Invisibility consequently destroyed: He remained the Eternal Spirit though He was born in Time of Mary His

creature.

But, then, although there was the most complete and perfect identity between God sitting on His throne and God walking among men; it was nevertheless true that the Presence of God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself" (2 Cor. v. 19, was only a loca! Presence, by reason of Christ's Humanity. Men had, indeed, in the visible tabernacling of Christ in the midst of them, all the sympathy of "perfect Man" and all the power of "perfect God:” but the conditions of Manhood Physically limited His Incarnate Presence to one place at one time; though the conditions of Godhead enabled the God-Man to extend Himself after a Spiritual manner, and to exert both His Power and Sympathy where He was Corporally absent, as, e. g., when He said, "Thy Son liveth." (St. John iv. 50.)

Yet this extension, from the nature of the case, could be but partial in its effects; for it necessarily involved applications to Christ of a local and personal character which were commonly difficult, and as regarded the great mass of mankind must be practically, if not absolutely impossible. The invitation of the Sun of Righteousness was "Come unto Me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you," (St. Matt. xi. 28): but the answer must soon have been, "I sought Him, but I could not find Him," (Cant. v. 6), even by those at no great distance, and though He went hither and thither never so much in the plenitude of His zeal to enlighten the Nations.

The Ascension of the Incarnate Sun of Righteousness, though it was to a local habitation in "Heaven," whence, as "Light of Light," He "came down," removed this difficulty of Universal Presence, arising out of the limitations imposed by His Humanity. One especial object which Christ had in determining to "go away" from His Disciples was to "come again" to them, (St. John xiv. 28): this return, which was to be effected by the coming of the Holy Ghost, "the

Comforter," Who was to "abide with" them "for ever," (xiv. 16), had moreover a further purpose than their own personal consolation; it had reference to "the world," which that Divine Spirit was to "reprove (or, convince)" of the very same things which Christ had already been convicting it of, viz., “Sin," (e.g., St. John xv. 22); "Righteousness," (e.g., St. Matt. xxi. 28-32); "Judgment," (e.g., St. Matt. vii. 2). And directly connected with this purpose was another, and that other a re-production, (so to say), when Christ should have gone away, of that same "image of the things" still "to come," which men had been beholding in Him, and which needed to be perpetuated, unless the Gospel were to exhibit less than the Law: "Howbeit," said our Lord, "when He the Spirit of Truth is come,......He will shew you THE THINGS TO COME," (St. John xvi. 13), words. not a little remarkable when compared with those of St. Paul, (Heb. x. 1), already spoken of, especially if we bear in mind his "visions and revelations of [i.e., given him by the Lord" when he was "caught up to the third heaven....into paradise, and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful [or possible] for a man to utter." (2 Cor. xii. 1-5.) Nor are we left wholly to guess in what the Holy Ghost's manifestation of these "things to come," primarily at least, consisted; "For," said our Lord, "He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore, said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you." (St. John xvi. 14, 15.)

Now, whatever may be the details of this Manifestation by which the Spirit was to "glorify" the Incarnate Son, there can be no doubt that they all converge towards, and centre in, that perfect love of God which caused the entire Oblation of the Eternal Son, wrought it out through all its stages, and completed it in the final act of Christ's sacrifice the cross. That the Memorial of this final act was in upon fact subsequently made among Christians is plain from St. Paul's remonstrance with the "foolish Galatians....

before whose eyes," as he says, "Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you." (Gal. iii. 1.) How it was, and was to be perpetually "set forth," may be no less plainly gathered from his recital to the Corinthians of that account of the Institution of the Eucharist which he "received of the Lord," (probably in that Heavenly Vision already referred to), wherein he says, "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, shew ye the Lord's death till He come." (1 Cor. xi. 28.) The evidence of this perpetual Commemoration, hitherto, is matter of the plainest History, as in the Acts of the Apostles, (e.g., ii. 42; xx. 7), and the witness of Liturgies; it exists, moreover, in the living experience of this crowning act of Worship in the Universal Church. The realization of the promise to the first Disciples (and in them to all others)" I will come to you," (St. John xiv. 18)-is not less surely to be found in the Invocation of the Holy Ghost, whether expressed or implied, to make present in that " Divine Service" the Body and Blood of Christ, i.e., Christ Himself. The effect of that realization-" I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice," (St. John xvi. 22)-finds its distinct confirmation in that description of "the ministration of the Spirit" which St. Paul gives-"We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as of the Lord the Spirit." (2 Cor. iii. 18.)

