when he says, "I am
the _true vine_" John xv. 1; or "The field is the world," "The seed is
the word," &c., he evidently is speaking figuratively and communicating
important moral truth, by images drawn from physical nature, as is
naturally done by nearly all writers and speakers of all ages and in
all languages.

(_b_) The blessed Saviour himself exhorts us, "Do this in remembrance of
me;" but we can remember only that which is past and absent. Hence when
he admonishes us to do this in remembrance of him, he teaches us, that
he is not personally or bodily present at the eucharistic celebration.

(_c_) Paul also represents the design of this ordinance to be, "To show
or publish the _Lord's death_," until he comes. But the Lord's death
upon the cross occurred about eighteen hundred and twenty years ago.
Therefore, according to Paul, the object of the holy supper is to
commemorate a _past event_, and not a present person.

(_d_) The doctrine of the real presence of the true body and blood of
Christ, contradicts the clear and indisputable testimony of our senses,
for as the body and blood are to be received by the mouth of the
communicant, they must be circumscribed by space, and the reception must
be a local and material one, which if it did occur at sacramental
occasions, could be observed by the senses.

(_e_) It contradicts the observation of all nations and all ages, that
every body or material substance must occupy a definite portion of
space, and cannot be at more than one place at the same time.

For these and other reasons the great mass of our ministers and
churches, connected with the General Synod, reject this doctrine, as
inconsistent with the word of God. The disposition to reject this error,
or at least to leave the mode of the Saviour's presence undecided, was
manifested by Melancthon himself, as is evident from his having stricken
out the words which teach it from the Augsburg Confession, and from his
having inserted others in their stead of a general nature, leaving room
for different opinions on this question. The same disposition prevailed
extensively in Germany in the latter third of the sixteenth century.
But during the first quarter of the present century, the conviction that
the Reformers did not purge away the whole of the Romish error from this
doctrine, gained ground universally until the great mass of the whole
Lutheran Church, before the year 1817, had rejected the doctrine of the
real pre