es, growing up even in
Elizabeth's reign, becoming strengthened under the Stuart kings, and
fully developed in the nonjurors, which distinguish the divines of the
seventeenth century from those of the sixteenth, distinguish also the
church system from the gospel. There are many who readily acknowledge
this difference in the English church, while they would deny it in the
case of the ancient church. Indeed, it is not yet deemed prudent to avow
openly that they prefer the so-called fathers to the apostles, and
therefore they try to persuade themselves that both speak the same
language. And doubtless, if the Scriptures are to be interpreted
according to the rule of the writers of the third, and fourth, and fifth
centuries, the thing can easily be effected; as, by a similar process,
the Articles of the Church of England, if interpreted according to the
rule of the nonjurors and their successors, might be made to speak the
very sentiments which their authors designed to condemn.]

Our Lord repels the notion of a literal acceptation of his words, where
he says,--"It is the Spirit which profiteth, the flesh profiteth
nothing; the words which I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are
life." It seems impossible, therefore, to refer these words, which he
tells us expressly are Spirit and life, to any outward act of eating and
drinking as their highest truth and object.

But the words in the sixth chapter of St. John do highly illustrate the
institution and purpose of the communion, and especially the remarkable
words which our Lord used in instituting it. They show what infinite
importance he attached to that truth which he expressed both in
symbolical words and action under the same figure, of eating His body
and drinking His blood. But to suppose that that truth can only be
realized by one particular ritual action, so that the one great work of
a Christian is to receive the Lord's supper,--which it must be, if our
Lord's words in the sixth chapter of St. John refer to the
communion,--is so contrary to the whole character of our Lord's
teaching, and not least so in the very words so misinterpreted, that to
maintain such a doctrine, leading, as it does, to such manifold
superstitions, is actually to preach another Gospel than Christ's--to
bring in a mystical religion instead of a spiritual one,--to do worse
than to Judaize.

* * * * *

NOTE K. P. 345.

_"A set of persons, who wish to magn