sential principle. But in the work of Bishop Hoadley, it was the opinion certainly of many among the most distinguished and approved members of our church, that the spirit and intent of this sacred ordinance were compromised by the view in which he placed it; and that the very doctrines which gave it its chief force and signification were studiously cast into the shade. It was also but too evident, that this work would soon become a standard of doctrine upon the Sacrament among a considerable party in the Church. All who had any bias towards Socinianism or Arianism, all who were indisposed to receive the doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice and expiation for guilt, all who were sceptical as to the gifts and operations of the Holy Spirit, and their necessity in the work of salvation; would readily fall in with a scheme, which did not depend upon the truth of any of these articles of faith for its support; but might be adapted to a Creed, in which neither the Divinity of the Saviour, nor his all-sufficient merits, nor his mediation and intercession, nor the influence of the Spirit of grace, formed any of its component parts. This laxity of sentiment appeared to have been gaining ground, for a considerable time, both among Clergy and laity. It had been much fostered by the labours of those who took part with Dr. Clarke in his endeavours to lower the doctrine of the Church of England to the standard of his own opinions; and who upheld Bishop Hoadley in the Bangorian controversy. The authority of two persons so distinguished could not but give currency to their tenets among many who had neither leisure nor ability

to investigate such subjects, nor were disposed to yield that deference to the collective judgment of the Church, which they paid implicitly to individual opinion.

These considerations gave additional importance to Hoadley's treatise on the Sacrament: and the solicitude it awakened was proportionate to the impression it was thus calculated to make upon the public mind, rather than to any extraordinary pretensions of the work itself. It was controverted by a host of eminent writers; among whom were Warren, Wheatly, Whiston, Ridley, Leslie, Law, Brett, Johnson, and Stebbing; besides others of less notoriety. The strength on Hoadley's side was far inferior.

Dr. Waterland's exertions were not therefore wanted to counteract the effect of this work. Nor did he come forward as the controversialist of Hoadley. It appears, from his correspondence with Dr. Grey and Mr. Loveday, that he had been expected, and perhaps pressed, so to do: but as far as any immediate consequences were to be apprehended from this attempt to depreciate the Sacrament, he was well satisfied with the answers and animadversions which it had called forth; particularly with those of Dr. Warren, Dr. Stebbing, and Mr. Wheatly, which he notices in strong terms of commendation. His own opinion of the work is briefly, but impressively stated in one of his letters above-mentioned, where he describes it as Socinianizing the doctrine of the Sacrament, by divesting it of its reference either to the Divinity of our Lord, or to his suffering as a propitiatory sacrifice. In this, he conceived, lay the main

objection to it. That the Eucharist was a memorial only, might not have been so exceptionable, although certainly an incomplete representation of it, had the author distinctly set forth, of what it was intended to be a memorial. Was it merely to preserve the recollection of a teacher or prophet sent from God, a friend and benefactor to the human race by the lustre of his example and the purity of his precepts? or was it, to confirm the faith of his disciples, throughout all generations, by impressing upon their minds the great truths, that he was indeed the Saviour of the world; that in Him were united the perfections both of Divine and of human nature; and that, in that mysterious union, he effected, by his sacrifice on the cross, the redemption of mankind? Every one must see how vast a difference the memorial itself exhibits, in point of dignity and value, according to the view we take of it, in the one aspect or in the other. In the latter case, it comprises the sum and substance of Christianity: in the former, it is comparatively a meagre and spiritless service. But, upon this question, Bishop Hoadley seems to have been studiously silent; or, rather, by the omission of the points most essential to its main object and design, he has given a manifest advantage to those who would fain obliterate from their Creed, and consequently from the Sacrament itself, these prominent and distinguishing characteristics of the Christian system.

In a Charge, on the doctrinal use of the sacraments, delivered in June 1736, Dr. Waterland took a compendious view of their importance in this respect. By historical evidence, and by illustrations

selected from ecclesiastical writers of various periods, he shewed how much these ordinances had contributed to the preservation of the fundamental articles of our faith; the reception of the sacraments, according to their full intent and meaning, necessarily implying the reception of those doctrines so immediately connected with them. The charge does not expressly advert to Bishop Hoadley's performance; but it is hardly possible to doubt, that the plan of it was suggested by observing the striking defects of that treatise, with reference to this great and leading principle.

But the subject of the sacraments, and that of the Eucharist in particular, appear to have occupied Waterland's mind long before this occasion was given of communicating his thoughts to the public.

Two

Dr.Zachary Pearce, who so ably vindicated Dr. Waterland against the attacks of Conyers Middleton, on his Scripture vindicated, in 1731 and 1732, had, in the preceding year, amicably disputed with Waterland himself on certain points relating to the Eucharist, in consequence of some observations which had fallen from him in his controversy with Dr. Sykes. letters on the subject appear, among Bishop Pearce's other posthumous works, subjoined to his Commentary on the New Testament. They relate chiefly to the view which Waterland had taken of the sacraments as federal rites. Dr. Pearce contended, that the Sacrament was not in itself a federal act, communicative of the benefits of his death, but only commemorative and representative of those benefits. He further objected to the Eucharist being considered as substituted for the passover; nor did he think there was

sufficient proof that the passover was a sacrifice, or that sacrifices themselves were federal rites. His general persuasion was, that the Eucharist was nothing more than "a feast instituted as a memorial "of Christ's death; the bread and wine to be re❝ceived in remembrance of Him, not in renewal of "the covenant made by Him." He combated also another argument grounded upon St. Paul's representing the Eucharist to be an act of communion between God and the receiver, analogous to that of the Israelites at their altars, and that of the heathens in their idolatrous offerings, 1 Cor. x. 16-21; conceiving, that St. Paul refers only to the communicants themselves, jointly participating in the ordinance, and not to the communication of spiritual blessings from God. Nor does he admit that the Eucharist can be proved from Scripture to be a conveyance or channel of pardon, an instrument of absolution. The remission of sins, he contends, is the effect of Christ's blood shed for us, not the effect of our commemorating that, by drinking of the cup in the Eucharist.

It will immediately be perceived, that although these opinions (which were advanced by this learned and estimable Prelate with the candour and modesty conspicuous in all his writings) were much at variance with some of the highest authorities in our church, as Mede, Cudworth, Barrow, and others; yet do they distinctly recognize those fundamental articles of the Christian faith, which, to all who admit them, must be deemed inseparably connected with the Sacrament itself. The covenant between God and man ratified by the blood of Christ, and the

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