Again, as to the sixth chapter.  A spiritual man knows that he feeds continually on the body and blood of Christ, it is the “Bread which came down from heaven” for him.  The Lord said, “He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me” (John 6:57).  They know how they received spiritual life, and also how it is continually maintained; therefore they could not allow themselves to be carried away with such a palpable fiction as transubstantiation, or any other doctrine kindred to it.  The sixth chapter does not refer to the Lord’s supper, but the Lord’s Supper refers to the reality which is mentioned in it.

Lastly, as to the twentieth chapter of St. John, on the authority of which it is supposed and asserted that Christ left power with His Church and priests to forgive sins.  Of this we may say, He has not delegated any such powers at all.  When He gave commissions to His disciples (not exclusively to the apostles), He said, “Lo, I am with you.”  Our power is not imparted to us from Him, but is in Him.  We have no power at all, but in Him, and no grace but ’that which is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 2:1).  It is His presence, His real, promised presence by the Holy Ghost, which is spiritual power; and this is given directly to individuals by God Himself, and is not transmitted through other channels.

The Lord Jesus, on His resurrection day, said to His disciples, in the upper room—­and, be it remembered, that all the eleven were not there (and some women may have been)—­“Peace be unto you.  Receive ye the Holy Ghost:  Whose soever sins ye remit, ’they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20:23).

Is it possible or reasonable to suppose that our Lord intended by these words to constitute all that assembly absolving priests?  The apostles and early Christians (both men and women) never thought so, either before or even after the day of Pentecost, when they were taught and led by the Holy Ghost.  The apostles did not exercise any so-called priestly functions; they all preached the Gospel, and as ministers and witnesses, declared, through Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins.  Their testimony was then, as such testimony will ever be, the savour of life or the savour of death.  It was thus they remitted and retained sins; and yet not they, but God by them.

While I was thus ruminating, a book came into my hands which interested me greatly.  This I read and re-read, and made an abstract of it.  It was the “Life of Adelaide Newton.”  What struck me in it so much was, to find that this lady was able to hold spiritual communion with God by means of a Bible only.  Is it possible, I thought, to have such close communion with God, apart from the Church and her ministrations?  I do not hesitate to say that this was the means, under God, of stripping off some remains of my grave-clothes, and enabling me to walk in spiritual liberty, instead of legal and sacramental bond age.