LECTURE CXIX.

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

THE opinions which have been entertained respecting this ordinance have been very different from each other, and this difference of opinion has occasioned a variety of controversies. And in consequence of these controversies, the conceptions of the bulk of Christians have become indistinct and obscure, and the appropriate benefits of the ordinance in a great measure prevented. It is with a strange mixture of pleasure and pain, that I review the opinions held by distinguished writers among the Catholics and even among the Protestants, relative to the Lord's Supper. Their writings contain a large amount of plain Scriptural truth. But how much do we find that is erroneous or unintelligible!

One of the chief sources of error and obscurity on this subject is the confounding of the literal with the tropical sense of the words used in the ordinance. By a very common figure of speech, the bread and wine are called the body and blood of Christ. And it is by a similar figure that the Apostle calls believers bread. 1 Cor. 10: 17, "We are one bread." The bread used in the sacrament is a symbol or representative of the body of Christ. And when Christians are called "one bread," bread, that is, the one loaf of bread, is a symbol of the union of believers as one body. The language in both cases is equally figurative. The elements used in the ordinance are, literally, bread and wine, not something else which has the appearance of bread and wine, but real bread and wine, and nothing else. These are

the signs or symbols. It is also true that the body and blood which are signified, are literally the body and blood of Christ, the very body which was crucified on Calvary by order of Pilate, and the very blood which was there shed for the remission of sin. The bread and wine, and the body and

blood of Christ, are all realities, not imaginations, or fictions. Their relation to each other is that of signs to the things signified. So when it was said of the rock in the wilderness, " that rock was Christ," a relation was asserted between the rock and Christ, and it was the relation of a sign to the thing signified. To suppose the language to be literally true, would be to suppose that the rock was so changed as to become really that living being, the Son of God, or that the Son of God was really changed into the substance of a rock. The declaration of the Apostle could not be literally true on any other supposition.

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I have referred to the case just mentioned for the purpose of showing what would be the consequence of giving a literal interpretation to the figurative language of Scripture. Who can count the errors which are to be traced to this source? But I shall limit my remarks to the ordinance of the Supper. If the words of Christ, "This is my body and this is my blood," should be taken literally, the popish doctrine of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass would follow of course. But the doctrine is palpably false and absurd. For Christ never had but one body, and that was the body which was offered up once for all," as the Scripture says, and which was raised from the dead, and which was carried up into heaven, where it is to remain till Christ's second coming. To say that the sacramental bread is the real and veritable body of Christ, is to say that his body is at the same time in heaven and on earth, and that it is at the same time in ten thousand different places on earth, which would imply that he has ten thousand bodies or that his one body, which has only the common dimensions of a human body, is enlarged so as to be in a sense omnipresent. Furthermore, to suppose that the sacramental bread and wine are really transmuted into Christ's body and blood, so that instead of eating real bread and drinking real wine, we do

really and literally eat his flesh and drink his blood, would be to suppose that we are cannibals, and not Christians.

The Romanists hold that, in the mass, Jesus Christ is really and truly immolated, or offered up as a sacrifice, for the sins of the world, and this doctrine follows of course from their manner of interpreting the language of Scripture. But the doctrine directly contradicts the teachings of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who takes special pains, ch. ix. and x., to show that Christ was distinguished from the former sacrifices, which were offered up often, in that he was offered up only once, and by that one offering wrought out a perfect redemption for his people.

Further, Christ was offered up as a sacrifice by crucifixion. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. This is the way in which he was immolated. Now if he is truly and literally sacrificed in the mass, in other words, if he is literally crucified, it is natural to ask, who crucifies him? The Catholics say, he is immolated by the priest. But does the priest really crucify him? Does he perpetrate the deed, which was perpetrated on Calvary "by wicked hands?" Those who immolated Christ were "murderers." Is the Catholic priest a murderer? If not, then are the Roman soldiers raised from the dead to do again what they did so long ago at Jerusalem? Or are other enemies present to accomplish the work of crucifixion? The Scriptures mention none who crucify Christ afresh, except the vilest apostates.

