As soon, therefore, as our Lord, acting as the master of the family--the disciples--had finished this, the usual Paschal ceremony, he proceeded to a new and distinct action. "He took bread, [the bread then on the table,] and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, [the cup with the wine which had been used in the Paschal Supper,] saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." Or, as St. Matthew expresses it, "And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." "This is my body"--that is, bread represents my body, according to the style of the sacred writers--thus, Genesis xi, 12, "The three branches are three days;" Galatians iv, 24, St. Paul, speaking of Sarah and Hagar, says, "These are the two covenants;" thus, in the grand type of our Lord, Exodus xii, 11, God says of the Paschal lamb, "It is the Lord's passover." Thus our Lord, in substituting the holy communion for the Passover, uses the same expressions the Jews were accustomed to use in celebrating the Passover. Mr. Watson--Institutes, Part IV, volume ii, page 661--says: "That this was the institution of a standing rite, and not a temporary action to be confined to the disciples then present with him, is made certain from 1 Corinthians xi, 23-26: 'For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread: and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.' From these words we learn, 1. That St. Paul had a special revelation as to this ordinance, which must have had a higher object than the mere commemoration of an historical fact, and must be supposed to have been made for the purpose of enjoining it upon him to establish this rite in the Churches raised up by him, and of enabling him rightly to understand its authority and purport, where he found it already appointed by the first founders of the Churches. 2. That the command of Christ, 'This do in remembrance of me,' which was originally given to the disciples present with Christ at the last Passover, is laid by St. Paul upon the Corinthians. 3. That he regarded the Lord's Supper as a rite to be '_often_' celebrated, and that in all future time, until the Lord himself should 'come' to judge the world. The perpetual obligation of this ordinance can not, therefore, be reasonably disputed."