With these Scriptural statements we may com pare the account which Justin Martyr gives of the manncr in which the Lord's Supper was celebrated in the earlier part of the 2d century. In his first Apology lie says, After we have concluded the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. After this, bread and a cup of wine and water are brought to the president, who having taken them, offers with a loud voice praise and glory to the Father of all, through the name of his Son and Holy Spirit, and offers thanksgiving for the gifts received from him. When this praycr and thanks giving are ended, all the people express their assent by saying Amen. Those who are called deacons distribute this bread and wine, which is Eucharistic, to those who are present, and carry it away to those who are absent. Of this Eucharistic food none are allowed to partake who do not be lieve our teaching to be true, and have not been washed with the laver for the remission of sins, and do not live as Christ has commanded us. For we do not receive it as common bread and common drink ; but in what manner Jesus Christ, our Saviour, became incarnate by the vvord of God, and had flesh and blood for our salvation, in that manner also we have been taught that the Eucha ristic food, through the prayer of the Word by which our flesh and blood are nourished according to a transmutation, is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus. For the apostles, in the men-ro rials composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered, that Jesus, having taken bread and given thanks, said, Do this for the remembrance of me. And in the same manner having taken the cup and given thanks, said, This is my blood, and distributed it to them only.' In another passage of the same Apo logy, Justin says :—` On the day called Sunday, all who live in the same city or country as semble in one place, where the memorials of the apostles or writings of the prophets are read, and when the reader has finished the presi dent makes a discourse, in which he admonishes and exhorts to the practice of all good things, at the conclusion of which all rise and pray, and the bread and wine and water are brought, and the president solemnly offers prayers and thanksgivings, and the people respond Amen. Then distribution is made to every one of that over which thanks have been offered, and it is sent to the absent by the deacons. And the rich contribute according as they are willing, and whatever is collected is in trusted to the president, and from it he relieves the widows and orphans, and those who suffer from sickness or other causes, as well as those who are in bonds, and stmngers, and, indeed, all who are in need of assistance.' We have now briefly to notice the several parti culars which are mentioned in these different accounts, as, unhappily, almost every one of them has given rise to some dissension and controversy which it is our purpose to indicate rather than to determine. [PAssovER, vol. iii. p. 425.) As they were eating ' the passover, yesus took bread.' That bread was undoubtedly unleavened, for no other could have been obtained at the pass over. From this circumstance has arisen a long and apparently fruitless controversy, tiprop.axict, the bread-fight, whether the bread used at the Sacra ment ought to be leavened or unleavened? The only Scriptural argument that can be adduced on the one side is, Christ made use of unleavened bread ;' and on the other, He could not have ob tained leavened bread even if he preferred it.' Furnished with such a store of argument, which, though small, seems—like the widow's cruise of oil— inexhaustible, the Latin church and the Greek, the Lutherans and the Calvinists, have taken opposite sides, and continued a controversy of nine hundred years' standing.
Having blessed,' says Mark. Haying- given thanks,' say Luke and Paul. In Matthew the reading is doubtful. That the same act is denoted by the having blessed ' (dXo-pjaas) of Marls:, and the having given thanks ' (ciixapetrilcas) of Luke and Paul, there can be no reasonable doubt. In Mark's account of the miracle of the loaves and fishes the same words are used, but in reversed order. Jesus gave thanks ' (eirxaptcrrivras.) on
breaking the seven loaves, and 'blessed' (aiNorjo-as) on distributing the small fishes (Mark viii. 6, 7). 'fere surely the same act is denoted by the thanks giving and the blessing. This particular would be scarcely worthy of notice were it not for the frequency with which we hear of Jesus blessing the bread. But Jesus blessed God, not the bread ; that is, gave thanks to God for it. To bless WM:rye/0 has for its object persons, not things. To bless may de note to wish well to a person, as when we bless them that curse us ; or to give a blessing to a per son, as when God blesses a rnan ; or to ascribe thanks and praise to a person, as when we bless the Lord. The cup which we bless, is a Scriptural phrase ; but, explained by other passages, it must denote the cup for which we bless God. The sacra mental elements were no more blessed or conse crated than were the loaves and fishes with which Jesus fed the multitude in the desert. The blessing for, not of, the bread of the passover, according to the Rabbinical writers, was, Blessed be thou, 0 Lord God, who hast commanded us concerning the eat ing of the unleavened bread.' In accordance with this mode of blessing is the statement of Justin Martyr, who says, that before the distribution of the bread, the president offered praise and thanks giving, and the people responded Amen. He makes no reference to any other blessing or conse cration of the elements.
Jesus brake the bread.' The breaking of the bread is distinctly mentioned in every one of the Scriptural accounts, and was so general in the apostolic times as to suggest one of the names by which the Lord's Supper was commonly designated, the breaking of bread' (Acts ii. 42 ; xx. 7). The apostle seems to have attributed some import ance to the practice when he said, The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ?' a question vvhich can scarcely be asked by those who observe the Lord's Supper without breaking the bread. Although the practice is not mentioned by Justin, yet the fractus panis of fret-locus and the Latin fathers, shews that it was preserved in the Western churches for some three or four centuries. By the use of consecrated wafers, placed upon the tongue of the communicant, in the Romish church, and by similar expedients employed in other churches, the broken bread as a symbol of the broken body of our Lord has been long for gottep in almost all the churches of Christendom. Although in the Lutheran church the consecrated bread is put into the mouths of the communicants, the ancient practice has been restored in the Church of England, and generally in the Reformed Churches of Europe. The bread is usually broken by the officiating minister ; but in some churches the com municants severally break from the bread small portions for themselves.
` And gave it to them.' This is said by each of the three Evangelists. When the communicants became numerous, as in the time of Justin, those called deacons distributed the eucharistic bread and wine, and then they carried it to the absent.' It was not the ancient custom for the communicants to approach the table and receive the elements from the officiating minister.
According to Matthew, Jesus said, Take, eat, this is my body ;' according to Mark, Take, this is my body' is wanting in the best MSS.) ; according to Luke, This is nzy body which is given ftr you ;' according to St. Paul, This is my body which is broken' (or given ; a various reading) 'for you : this do for the remembrance of me.' lt is evident that the exact sayings of our Lord are not preserved ; though as the words This is my body,' to which words so awfully rnysterious a power is attributed by the advocates of transubstantiation, are contained in every one of the Scriptural ac counts, we may conclude that they were certainly spoken by our Lord. This meaning has been the subject of many angry and apparently interminable controversies.