Lyra Apostolica.

Γνοῖεν δ', ὡς δὴ δηρὸν ἐγὼ πολέμοιο πέπαυμαι.

No. III.

(1.) THE NEW JERUSALEM.

E Breviario Parisiensi, in Festo Dedicationis.

"And I saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband."-Rev. xxi. 2.

THE Holy Jerusalem

From highest heaven descending,

And crown'd with a diadem
Of angel bands attending-
The Living City built on high,

Bright with celestial jewelry!

She comes the Bride, from heav'n gate,
In nuptial new Adorning,

To meet the Immaculate,

Like coming of the morning.

Her streets of purest gold are made,

Her walls a diamond palisade.

There with pearls the gates are dight

Upon that Holy Mountain;

And thither come, both day and night,
Who in the Living Fountain

Have washed their robes from earthly stain,

And borne below Christ's lowly chain.

By the hand of the Unknown

The Living Stones are moulded
To a glorious Shrine, ALL ONE,
Full soon to be unfolded:

The building wherein God doth dwell,
The Holy Church Invisible.

Glory be to God, who layed
In heaven the foundation;

And to the Spirit who hath made
The walls of our salvation;

To Christ himself the Corner stone
Be glory! to the Three in One.

(2.) THE THREE ABSOLUTIONS.*

"And there shall in nowise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.”Rev. xxi. 27.

EACH morn and eve, the Golden Keys

Are lifted in the sacred hand,

To shew the sinner on his knees

Where heaven's bright doors wide open stand.

1. In the Daily Service. 2. In the Communion. 3. in the Visitation of the

Sick.

On the dread altar duly laid

The Golden Keys their witness bear,
That not in vain the Church hath pray'd
That He, the Life of Souls, is there.

Full of the past, all shuddering thought,
Man waits his hour with upward eye
The Golden Keys in love are brought
That he may hold by them and die.

But touch them trembling; for that gold
Proves iron in the unworthy hand,
To close, not ope, the favour'd fold,

To bind, not loose, the lost soul's band.

(3.)

"And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take of the waters of life freely."Rev. xxii. 17.

O LORD, I hear, but can it be

The gracious word was meant for me?

O Lord, I thirst, but who shall tell
The secret of that living well,

By whose waters I may rest
And slake this lip unblest?

O Lord, I will, but cannot do,
My heart is hard, my faith untrue :
The Spirit and the Bride say, Come,
The eternal ever-blessed home

Ope'd its portals at my birth,
But I am chained to earth:

The Golden Keys each eve and morn
I see them with a heart forlorn

Lest they should Iron prove to me→
O set my heart at liberty.

May I seize what thou dost give,
Tremblingly seize and live.

(4.)

"He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly."-Rev, xxii. 20.

FEAR NOT: for He hath sworn:
Faithful and true his name:

The glorious hours are onward borne;

"Tis lit, th'immortal flame;

It glows around thee; kneel, and strive, and win
Daily one living ray-'twill brighter glow within.

* See Death-Bed Scenes, vol. i.: account of Mrs. Barton.

YET FEAR: the time is brief;
The Holy One is near;

And like a spent and withered leaf

In autumn twilight drear,

Faster each hour, on Time's unslackening gale,
The dreaming world drives on, to where all vision fail.

Surely the time is short:

Endless the task and art

To brighten for the æthereal court

A soil'd earth-drudging heart.

But He, the dread Proclaimer of that hour,
Is pledged to thee in Love, as to thy foes in Power.

His shoulders bear the Key:
He opens-who can close?
Closes-and who dare open ?-He

Thy soul's misgiving knows.

If He come quick, the mightier sure will prove
His Spirit in each heart that timely strives to love.

Then haste thee, Lord! Come down,
Take thy great Power, and reign!
But frame thee first a perfect Crown

Of spirits freed from stain,

Souls mortal once, now match'd for evermore
With the immortal gems that form'd thy wreath before.

Who in thy portal wait,

Free of that glorious throng,

Wondering, review their trial-state,

The life that erst seem'd long;

Wondering at His deep love, who purg'd so base
And earthly mould so soon for th'undefiled place.

ΑΜΗΝ' ΝΑΙ ΕΡΧΟΥ, ΚΥΡΙΕ ΙΗΣΟΥ.

Rev. xxii. 20.

CORRESPONDENCE.

The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions
of his Correspondents.

TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.

MR. EDITOR,-In my former letter I accompanied the Irish Gentleman in his travels through the Apostolic age. I shall now proceed to consider the discoveries which he has made in the second century of Christianity. He found a real corporal presence in the epistles of Ignatius, but he finds actual transubstantiation in the following passage extracted from the first Apology of Justin Martyr:

"Nor do we take these gifts (in the Eucharist) as common bread and common drink; but as Jesus Christ, our Saviour, made man by VOL. IV.-August, 1833.

