would alfo apply to this purpose, the parable of our Saviour concerning the wedding fupper; and confider the person who had not on the wedding garment, as representing an unworthy communicant. In fhort, as was very natural, the greater they supposed to be the honour and advantage of communicating worthily, the greater would they fuppofe to be the penalty and danger of communicating unworthily. Upon this, then, the terms of church communion began to be more strict; and a greater purity of heart and life than was before required, was now thought abfolutely neceffary. It does not belong to every one, fays Origen, who wrote in the third century, to eat of this bread, and drink of this cup. They must both have been baptifed, believe the articles of the chriftian faith, and, accordingly, live holy and pious lives. This was exactly agreeable to the maxims of the heathens, who fpeak in the higheft terms of the purity and happiness of the initiated. See Potter's Antiquities of Greece, vol. I. p. 390.

This

This advance being made, a taste for eloquence, and an abuse of the figurative language of the fcriptures, concurred to carry the corruption of this inftitution to a degree which would have exceeded the bounds of credibility, had it not remained in the church of Rome at this day, as a monument of the utmoft extravagance of the human imagination. The Greek writers were always fond of very high ftrains of eloquence; and, exaggerating the figurative language of our Saviour, This is my body, expreffed themselves in fuch a manner, that the people in general came to believe, that Chrift himself was, in reality, fome way or other, in the facrament; and, at laft, that the elements were his body and blood. Indeed, many. pretty early writers speak of an union of the facramental elements to the body of Christ, like to that of the human being united to the divine in his perfon. This change of the elements was fuppofed to be effected by the thanksgiving prayer before the administration; from which the whole fervice came to be called the eucharift;

which, in Greek, fignifies the thanksgiving. Hence Origen calls the facramental elements, the food that is fanctified by the word of God and prayer; and, that is hallowed by the word of God and prayer. And Irenæus writes that, when the bread and wine receive the word of God, they then become the eucharift of the body and blood of Chrift. In general, this action was termed the confecration of the elements; and both this term, and the idea annexed to it, ftill remain in the church of England; the priest, when he pronounces the words, THIS IS MY BODY, in what is called the prayer of confecration, taking care, according to the directions of the Rubric, to lay his hand upon all the bread; and upon pronouncing the words, THIS IS MY BLOOD, laying his hand upon every vessel (be it chalice or flagon) in which there is any wine to be confecrated. If, in the course of the service, they find they had not confecrated enough, they consecrate more before they use it, repeating the fame words over it, as over the first.

Notwithstanding the idea of confecration, and other ideas connected with it (which appeared pretty early) it was not till about the tenth century, that the extravagant doctrine of tranfubftantiation was fully introduced; and though the strongest language in which this doctrine can be expreffed, had been long used in the church, it was not without great debate and altercation, that the language was admitted to be no figure of speech, but literally expreffive of the truth of the cafe. The ambition of the clergy helped forward this, as well as every other errour of the church of Rome. In thofe ignorant and fuperftitious ages, the clergy were glad of the opportunity of augmenting the respect which people had to their characters, by affuming the fole privilege of performing the greatest and most important action that men could poffibly afpire to; namely, that of converting the elements of bread and wine into the real body and blood of Chrift.

very

This doctrine of transubstantiation, and, indeed, the ideas which introduced it, before the doctrine itfelf was fully eftaElished, had fome ludicrous, but other fhocking confequences. The confecrated bread, being the real body of Christ, not the leaft crumb of it must be loft, or applied to any other ufe. Hence the custom of making the facramental bread in the form of small light wafers, which might be taken into the mouth at once, without breaking or crumbling; and left any of the confecrated wine, which was now become the real blood of Chrift, fhould be loft, by wetting the beards of the communicants; they were, for fome time, made to fuck it through a quill; but the more general custom was, to dip the bread in the wine, and fo take both together. At laft, confidering that the facramental bread was the whole body of Christ, and that a whole body contains the blood, the wine appeared unneceffary; and hence they denied the cup entirely to the laity, who could not partake of it without fome lofs, or abuse. In the church of England, the minister

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