In 1732, he wrote a sermon on the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, for the use of his pupils, in which he shows the duty of all Christians to communicate as often as they can. He asserts that, with “the first Christians, the Christian sacrifice was a constant part of the Lord’s day service; and that, for several centuries, they received it almost daily; four days a week always, and every saint’s day beside.” He further asserts that the Church of England has taken “all possible care that the sacrament be duly administered, wherever the Common-Prayer is read, every Sunday and holiday in the year;” and that those who do not receive it, at least thrice in a year, are liable to excommunication.[101] In the same month (February) in which Wesley wrote his sermon, his mother addressed to him a letter from which we extract the following:— “The young gentleman you mention seems to me to be in the right concerning the real presence of Christ in the sacrament. I own, I never understood by the _real presence_ more than what he has elegantly expressed, that ‘the Divine nature of Christ is then eminently present, to impart, by the operation of His Spirit, the benefits of His death to worthy receivers,’ And surely, the Divine presence of our Lord, thus applying the virtue and merits of the great atonement to each true believer, makes the consecrated bread more than a sign of Christ’s body; since, by His so doing, we receive not only the sign, but with it the thing signified—all the benefits of His incarnation and passion. But still, however this Divine institution may seem to others, to me it is full of mystery.”[102] To this Wesley replied as follows:— “_February 28, 1732._ “One consideration is enough to make me assent to your judgment concerning the holy sacrament; which is, that we cannot allow Christ’s human nature to be present in it, without allowing either con- or trans-substantiation. But that His Divinity is so united to us then, as He never is but to worthy receivers, I firmly believe, though the manner of that union is utterly a mystery to me.”[103] Such was the sacramentarian theory of the high church Oxford Methodists in 1732. In the same letter, Wesley introduces another subject, showing that, after all, his earnest piety was not unmixed with morbidness. He continues:— “To all who give signs of their not being strangers to the mind of Christ, I propose this question,—and why not to you rather than any? shall I quite break off my pursuit of all learning but what immediately tends to practice? I once desired to make a fair show in language and philosophy; but it is past; there is a more excellent way; and, if I cannot attain to any progress in the one, without throwing up all thoughts of the other, why, fare it well! Yet a little while, and we shall all be equal in knowledge, if we are in virtue.”