X

the word of God, took flesh and blood for our salvation, so in the same manner we have been taught that the food which has been blessed by prayer, and by which our blood and flesh, in the change, are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus Incarnate." Here, says our inquirer, is a belief in the change of the elements in actual transubstantiation; and this on the part of a Saint so illustrious as St. Justin! The Benedictine editors have discussed the passage at considerable length in their Preliminary Dissertations, and have stated their reasons for concluding from it that Justin recognised the doctrine of transubstantiation. Our inquirer assigns no reason, but he prints certain words in italics, on which he appears to rely for the proof of his assertion. Justin says that the Christians did not take the bread and wine in the eucharist as common bread and common drink; certainly not: they took them as consecrated bread and consecrated drink. The President of the Assembly had pronounced a thanksgiving over them. Is our traveller ignorant that the word koòv is used to express that which is profane or secular, in opposition to äytov, that which is sacred, dedicated to the purposes of religion? or, does he calculate upon the ignorance of his readers, and hope, by the use of italics, to persuade them that Justin intended to refer to a change, not in the character, but in the substance of the bread and wine? We must choose between these alternatives.

But what are we to say to the words, by the change? (kaTÀ μETAßoλÙY in the Greek.) Do they not imply an actual change in the elements? Let us consider the context, as given in our inquirer's translation:"The food which has been blessed by prayer, and by which our blood and flesh, in the change, are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus Incarnate." In what change? In the change into the actual flesh and blood of Christ, will be the reply. But was this change necessary in order to render the bread and wine fit nourishment for our flesh and blood?

We may sometimes judge of the correctness of an interpretation by the consequences to which it leads. Let us apply this test to the passage in question, and inquire what will be the result, if we understand by the words karà μɛraßoλny, a change in the elements. We shall then make Justin say, that as Christ, our Saviour, being the Divine Móyos, took flesh and blood for our salvation, so we are taught that the food which has been blessed by prayer, and by which our flesh and blood are nourished is, by transubstantiation, the flesh and blood of that Jesus Incarnate. Did Justin here intend to compare the manner in which the Divine Móyog was made flesh and blood, with the manner in which the bread and wine, in the eucharist, are made, according to the doctrine of transubstantiation, the flesh and blood of Christ? If so, must we not infer that in the Incarnation the godhead was converted into flesh ?* So sensible was Bellarmine of the inconvenient consequences which must flow from interpreting Kaτà μɛTаßoλǹν, of a change in the elements, that he referred Justin's

⚫ See Grabe's Note on the passage in Justin.

remark respecting the nourishment of our flesh and blood to the bread and wine before the prayer of consecration was pronounced.

My own opinion is, that the words karà μɛraßoλǹv refer to the process by which the bread and wine are converted into nutriment for the human body;* and that Justin's comparison means no more than that, as Christians believe Christ to have taken flesh and blood, so they believe the food in the eucharist to be his flesh and blood,—a Roman Catholic will say, in substance; I think, symbolically; inasmuch as Justin affirms that our flesh and blood are nourished by this food. The passage is obscure; as the Roman Catholics find in it the doctrine of transubstantiation, so the Lutherans find in it that of consubstantiation, and, in my opinion, with greater show of reason. But what is the course which a fair and honest inquirer pursues when he meets with obscure passages in the perusal of the fathers? Does he produce them as decisive of the author's opinions on controverted points of doctrine? Does he not rather ascertain whether the writer in others parts of his works has not expressed himself in terms which contain no ambiguity; and then, by comparing that which is obscure with that which is clear, extract a consistent meaning? This, however, is not the course pursued by our Traveller. He finds a passage-such, for instance, as that of Justin now under discussion--and, fastening upon a single expression, exclaims, "Here is proof that Justin believed in a change of the elements in the eucharist-in actual transubstantiation." He takes no notice of other passages, in which Justin says, that Christ enjoined us to eat the bread in remembrance of his having taken upon him our body, and to drink the cup in remembrance of his blood-and that Christians commemorate the passion of Christ in the memorial of their dry and liquid food. This is the fallacy which pervades all our Traveller's reasonings; the artful device by which he constrains all the fathers to speak the language of the Romish church. He carefully culls from their writings passages which appear to lend support to his own opinion, as carefully suppressing any passage of an opposite tendency; and then passes off this partial selection as a fair and impartial representation of all that the fathers have said on the particular subject which he is discussing.

Thus he quotes two passages from Irenæus as conclusive evidence of that father's belief in a real corporal presence; leaving his readers to suppose either that these passages contain all that Irenæus has said on the subject, or, that if other passages occur, they convey precisely the same meaning. The first passage, according to our Traveller's interpretation, stands thus, "How can these heretics (those who denied that Christ was the Son of God) prove that the bread over which the words of thanksgiving have been pronounced is the body of their head, and the cup his blood, while they do not admit that he is the Son, that is, the Word of the Creator of the world?" Here,

Or, as Mr. Chevalier, in his recent Translation of the Epistles of Clement, &c., has well rendered the passage, "by the conversion of which (into our bodily substance), our blood and flesh are nourished."