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us his flesh to eat?" What did Jesus reply? Did he tell them they had mistaken him? that it was only, in figure, they were to eat his flesh? No. But, using that asseveration, which, with him, was in lieu of an oath, he said: "Amen, amen, I say unto you: Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you...... For my flesh is meat indeed; and blood is drink indeed: &c." What followed? Why, not only were the Jews still more offended, but many of his own disciples exclaimed: "This saying is hard, and who can hear it?" And yet, upon so alarming a symptom of desertion, how did Jesus act? He, who was so wont to explain his parables to his disciples, nay, soften down his words, lest they might, prematurely, offend the prejudices even of his enemiesdid he do, or say aught, to stop the spreading apostacy of his own followers? Did he palliate? did he explain? did he clothe in metaphor, his first assertion?-On the contrary; to con. firm its absolute truth; to show them, that unqualified belief must be paid to his infallible word; he added to its apparent impossibility, by saying: "Does this scandalize you? If then you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?" In other terms: "You do not believe," says he, "that I can give you my flesh to eat, now while I am present among you? What, then, shall you think, when I tell you, that it shall be eaten, even after I have ascended to my Father?"-Such was the manner, in which the Eternal Truth met the doubts, the questions, the unbelief, not only of the Jews, but of his own disciples. Every

word, which their infidelity extorted from him, was but a stronger, and still stronger, declaration of his corporal reality in the eucharist. Nay, he saw them go back, quit his company, and abjure his doctrine altogether, rather than let fall a sentence, which might, even by possibility, throw a doubt on the wonderful mystery of Transubstantiation. He grieved-oh! how his loving heart grieved at their obsti nacy! But, he would not purchase their salvation, at the expence, or even with the palliation, of the truth. And, beholding himself now almost alone, turning to the twelve, he said: "Will you also go away ?"-when Peter, like every faithful and rational Christian, subjecting his senses to his faith, and believing the word of a God, because it was the word of a God, replied: "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed, and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God."

Thus, my brethren, we see, that, of all the divine dogmas of Christ, the one before us was, not only, the most precisely expressed, but, likewise, the most obstinately contested. If, then, we must believe his unequivocal word,

This is my body,' how invincible, in our minds, does that word become, when we hear it maintained, and with so much perseverance maintained, by Christ himself, even to the loss of his disciples' faith; and, consequently, maintained in that sense, which alone could have shaken their faith, or given rise to the contestthe literal sense of the Catholic Church. For, either this was the sense, in which he main

tained it; or, we must blaspheme him for the grossest and silliest of impostors! There is no medium; and, therefore, while the Catholic believes his Saviour's word, let the Calvinist tremble at the other branch of the dilemma. He, who denies Transubstantiation, may allege, as long and as often as he pleases, its incomprehensibility-his denial charges imposture upon Christ!

And then, what follows? Why, that the whole scripture, from beginning to end, is an imposture, where it relates any thing, which we cannot comprehend. Give the victory, then, O ye figurative sacramentarians!give the victory to the Arians, the Socinians, the Unitarians and the Deists, who deny the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Ghost! For, the very texts, which stand for the Trinity, are not more express, than those, which I have quoted for transubstantiation. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God:" "The Father and I are one:" "He that seeth me, seeth the Father also:" "I am in the Father, and the Father in me:" "The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name; the Spirit of Truth, who proceedeth from the Father:" "Baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:" finally," There are three that give testimony in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." These texts, which prove the Trinity, are not more literal and express, than the repeated asseverations of Christ: "This is my body; This is my blood." Give

the victory then, ye Protestants! to all the Anti-trinitarians; and, with your figurative sense, or, to speak correctly, your absence of all sense, deny the divinity of the second and third Persons! Why should you believe, that either is God? Do you understand, how they are God? Much less than you do, how the bread is changed. Treat their divinity then, as you do the sacrament; make it figurative; the most convenient way in the world to deny, what you do not comprehend; say, out with it at once; 66 They are not God, they are only the signs, the figures, the representations of God !"

But, will your figurative sense stop here? will it be content with destroying Transubstantiation and the Trinity? Not at all. It is a besom of destruction, (to apply that expressive term of the prophet Isaias,) which sweeps, clean away, every relic of revelation. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Poh! how could God be made flesh? It is all a figure." Behold a virgin shall conceive." 'No such thing. Who can understand such a thing? It is only an emblem.'-" Christ Jesus, being in the form of God, debased himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." What a

contradiction! that God should die? It is all a sign, a figure, an emblem, a representation, a false appearance.'-- Well, Calvin! have you yet made havoc enough in the fields of revelation? No, no; you are determined to reduce them to a complete desert. Who can understand the creation? the fall of man? the temptation of the serpent? the eternity of punish

ment? the eternity of happiness? the resurrection of all human bodies? Who can understand the being of a God?-Away with all these truths, then; we must not believe what we do not comprehend; "let us eat; let us drink; for to-morrow we shall die!"-A devastation, an universal infidelity, to which the figurative sense has paved the way, and which the Bible Societies are now completing. For, if men are once taught to set aside a reality by a figure, because they comprehend not the reality-they will extend this sweeping privilege-so flattering to their pride, their ignorance, and their passions-from the sacrament, to all the unintelligible dogmas, aye, and disagreeable duties of religion.

But, have Calvin and his figuratives nothing to say for themselves? Say? that they will, and say, and say for ever; and though you were to prove to them, one hundred times, that 'is' is is;' though Christ himself were to tell them, one hundred times, that it is his body; they would, one hundred times, reply to him that it is not. What can you do with such men ?-But, not to offend their vanity, (for they would rather die, than be considered dumb,) let us hear, not their arguments, (for they have not the shade of one to offer,) but their talk, of which they are so fond. "Christ is called a door and a vine," say they; "but, these are metaphors; ergo."--Metaphors! Aye, and I will add to this formidable array of metaphors, if metaphors be of any use to them. He is called a lion, too, and a lamb, and a rock, and a corner stone. Well, and