But there is still another difficulty. If Christ is truly and literally offered up as a sacrifice in the mass, and offered up in the only way, that is, by crucifixion; then every time the mass is repeated, he suffers anew the agonies of crucifixion. And he suffers those agonies at the same time in all the places where the mass is celebrated. And the more frequently it is repeated, the more frequently does he suffer and die. On this supposition, his crucifixion on Calvary was only the commencement of a series of sufferings to be endured by him in all ages. And as he is now immolated every week in so many thousand places, his sufferings every week are immeasurably greater than they were when he was crucified in only one place. Catholics ought to regard this as a

fearful subject, and to consider well what pains and agonies they cause the Saviour to endure at the mass, real pains and agonies,

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if his crucifixion is now repeated, unless indeed he can literally suffer the pains of crucifixion so frequently and in so many places, without being conscious of it.

I should not thus spend time to expose opinions which every man of sober judgment knows to be false, did I not wish to show what consequences flow from a manifest violation of the just principles of interpreting the word of God, and from perverting the faculties of the mind to the purposes of superstition.

Will you now, in the exercise of a sound mind, dismiss all these groundless fancies and monstrous absurdities, and see how plain, how simple and precious is the institution of the Lord's Supper?

First, notice the adaptedness of the bread and wine to the purposes to be answered by the rite. The body and blood signified by the bread and wine, were not mere human flesh and blood, nor even Christ's body and blood considered in a general, indefinite sense, but his body broken and his blood shed on the cross, as an atoning sacrifice. Now as bread and wine nourish and strengthen us corporeally, so Christ crucified, received by faith, imparts the blessings of salvation to our souls.

The ordinance is expressly designed to be commemorative. Whenever we eat the sacramental bread and drink the wine, we are to do it in remembrance of Christ, and to show his death. Such is the object of the institution, as set forth by Christ and the Apostle Paul. The Saviour, knowing how prone his disciples would be to forget him, appointed this sacred feast to be kept as a perpetual memorial of him.

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In this ordinance we are to remember the LORD JESUS CHRIST. We are to dwell in devout contemplation upon his attributes, his offices, his works, and his blessings. We are particularly to medi"the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." Of all the precious things in the universe, what is so precious as love? And where was pure love ever so gloriously displayed as in Christ? Take the best of men; and there may peradventure be some one of them, who would lay down his life for his friends. But Christ 40

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suffered and died for his enemies. Even divine love, which had from the beginning been constantly active in the bestowment of good through the wide creation, had never before accomplished a work like this. "Herein is love," said the disciple who had so often leaned on the bosom of Jesus; -" herein is love;" love in a new and peculiar manifestation; love submitting to the severest sufferings, even the untold agonies of crucifixion for the benefit of the ill-deserving ;-love bearing the tremendous burden of human guilt. The angels in heaven, who had long witnessed the operations of divine goodness, felt a new interest in this manifestation of love, and desired to look into it. At the sacramental Supper, this is to be a leading subject of contemplation with us. We are to remember the love of Christ. And what can be more consonant to the dictates of an enlightened mind and a pious heart, than to be conversant with such a subject to have communion in our souls with Christ crucified? Who can duly estimate this privilege? In the exercise of that faith which gives present reality to invisible, spiritual objects, we are to behold the Lamb of God; in devout contemplation we are to be present with the blessed Jesus in that chamber where he kept the Passover with his disciples and instituted this significant and commemorative rite; to listen to his last conversation with his apostles, and his earnest prayer for them and for all his people; then to follow him to the garden, where he was exceedingly sorrowful, and fell on his face, and repeatedly offered up such an agonizing but submissive prayer to his Father; then to witness his meeting with the traitor and his yielding himself to the band of soldiers, though he could have summoned legions of angels to his rescue, or could have confounded them in a moment by his own omnipotence; then to be with him while he stood before his persecutors and to behold his lamb-like meekness and gentleness, his fortitude and majesty; to accompany him as he carried his own cross to the place of execution, and to see what took place there from the sixth to the ninth hour; then to fix our eyes upon him as he was laid in the sepulchre of Joseph; and early on the first day of the week to follow the pious women in their visit to the place where the Lord lay, and to witness their