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SECTION XIV.

The Claufe in the Lord's Prayer, "Give "us this Day our daily Bread," has a Reference to the Eucharift; and the Claufe, "Forgive us our Trespasses, as "we forgive them that trefpafs against

us," a fimilar Reference; both together include the two great Benefits annexed to the Sacrament, GRACE, AND THE REMISSION OF SINS.

THE

HE depreciators of the Eucharift have maintained that the prayers, hymns, and thanksgivings contained in our Communion Service have no real connection with the Sacrament; which, according to them, confifts merely of eating the bread, and drinking the wine, in commemoration of our Lord's death and paffion. I hope to make it appear, that our Lord himself appointed a prayer which, though it might be properly used on other occa

But

fions, was particularly intended by him for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. If I can prove this point, I think, I shall alfo prove, that our Saviour himself has evidently fhewn the nature of the benefits which are annexed to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

The Greek epithet* to Bread in the Lord's Prayer, tranflated "daily," is a word peculiar to the Evangelifts; and never found, as Origen obferves, either in Greek authors, or in colloquial language. The meaning of it is not yet fixed to the entire fatisfaction of men who are best able to judge of points like thefe; but, whatever may be its meaning, it most undoubtedly does not fignify "daily." An old tranflator, not knowing how to render it, inferted at a venture the epithet, daily; and fubfequent tranflators, equally ignorant, continued to use the fame word, under the fanction of the first mistake: our Bible and Liturgy retained the error, for the fame reafon, and the prayer is

* Επιούσιος.

repeated

repeated by millions in a fenfe, perhaps, never intended by the Divine Author. Some of the antients, and particularly Jerom, tranflated the epithet, " fuperfubftantial*, and fupereffential," instead of daily," and it ftands to this day, fo tranflated, in the Vulgate Bible.

"

περιουσίας

Jerom, commenting on the eleventh verfe of the fixth chapter of St. Matthew, in which is contained the petition for bread, fays, "I have confulted the He-brew, and wherever the Septuagint have: ufed piovios I find D, which Sym-machus has rendered αiptov, that is, felect, or fingularly excellent; therefore, wherever we pray God to give us this fingular and excellent bread, (he feems to think περιουσιος fynonimous with επιουσιος,) which we do when we pray for Artos Epioufios, (tranflated daily bread,) wer pray for that Bread which he declares himself to be, when he fays in St. John,. "I AM THE LIVING BREAD, WHICH CAME> "DOWN FROM HEAVEN."

Qui fuper omnes fubftantias eft et univerfas

fuperat creaturas.

MARTINII Lexicon.
Athanafius

Athanafius fays, in his Treatife on the Incarnation, the Holy Ghoft elsewhere calls it the Heavenly Bread, faying, "Give us this day our daily Bread (Epioufion); for he has taught us in this prayer to ask in the prefent life for the Epioufion Bread; that is, for the future Bread, the Bread of Heaven, the first-fruits or foretaste of which we have in the prefent life, by partaking of the flesh of our Lord..

Bishop Pearce, remarking on thefepaffages, fays, "This fenfe given to the word Epioufios by Athanafius and Jerom feems to be the more probable, because no other part of this prayer has any relation to a bodily want; and this sense of the word comes moft naturally after the other petitions."

Ambrofius, in the fifth Book of his Treatise on Sacrifices, fays, "The Bread spoken of in the Lord's Prayer is the fuperfubftantial Bread; not that bread which paffes into the body, but the Bread of Eternal Life, which fupports the existence of our fouls, and is therefore called in the Greek, EPIOUSIOS. In another Treatise,

Treatife, (that on Faith *,) he says, it is called Epioufios, or fuperfubftantial, because it supplies an emanation of divine influence on our fouls and bodies.

Damafcenus fays †, that the body of Chrift, which is received in the Sacrament, enters (sy Ouria,) into the very nature and effence of our fouls. It is therefore Epioufios.

Cyril of Alexandria fays, "that by (Artos Epioufios) "daily bread," is to be understood CHRIST, the Spiritual Bread; because we are commanded to pray for nothing carnal, but for every thing divine and spiritual.

ΩΝ

Germanus fays, as quoted by Suicerus, "The Bread, Bread, called in the Lord's Prayer Epioufios, is Chrift, (o ÎN KAI ΠΡΟΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΜΕΝΩΝ ΕΙΣ ΑΙΩΝΑΣ,) who is existence itfelf; who existed before the world, and will exift for ever. Theophylact fays, " (ΤΟ ΣΩΜΑ ΤΟΥ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ ΑΡΤΟΣ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΕΠΙΟΥΣΙΟΣ) The

Ambrof. de Fide, lib. 37.

† In Epiftola ad Zachariam Epifcopum.

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