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Page 51
Jesus says, John vi.--�I am the living bread which came down
from Heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever,
and the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for
the life of the world.� The Jews, therefore, contended among
themselves, saying, �How can this man give us his flesh to eat?�
Jesus, therefore, said unto them, �Verily, verily, I say unto you,
unless ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye
have not life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my
blood, hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is verily food, and my blood is verily drink. He that
eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in
him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father,
(here is an oath) so he likewise that eateth me shall live by me.�
This strange doctrine was the faith of the Primitive Christians, as is
well known to the learned Protestants, though they do not like to
say so to their �weaker brethren.�
Ignatius says, �There is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
one cup in the unity of his blood;� and of certain heretics he says,
�they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus
Christ.�
Justin Martyr, in his Apology, asserts that the consecrated bread
�is, some how or other, the flesh of Christ.�
In the dispute with Latimer about Transubstantiation, it is
acknowledged by the most candid writers, that the Roman
Catholics had much the advantage. It must have been so, where
quotations from the Fathers were allowed as arguments. For what
answer can be made to the following extracts?--� What a miracle
is this! He who sits above with the Father, at the same instant, is
handled by the hands of men.� [Chrysostom.] Again, from the
same, �That which is in the cup, is the same which flowed from
the side of Christ.� Again, �Because we abhor the eating of raw
flesh; therefore, it appeareth bread, though it be flesh.�
[Theophylact.] Or to this?--�Christ was carried in his own hands,
when he said �this is my body.�� [Austin,] Or to this?--�We are
taught, that when this nourishing food is consecrated, it becomes
the body and blood of our Saviour.� [Justin Martyr.] Or, lastly, to
this? [from Ambrose]--� It is bread before consecration, but after
that ceremony, it becomes the flesh of Christ.�
Another doctrine which Paul derived from the Oriental Philosophy,
and Which makes a great figure in his writings, is the notion, that
moral corruption originates in the influxes of the body upon the
mind.
�It was one of the principal tenets of the Oriental Philosophy, that
all evil resulted from matter, and its first founder appears to have
argued in the following manner:--�There are many evils in the
world, and men seem impelled of a natural instinct to the practice
of those things which reason condemns. But that eternal mind,
from which all spirits derive their existence, must be inaccessible
to all kinds of evil, and also of a most perfect and beneficent
nature; therefore, the origin of these evils with which the world
abounds, must be sought somewhere else, than in the Deity. It
cannot abide in him who is all perfection, and, therefore, it must be
without him. Now, there is nothing without or beyond the Deity but
matter; therefore, matter is the centre and source of all evil, of all
vice.�
One of the consequences they drew from this hypothesis was, that
since All evil resulted from matter, the depravity of mankind arose
from the pollution derived to the human soul, from its connexion
with the material body which it inhabits; and, therefore, the only
means by which the mind could purify itself from the defilement,
and liberate itself from the bondage imposed upon it by the body,
was to emaciate and humble the body by frequent fasting, and to
invigorate the mind to overcome and subdue it by retirement and
contemplation.
The New Testament, though it does not recognise this principle of
the Oriental Philosophy, �that evil originates from matter,� yet
coincides with it in strenuously asserting that the corruption of the
human mind is derived from its connexion with the human body.
To prove this proposition, I shall show that Paul calls all crimes the
works of the flesh.� �Now, the works of the flesh are manifest,
(says he, Gal. v. 19,) which are these: adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions,
rivalries, wrath, disputes, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders,
drunkenness, revellings, and such like.� He also describes the
conflict between the flesh and the spirit, or mind, in these terms:--
�For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good, for
to will is present with me, but to perform that which is good, I find
not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. For I delight in the
law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my
members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me
into captivity to the law of my sin in my members. O wretched
man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this death?�
(or this body of death.) And he goes on to observe, �That I, the
same man, with my mind serve the law of God, but with my flesh
the law of sin.�--Rom. vii. �For the flesh desireth against (or in
opposition to) the spirit, and the spirit against �the flesh, and these
are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things
that ye would.�
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