Nor is there any escape, that I can see, from the force of this argument of St. Paul, unless any one will try to evade it by saying: “Look back a moment, and see if the whole argument does not belong to the Jew, and not to the Christian.” Will any one take this line and appeal to the words immediately before the text? True, it is written, “Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” But if this be urged, I say, go back a little further still, and observe the flood of light thrown upon the whole passage, in connection not merely generally with Christianity, but especially and particularly with the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, in this true commemorative Sacrament, which is exactly where and how, we say, the Christian sacrifice is offered by the Christian priests upon the Christian altar. After exhortation against yielding to temptation, and declaration of the ever-ready help of God for those who will use it, “who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it,” the Apostle adds: “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.” (Oh, let us also be wise to hear and learn! “Judge ye what I say.”) “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” {58} And then all but immediately he adds, “are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” Can anything be clearer than that, to the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, he attaches the teaching which follows so directly as to the nature of the sacrifice and the altar? Ah! but, it is said, he interpolates words that you have omitted which alter the application:—“Behold Israel after the flesh;” he says, and then adds, “are not they which eat of the sacrifice partakers of the altar?” Well, and what do the parenthetical words mean? Surely they must mean merely this,—that, as his readers would allow such was the case under the law, and with Israel after the flesh; and that Israel, as well as the heathen, had an altar and a sacrifice, so it is also with Christians: as if he had said, We Christians, by this blessed sacramental bond, are one body, even as we are all partakers of that one Bread; and as you will all allow, the partaking of a common sacrifice (for instance, that of the Paschal Lamb,) signified this under the law and with “Israel after the flesh,” so you must be prepared to admit as much under the Gospel, and with the true Israel born anew of the Spirit. Thus the interpolation does not for one moment break the sequence or invalidate the force of the argument as to the Christian sacrifice, but merely illustrates it by a parenthetical