they could regard it in no other light than as a savage ordinance, too horrible to think of: and of a spiritual or mystical import their minds could form no conception ; since nothing that they had ever heard of could at all lead them to such a thought. Hence it is not surprising that they should be stumbled at what they were so utterly unable to comprehend. If so learned and excellent a man as Nicodemus was confounded at the mention of a new birth, we cannot wonder that Disciples of a more uneducated class should be offended at an image so gross, and remote from common apprehension, as that of eating human flesh, and drinking human blood.]
2. The sublimity of the sentiments contained in it — ■
[They saw that some deep mystery was contained in this image, though they were unable to unravel it. The food of which Jesus spake was not to nourish life, but to give it ; and not to the body, but to the soul ; and not of one people only, but of the whole world ; and not for a few years, but for ever and ever. What could all this mean ? The manna had never restored so much as one dead man to life ; nor had it kept even Moses himself from dying : yet the flesh and blood of Christ were to do this, and infinitely more, for all who would partake of it, even to the very end of time. " What shall we say to such assertions as these? How can they be credited? How can any man listen to them for a moment?" Yes : such, I say, might well be the murmurings of those who understood not his sayings.]
3. The meanness of him who promulgated these sentiments —
[Had he been a mighty monarch, who, like the kings of the earth, had the command of life and death, his hearers might have annexed some idea to his words. But they were uttered by a poor man, who " had not for himself so much as a place where to lay his head," and was attended only by a few poor fishermen. What could such a person mean, by asserting things which would appear extravagant beyond all endurance, if uttered by the greatest monarch upon earth ? Doubtless the unsuitableness of his pretensions to his present appearance must have tended exceedingly to increase the dif- ficulty of apprehending the just import of his words.]
4. The contrariety of the sentiments to all the notions they had ever imbibed —
[In addition to all the difficulties arising from the figures that were used, an insurmountable objection to the reception of them arose from the sentiments which they seemed intended to convey. If they had any meaning at all, it must be, that,