Instead of domination for the purpose of degradation, had useful instruction, and the melioration of moral disposition and conduct been the object, and thereupon had some physical operation, performed by Jesus himself, and actually directed to that object, been looked out for, to be taken for a subject of imitation, and, for the above good purposes, converted into a ceremony,-in any such case, in the incident of the feet-washing, as related by Saint John, the founders of the Romish, and therein of the English Church, might have found what they wanted.

A little before the supper in question there was another; if indeed it was another, and not the same. Be this as it may, at the supper spoken of by John (by whom not the least intimation is given of the bread-breaking), the same select disciples being present, Jesus sees reason to give them a lesson of humility. He therefore in his own person and deportment sets them an example of that virtue. He insists on washing their feet. Put to shame by a manifestation so striking of a disposition with which their own formed so disadvantageous a contrast, Peter resists: vain however is all resistance, and, upon the feet of all the twelve, the operation is performed.

To give to this ceremony a real importancea practical object, no arbitrary inferences-no additions would have been necessary: never was design more plainly, more impressively expressed.*

* ST. JOHN, CHAP. XIII.

1. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of

While this comparatively insignificant one was sublimated into a mystery,—that really instructive

this world unto the father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

2. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him;

3. Jesus knowing that the father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God and went to God;

4. He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.

5. After that he poured water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.

6. Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter said unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?

7. Jesus answered and said unto him, what I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.

8. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, if I wash thee not thou hast no part with me.

9. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands, and my head.

10. Jesus saith unto him, he that is washed, needeth not, save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit; and ye are clean, but not all.

11. For he knew who should betray him; therefore, said he, ye are not all clean.

12. So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?

13. Ye call me master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am.

14. If I, then, your Lord and master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. 15. For I have given you an example that ye as I have done to you.

should do

16. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent, greater than he that sent him.

17. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.

ceremony, how comes it to have been passed over in such profound neglect?-How?-why for three perfectly intelligible reasons :

1. Because it gave, to the self-created order of official persons, no privilege, no peculiar advantage 2. Because the lesson which it so plainly gives, is to them a lesson of condemnation.

3. Because, to the inventors of the drinking ceremony, drinking wine while others looked on, was an operation more pleasant than would have been the washing the feet of those same spectators.

Here then are two contiguous suppers-two farewel suppers-or two incidents, related as having had place at the same supper. By the one, a lesson is given-a lesson pregnant with instruction as plain as it is salutary,—and one, the applicability of which, and with it the utility, will endure as long as man endures. In the other, what is visible to every eye is- -an incident, naturally interesting indeed in no mean degree to the individuals then present, but having neither interest nor meaning, as applied to any other individual; nor of itself calculated or designed to convey instruction in any shape whatsoever.The universally important transaction is passed over in universal silence and neglect, the other is converted into a mystery, with damnation— universal damnation, or thereabouts-at the bottom of it!

-

Question 19.-What is the outward part or sign of the Lord's Supper?

Answer-Bread and Wine, which the Lord hath commanded to be received.

OBSERVATIONS.

[Hath commanded to be received?]-Mark well

H

the misrepresentation of which this phrase is the chief instrument: seldom has a plan of misrepresentation been more subtilely contrived.

Had the passage stood in these words, Which the Lord.... commanded to be received, stood in these words, without the word hath,-the answer would, as far as it went, have been unobjectionable: as far as it went, it would have been conformable to the sacred text. Mark well-without the word hath: for in this short word lurks the poison—the seed of the deceit.

It is by this word hath that the transaction is represented as meant to be applied to the indefinite present: i. e. to every point of time, at which it shall have happened to this account of it to find a reader, and to every individual person, by whom, he being a believer in the religion of Jesus, it shall have happened to be heard or read.

Such is the conception, which, by the authors of this Catechism, composed in the sixteenth century after the birth of Jesus, is endeavoured to be impressed: viz. that to the effect just described, a command delivered by Jesus, in the intention of its being considered as obligatory,obligatory with a force equal at least to that of any of his moral precepts,—was addressed to all persons, by whom the religion taught by him should come to be professed:-tò all of them, without distinction, to the end of time.

Such is the conception which, by these men of yesterday, this part of the history of Jesus is represented as intended to convey. In the history itself, how is this same matter represented?

According to the history, who are the persons

present? -a numerous assembly, as at the délivery of the sermon on the Mount ?-No :-but a chosen few, sitting with him in a private chamber: the twelve disciples, whose condition had been distinguished from that of the general body of his followers by marks of peculiar confidence, and whose life had been interwoven with his own by habits of peculiar intimacy.

"Ever and anon, when I am no longer with you, and when after my departure it happens "to you, to you the chosen among my disciples, "to meet together on a convivial occasion as at present, when the materials of the repast are "before you, think of your departed master, think "of this your last meeting (for such it will be) in

-

my presence. Think of his now approaching "death: think of the cause and fruit of it. "When, for the purpose of the social repast, "bread, such as that which I have thus broken, comes also to be broken, think of this body, "which, for the part acted by me for your instruction, will, ere long, be broken and de"stroyed."

"When the wine, whatever it be that stands "before you, comes to be poured out, let it call to your remembrance his blood which will have "been shed in that same cause"

66

..

Of

With this evident sense before them, will nothing satisfy men but the grossest nonsense? the multitude of figurative expressions, to which scanty and unformed languages in general-to which the Jewish language in particular, with its dialects were necessitated, or at least were continually wont to have recourse,-is this alone, in