remembrance," which shewed that the eating and drinking were no more than commemorative. They appear in no other liturgy, and were probably suggested by Peter Martyr or Bucer. The union of both removes the objections which might be entertained against either alone, since if the second denies our partaking of the actual body and blood, the first shews that the commemoration is to those who communicate worthily a spiritual feeding.

The Eucharist having been celebrated, the public service recommences with the Lord's Prayer, which the early Christians seem only to have used at the celebration of the Eucharist, and not to have taught to the catechumens, and which in this place is not recited as in the Roman ritual, but, as in the beginning of morning prayer, is closed with the Doxology. Our Saviour concluded this feast with prayer and hymns, and all Churches have followed his example; and certainly, if we rise not from an ordinary meal without thanksgiving, it is more especially incumbent on us after this heavenly feast. The minister has there the choice of two prayers. The first realizes St. Paul's

advice, Rom. xii. 1. who beseeches us, by the mercies of God, to present our bodic a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which, contrasted with the offerings c dead animals, as prescribed by the Law, calls a rational worship. At the same time we entirely, that is, with the whole hear. desire him to accept this our sacrifice (as with the ancient Church we term it) o praise. We renew our petitions for the whole Church, for our fellow-communicant: and for ourselves; and further beseech God. while we acknowledge ourselves unworthy to offer unto him any sacrifice, to accept this our bounden duty and service. As this prayer consists chiefly of vows, the secon! is principally made up of thanksgiving We thank in it Almighty God, that he h fed us with the most precious body ar blood of our Saviour Christ, and that we are very members incorporate in the bod of his Son; but the first expression is qua! fied by the addition of spiritual food, an the second is explained to be the blessed company of all faithful people.

The form of thanksgiving with which w close the service is most suitable to this so

I

lemnity; and there are few who will not repeat it with more devotion, when they learn that it was used by Athanasius, and even by eminent Christians of a still earlier age, whose memory they have been taught to revere It is still the morning hymn of the Greek Church, and is probably one of those which we know that the primitive Christians, faith_ ful to the injunction of honouring the Son even as they honour the Father, were accustomed to sing in acknowledgment of his divine nature. It is sometimes called the Angelical hymn, because it opens with the words with which the angels announced to the shepherds the glad tidings of the Saviour's birth. The author of spiritual salvation must be, as he is here proclaimed, the only-begotten Son of God, his Son not by adoption, but by nature; and his divinity is declared by ascribing to him acts which reason pronounces to be beyond the power of man, and which Scripture no less peremptorily assigns to him, the taking away the sins of the world, and the sitting on the right hand of God the Father. He only we herein declare to be holy, and justly, since he was not only guiltless of actual sin,

but by his miraculous conception free from the taint of original corruption. Him only we also confess, with the Apostle, 1 Cor. viii. 6. to be the Lord, and this title is appropriately applied to him, both as Lord of the living and the dead; and as appointed Head over all things to the Church, and in its highest sense, as equivalent to Jehovah, the incommunicable name for the Divine essence. We conclude with declaring, that this Lord and Saviour is, together with the Holy Ghost, most high in the glory of God the Father. May none of us, misled by a false philosophy, which its deluded admirers term rational Christianity, but which the early believers stigmatised as the God-denying apostacy,

-his praise

Forget, nor from his Father's praise disjoin.

Mindful of the vision exhibited to his beloved disciple in Patmos, (surely not merely for information, but for imitation also,) may we on earth honour and adore Him, whom angels and the redeemed worship in heaven; for, in their unerring judgment, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power,

and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And never can our praises and thanksgivings be better timed, or more likely to come from the heart, than after our commemorating in the Eucharist our Saviour's sacrifice of himself, which owes its efficacy to his divinity; and when we have partaken of the bread and wine, which represent his body broken and his blood shed, in order to redeem his people, and to make them priests and kings unto God.

THE END.

BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.