morial of that great sin-offering which taketh away the sins of the world, 1 Pet. ii. 5. And for this purpose CHRIST Himself hath appointed these creatures of bread and wine, ordaining that, because they are designed to express so great a mystery, they shall have a peculiar consecration.. ... The Jews would not eat of the Sacrifice till Samuel came to bless it, 1 Sam. ix. 18. How much more then ought we to expect the prayers of the priest over this mysterious food of our souls, before we eat thereof? especially since JESUS Himself did not deliver this bread and wine until He had consecrated it by giving thanks. pp. 252, 3,

"And thus by thine own appointment, dearest JESUS, we do shew our thankfulness for Thy Passion, our faith in Thy resurrection, and our hope of Thy second coming. We will commemorate Thy all-sufficient Sacrifice before the ALMIGHTY to pacify His anger against us; before the world, to testify our hope in a crucified SAVIOUR; and before ourselves, to renew our sense of Thy inexpressible love."-p. 274.

LESLIE.-Letter to the Author of "Sacrifice the Divine Service," (see next Number) prefixed to that work.

The subject you have undertaken vindicates the Church of England and her doctrine against the profane, the Papists, and Dissenters.

The profane see here what they have despised, the representative Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of CHRist.

(1.) The Papists see their idol of transubstantiation broken to pieces, not from the nicety and criticism of a word, but from the nature of the thing. For a representative and commemorative Sacrifice must be a different thing from, but bearing a great resemblance to, the archetypal Sacrifice it represents.

(2.) Yet both are Sacrifices, and truly and properly so. For if there were no other Sacrifice but that of CHRIST upon the Cross, which only is so in the principal and original sense, then were not the Sacrifices under the Law any Sacrifices at all, because they were only typical of the true and real Sacrifice that was to come. But if typical Sacrifices were, in their order, true

and real Sacrifices, though in a subordinate sense to the only true propitiatory Sacrifice, then is the Christian commemorative and representative Sacrifice much more so; as much more, as the plain exhibition of our redemption already perfected, and now fully understood, is beyond the glimmering hopes then faintly shadowed of a redemption to come, but in what manner and how to be performed, almost wholly hidden from them. Will any say, that the death of CHRIST and the shedding of His Blood is not more lively expressed, and better understood, in the Christian Sacrifice than in the Jewish; in the breaking of the bread, and pouring out the wine with us, than in the death of a beast and shedding its blood among the Jews? CHRIST calls our bread and wine (when blessed by His priests, to whom He gave power and commandment to do this, as they had seen Him do) His own Body and Blood. He gave this high dignity to the commemorative Sacrifice He had appointed of Himself. Was any such thing ever said of the typical Sacrifices under the Law? So far is the fulfilling beyond the prefiguring, the commemorative beyond the typical Sacrifices. pp. 2-4.

All this, Sir, [extracts from the Liturgy and earlier Divines] justifies what you have wrote. And you have done it with that clearness and fulness as was greatly desirable among us, in an age, when not only this great point of the Christian Sacrifice, but all parts of our religion have been openly attacked.

May God give His blessing to your performance! Let it increase the knowledge and stir up the zeal of the devout, who come to the great Christian Sacrifice in full faith, beholding CHRIST Our High Priest, offering up the same Sacrifice of Himself to God in heaven, which His priests, representing His person, offer up on earth in the sacred symbols which He has commanded, and dignified with the name of His own Body and Blood, Which we verily and indeed receive, as our Catechism speaks. in our participation of these holy mysteries; and as our first Homily concerning the Sacrament teaches us, that in the Supper of the LORD there is no vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent, but the communion of the Body and Blood of the LORD in a marvellous incorporation, which, by the

operation of the HOLY GHOST, is through faith wrought on the souls of the faithful, whereby not only their souls live to eternal life, but they surely trust to win their bodies a resurrection to immortality.

Of which that we may be partakers, I desire your prayers, as you have those of your fellow-labourer, brother, and faithful servant, CHARLES LEslie.

SCANDRET, J., PRESBYTER.-Sacrifice the Divine Service, from the Covenant of Grace to the Consummation of the Mystery of Man's Redemption.