Unless, however, this Manifestation of Christ in His glory, as exhibited by the present Ministry of the Spirit in (what I may properly call) the Eucharistic Mirror, is an equally TRUE shewing forth of the God-Man with that which was beheld when He said, "I am come a Light into the world," (St. John xii. 46); then, His Presence now must be said to have lost in Intensity, while it has gained in Universality. But the Sun of Righteousness in declaring the purpose of His shining to be "that whosoever believeth IN ME should not abide in darkness," (Ibid.), described the precise Object on which the Faith of Christians was ever to

be exercised, in order to effect their spiritual Illumination: that Object was none other than the Incarnate Son really present among them, gradually scattering the darkness of sin which obscured the Image of God, wherein Man was created, and, in so doing, bringing out afresh the golden outlines and features of the Divine character still existing in him. It is upon this very same OBJECT, only in its glorified. condition, that "we all" are believingly to gaze, in order that by the "knowledge" of Christ so acquired we may be transformed into "the image of Him that created" us, (Col. iii. 10), i. e., into the likeness of Christ Himself, the imago (in) of the Gospel, Who thus carries on the Sanctification of the Will of the regenerate; advancing them "from glory to glory;" "the inward man" being "renewed day by day," towards the perfection of its re-creation, "while we look not at the things which are seen" with bodily eyes in Sacraments, "but at the things which are not seen," except by spiritual discernment: "for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Cor. iv. 16-18.)

That this substantial Eucharistic Image is capable of being multiplied as indefinitely throughout the Kingdom of Grace as is the Solar Image throughout the Visible World, might fairly be gathered from the Church's practical application, in regard to the Sacrament of the Altar, of such a promise as that of her Lord, "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them." (St. Matt. xviii. 20.) HOW this Presence is produced it is as hopeless as needless to attempt to decide: but this is no sufficient ground for refusing to admit the FACT of that Presence. If, by whatever law-known, or to be discovered -the mirrored image of the Sun produces Natural Effects like to what we suppose would be the local action of that Luminary, and therefore may be fitly called the Real Presence of the Sun; it cannot surely be a condemnable proposition to hold—that, as the same Spiritual Effects are now caused by Eucharists which we know to have been caused by

the actual Presence of Christ upon earth, therefore He is now as Really present in these Sacramental Mirrors as He is in His local Session at the Right Hand of His Eternal Father. Yet this is no more a Material, i.e., a Corporal Presence, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, than is the Image of the Sun in a Mirror the Corporal Presence of that Luminary. Archbishop Cranmer (in 1551, when his doctrine of the Real Presence was at what may be called its lowest ebb), arguing with Bishop Gardiner against the Presence of Christ's Natural Body as the result of Consecration, professed to hold with St. Cyprian, "that the Divinity may be said to be poured, or put sacramentally into the bread." (See p. 88.) The question is-Considering that in the "one Christ" are "two whole and perfect Natures,....the Godhead and the Manhood,....never to be divided," (Art. ii.), can His Humanity be accounted present in Eucharistic Elements in such a manner as not necessarily to involve its Ubiquity? It seems to me that a statement made by Cranmer in the previous year, and certainly not abandoned when he penned the above words, may be claimed as supporting an affirmative answer: he complained of being misrepresented in being accused of holding "that the spiritual receiving" of the Eucharist "is to receive Christ ONLY by His Divine Nature," and emphatically replied, "which thing I never said nor meant." (See p. 23.) The context of the sentence can, I think, be cited to shew that the Archbishop would not have thought it inconsistent to apply to the Spiritual PRESENCE What he here says of the Spiritual RECEIVING: but I do not press it as his argument, since the passage may be thought hardly clear enough to warrant it. What has now been advanced by way of analogy, drawn from the Presence of the Natural Sun, may possibly point to a mode of illustrating and defending the Real and Substantial Presence "of the Body and Blood of Christ under the Forms of Bread and Wine." It may be that in time to come He, Whose honour is most especially concerned in a right apprehension of the Doctrine to be believed on this Mystery, will give wisdom to some