But, it may be asked, what is the meaning of the other clause of the verse—­what could Paul mean by the strong language, “We are members of his body? of his flesh, and of his bones?” Why, my reader, he meant, that Christians were really part of the body of Christ and if you desire to know How he imagined this union to be effected, I request you to see the 10th ch. of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, where at the 16th verse he thus writes to them:—­“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation of the blood of Christ?  The loaf (according to the Greek original) which we break, is it not a participation of the body of Christ? for, Because the loaf is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of that one loaf.”  Again, ch. xi. 19, “For he that eateth, and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not distinguishing (or discovering) the Lord’s body;” and in ch. xii. 27, he says to them, “Ye are the body of Christ, and his members severally.” (See the original of these passages in Griesbach’s Greek Testament.) Thus you see, reader, that Paul considered Christians “as members of his (Christ’s) body, of his flesh, and of his bones,” because they partook of one loaf, which was the body of Christ.  The Papists are in the right, and have been much slandered by the Protestants, for the doctrine of Transubstantiation, or at least the Real Presence, is as plainly taught in the New Testament, as the doctrine of the Atonement.  You have seen what Paul believed upon this subject, and I shall corroborate the sense I put upon his words, by the words of Jesus, his master, and by quotations from the earliest Fathers.

Jesus says, John vi.—­“I am the living bread which came down from Heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”  The Jews, therefore, contended among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus, therefore, said unto them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have not life in you.  He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is verily food, and my blood is verily drink.  He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.  As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, (here is an oath) so he likewise that eateth me shall live by me.”

This strange doctrine was the faith of the Primitive Christians, as is well known to the learned Protestants, though they do not like to say so to their “weaker brethren.”

Ignatius says, “There is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the unity of his blood;” and of certain heretics he says, “they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Justin Martyr, in his Apology, asserts that the consecrated bread “is, some how or other, the flesh of Christ.”