrifice; whence they are expressly called His Body and Blood; it being common for representatives to bear the name of those things or persons, which they represent: "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread," &c. The elements were not His real Body and Blood, nor understood to be so by the Apostles, or any primitive Father: but they were the symbols of His Body and Blood, the partaking whereof is all one to the receivers, and does

as much assure them of the favour of God, as if they should eat and drink the real Body and Blood of CHRIST offered upon the Cross. To this purpose is the following discourse of St. Paul : (1 Cor. x. 16-21.) "The cup of blessing," &c. Where it may be observed: 1. That eating the LORD's Supper is the same rite, in the Christian Church, with eating the things offered in Sacrifice among the Jews and Heathens. 2. That it is an act of communion or fellowship with God, at whose table we are said to be entertained; and therefore it is declared to be inconsistent with eating the Gentile Sacrifices, which is an act of communion with devils, to whom those Sacrifices are offered. 3. That it is an act of communion between Christians, who eat at the same table, and by that means are owned to be members of the same evangelical covenant under CHRIST. Whence the Apostle declares in another place, that the Jews, who are not within the Christian covenant, and consequently not in communion with CHRIST and His Church, have no right to partake of the Christian altar: "We have an altar," says he, "whereof they have no right to partake who serve the tabernacle." (Heb. xiii. 10.) Hence it is manifest that to eat the LORD's Supper, is to partake of the Sacrifice of CHRIST which is there commemorated and represented. For which reason the most primitive Fathers speak of eating at the Christian altar: "He that is not within the altar," says Ignatius . . . " is deprived of the bread of GoD:" where by "the bread of GOD," he means the Sacrament, which GoD imparts to Christians from His own table, which this Father calls "the altar." And the LORD's Supper is called an "oblation," a "Sacrifice," and a "gift." Thus, in Clemens of Rome: "It is no small crime, if we depose those from their episcopal office, who have unblameably and holily offered the gifts." Where he manifestly takes this phrase of "offering gifts" in the sense wherein the Jews and our LORD used it: "If thou bring thy gift unto the altar," says our LORD, &c. Matt. v. 23, 24. Where "gift" is put for "Sacrifice." Justin Martyr, in several places of his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, calls the Eucharist a "Sacrifice"... Irenæus calls the Eucharist, "the oblation of the Church," &c. In another place, where he speaks of our LORD's instituting the Eucharist, he has these

words: "He taught the new oblation of the New Testament," &c.' And in the Fathers of the next age, to consecrate the LORD's Supper is so constantly called poopέper in Greek, and offerre in Latin, that is, to "offer" it, that it is needless to cite any testimonies from them. So that it is plain, both from the design and nature of the LORD's Supper, and from the concurrent testimony of the most primitive Fathers, who conversed with the Apostles or their disciples, that it was reckoned through the whole world to be a commemorative sacrifice, or a memorial of our LORD offered upon the Cross, which, being first dedicated to God by prayer and thanksgiving, and afterwards eaten by the faithful, was to all intents the same to them, as if they had really eaten the natural Body and Blood of CHRIST, which are thereby represented. The consequence whereof, as explained by the constant practice of the Church in all ages, is, that they who consecrate this Sacrament, must be Priests in the Christian sense of this name, as was before observed. But it is not to be wondered, that those of the reformed religion have either wholly abstained from the names of Sacrifice, and oblation, or mentioned them with caution and reserve, in explaining this Sacrament, which were used by the primitive Fathers in a very true and pious sense; since they have been so grossly abused by the Papists in their doctrine of Transubstantiation, which is the daily occasion of many superstitious and idolatrous practices, and has for several ages given infinite scandal both to the Jews and Gentiles, and to the Church of GOD.-pp. 261-274.

HUGHES, PRESBYTER.-Dissertationes Proœmiales, &c.

I cannot but observe from St. Cyprian, that the Eucharist is called a "true and full Sacrifice," which the Priest offers to GoD the FATHER; and while he is offering it, acts in the stead of JESUS CHRIST Himself our great High Priest. And if the case be so, if the Eucharist is a true Sacrifice, if, as often as the Priest

1 [Sup. cit. p. 65.]

2 Prefixed to his edition of S. Chrysostom de Sacerdotio. From the translation in the Appendix to Hickes' Two Treatises, vol. ii. pp. cccxxii, sq.

3 [Vid. sup. pp. 107, 8.]

offers this Sacrifice, he acts in the stead of JESUS CHRIST Himself, what can be more plain and manifest, than that no man ought to offer up this venerable Sacrifice, but he who is called of GOD, but he who is ordained and consecrated after the lawful and ordinary manner?-p. cccclxxxvi.

But before we produce the holy Fathers, it may not be foreign to my purpose to answer an objection brought from Scripture, which our sons of Corah frequently allege, and in which they are wont egregiously to boast, as an objection of very great force. The Eucharist, say they, is instituted in the room of the observance of the Passover; and for that reason we cannot better learn who are the ministers of this Sacrament, than by well considering who were the ministers of that observance. For it cannot be doubted, but that the laics among Christians have the same power and authority in things sacred, and especially in the administration of this Sacrament, which they had among the Jews in holy functions, particularly in the celebration of the Passover. But it appears, say they, most evidently from the very institution of the Passover mentioned in the Old Testament, that the celebration of the Paschal Supper did not belong to the priests, but to the whole multitude of the Israelites, to the fathers of families. From hence they argue most strenuously, that the celebration also of the LORD's Supper (which succeeded in the room of the Passover) appertains to all the multitude of the faithful; and that all the laity have right, both of consecrating the elements, and of administering to themselves. I readily grant, that the case is this '; and that the father of the family did at his own home sacrifice a lamb, in the name of all the family; and that, in that regard, he retained the ancient right of priesthood, which belonged to the first-born, or fathers of families. But, unless I am very much mistaken, it is so far from following from hence, that our laics have a right to administer the LORD's Supper, that the contrary will be very easily proved from it.

The fathers of families did, at their own homes, slay the Paschal

That what is here asserted of the Passover, is to be confined to the times before the institution of the Levitical Priesthood, see proved in the Advertisement... at the end of this Appendix [to Hickes].