I shall set down the doctrine of the great Christian Sacrifice in the method or manner wherein our Church teacheth the doctrine of the Sacraments. And first, as the general notion of a Sacrament is an outward visible sign of an inward and invisible thing signified, so likewise every Sacrifice has so far the nature of a Sacrament. For, whether it be the offerings of the people or the offerings of the priesthood, every offering or Sacrifice is an outward visible sign of some invisible thing thereby signified. But here we are further to observe carefully the great difference, or distinction, between these two; for whereas the one is an outward visible sign of an invisible grace, or favour, from God to man, the other is an outward visible sign of an invisible worship paid by man to GOD. The one is an act from a superior to an inferior; the other is an act from an inferior to a superior. The one, I say, is an act of grace and favour from God to man; the other is an act of worship paid by man to GOD.

To proceed in the method designed. And having declared a Sacrifice to be an outward and visible sign of an inward or invisible worship, the first thing to be considered is the outward visible sign, which, in every Sacrifice, must be some one of God's creatures, either animate or inanimate, brought into His presence and offered to Him. It must be either of the fruits of the earth, as bread, or wine, or flour, or oil, or incense, or silver, or gold; or it must be some living creature, from the flock, or herd, or fowl. And this according to the particular appointment and will

of God, revealed to men; as we read in the old Law; where, whatever the offering was, whether of thanksgiving and for the general infirmities of human life, as were the peace-offerings among the Jews, or whether it was a sin or trespass offering or Sacrifice, which had respect to some particular crime committed by the offerer, and till he had offered it, was not supposed to be at peace with GOD, it was always some creature, and that of God's appointment.

... Thus, when God renewed His worship to His peculiar people the Jews, and ordered a complete service, recommending it to them as copied from Heaven, He specified the outward visible sign in every Sacrifice that was to be offered to His supreme Majesty. And thus also JESUS CHRIST appointed the creatures of bread and wine as the outward visible sign in the great Sacrifice of the Christian Church, to remain for ever to the end of the world.

Words are, indeed, audible signs or significations of inward and spiritual worship; but what ought to commend to us the great Christian oblation, as above or better than all words in GOD'S public worship, is, that God has ever appointed a material Sacrifice in His Church, but never any form of words, as his chief divine service. We have no instance of any thing (as I can remember) that was said or spoken by the priest at the altar, till the mention of Ezra's occasional prayer, after the Captivity, made at the evening Sacrifice, Ezra ix. 5; and which we may suppose to be spoken by him there, not as a priest, but as a holy man and a prophet, to whom it did belong to pray for the people. In all the commands of GOD to Moses, or of Moses to Aaron, in the ordinances of the Divine worship, whether at the Sacrifices for Aaron's consecrations to the priesthood, or at ordinary or extraordinary ones, whether at the altar without, before the tabernacle, or within, at the altar of incense, or when blood was brought on the great day of expiation, within the veil into the Holy of Holies, there is no mention or command of any words to be spoken by the priest, only when he came down from the tabernacle, to the Levites and people, and the Sacrifice being offered he blessed them by the appointed form.

It is further easily observed, that the noise of the trumpets at the time of the Sacrifice, when the tabernacle was in use, and of the many instruments of music afterwards under the Temple, and the songs sung by the Levites, called songs of degrees, because the Levites stood upon the seats one above another in the first court, and in that part which was next the second (not, as some have supposed, on steps ascending into the temple, which had been to stand between the altar and priest, and the mercy seat, where God was supposed to be) was so great, that if the priest had spoken anything in the time of worship, he could not have been heard in the first court, much less in the second, where the people always were by themselves, apart from the Priests and Levites.

Wherefore, I say, the outward visible sign appointed by CHRIST in the great Christian Sacrifice or oblation, is bread and wine, the creatures of GoD offered to Him as the Evangelical Oblation, or Sacrifice of the Christian Priesthood; and which we are not to lay aside for any words, though words are signs or significations of our minds and hearts. And these creatures being offered before God, by being brought to His altar, and by the manual ceremonies appointed in the Rubrick of His service, the Priest holding them to and before God, breaking the bread to make a memorial to GOD of CHRIST's Body torn with nails upon the Cross, lifting up the wine as a memorial of His Blood shed for us, laying his hands on both, to signify that on Him was laid the sins of the world, as having undertaken them in the covenant of grace; this is the outward visible part or thing in God's great worship, the Christian Sacrifice in the Christian Church.

The next thing is the inward or invisible part, or the thing signified; and that is the visible and invisible offering of the Body and Blood of JESUS CHRIST, as our claim of the favour of the Covenant of Grace, our appointed plea, or manner whereby we beseech it of GOD, and an acknowledgment of God's infinite justice and mercy in his acceptance of CHRIST as a peculiar victim for the ransom of fallen man.

This was the purpose, intent, and language of all the Sacrifices of the priesthood. They were appointed claims or pleadings of