As bread

not perish, but have everlasting life." and wine, though in themselves most nutritious food, will not nourish us, unless we eat the one and drink the other; so the expiatory sufferings and death of the incarnate Son of God, though of themselves adequate to the salvation of the greatest sinner, will not save us unless we believe.

But we have not yet exhausted the spiritual meaning of the emblems in the Lord's Supper. Had it been our Lord's object merely to embody, in an emblematical institution, the principles, "that the onlybegotten of God in human nature suffered and died in the room of sinners, to procure their salvation; and that faith in these truths is at once absolutely necessary, and completely sufficient to secure to the sinner an interest in this salvation;" it is probable that the sacred rite would have been of such a nature as admitted of performance by a single individual. But this is not the case with the Lord's Supper. It is a social institution, and Christians must "come together to eat the Lord's Supper." Without any explicit revelation on the subject, knowing, as we do, from other passages of Scripture, that a very intimate relation does subsist among all the true followers of Jesus Christ, we might perhaps have warrantably concluded, that this mystical feast was intended emblematically to represent their holy fellowship. But it is our wish to say nothing in reference to the meaning of this ordinance, but what we are distinctly taught in Scripture. Indeed, there is no necessity to have recourse to inference. The passage already quoted from the apostle Paul is most explicit. In partaking of the cup of blessing, there is a communion, or mutual participation of the blood of Christ; in partaking of the broken bread, there is a communion, or mutual participation of the body of Christ; and the consequence of this mutual participation is, that the partakers are all one body and one bread. The reality and the nature of that intimate relation which subsists among all Christ's genuine followers, is there strikingly exhibited. They are a holy society, bound

together by their common faith in the grand leading truths of Christianity, embodied in this emblematical institution, and, by their common love to that Saviour who is in it, "evidently set forth crucified and slain."

It is deeply to be regretted, that this part of the meaning of the Lord's Supper has been so much overlooked and forgotten, and that "the symbol of our common Christianity" should have been almost universally converted into "the badge and criterion of a party, a mark of discrimination applied to distinguish the nicer shades of difference among Christians." It was not so from the beginning. The church of Christ was originally one body: the ordinance of the Lord's Supper is suited to such an order of things; and however perverted from its original purpose, though, instead of the common place of friendly meeting for all who believe the truth and love the Saviour, it has in many cases become "the line of demarcation, the impassable boundary which separates and disjoins them," still, in its obvious emblematical meaning, it sounds a retreat from the unnatural divisions which prevail among the genuine followers of the Saviour, by proclaiming that they are indeed all "one in Christ Jesus."

There is just one other important principle of Christian truth which we consider as embodied in the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is a positive institution. It is entirely founded on the authority of Jesus Christ, as Him to whom all power in heaven and earth belongs. It does not, like what may be termed the moral part of our religion, necessarily arise out of the relations in which we stand to God as the God of salvation, and to Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of mankind, such as faith, confidence, and obedience. The sole obligation of this ordinance. arises out of its appointment by Christ. It would have been our duty to have gratefully and devoutly remembered our Saviour's dying love, though no express command had been given us to that effect;

* Hall.

but it would not have been our duty to have expressed this grateful and devout recollection by the eating bread, and drinking wine, had not Jesus Christ said, "Do this in remembrance of me." The ordinance, then, embodies in it Christ's claims on the implicit obedience of his followers, and holds him forth as their Lawgiver as well as their Saviour.

Thus have we seen how replete with Christian truth is this emblematical institution. It forcibly presents to the Christian's mind these great fundamental principles of his religion, " that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, assumed human nature, and suffered and died in the room of sinners, to obtain their salvation; that all who believe God's testimony concerning this method of salvation, shall be saved; that all who are thus interested in this Christian salvation form a holy fellowship, bound together by the faith of the same truth, and reliance on the same Saviour; and that all who belong to this Christian fellowship are bound to submit implicitly to the Saviour's authority, and to walk in all his ordinances and commandments blameless."

But the Lord's Supper contains in it an emblematical confirmation, as well as an emblematical exhibition, of Christian doctrine. It presents to us not only the truth, but its evidence. The Lord's Supper involves in it satisfactory evidence of the truth of Christianity in general. It has been remarked, by one of the most ingenious defenders of Christianity, that there can be no reasonable doubt of the reality of any event which is of such a nature as that men's senses can clearly and fully judge of it, which took place publicly, and in commemoration of which public institutions were immediately appointed, and have continued to be observed, with uninterrupted succession, till the present time. The facts of our Lord's death and resurrection are facts to which these characters belong. They were events, of the reality of which, men, in the exercise of the senses common to the species, could clearly and fully judge-they

* Leslie.

took place publicly. In the institution of the Lord's Supper and the Lord's day, institutions more closely connected than seems generally to be apprehended by Christians in the present age, we have public observances instituted in commemoration of these events, and which we know, from the most indubitable evidence, have been uninterruptedly observed from the period of their institution down to our own times. It is impossible for the ingenuity of infidelity to account satisfactorily for these facts, on any principle which does not involve in it the truth of Christianity; and it does not seem possible to conceive of a more simple, yet more effectual method of transmitting unimpaired the principal evidences of the truth of Christianity, in the miraculous events accompanying the Saviour's death and resurrection, than by wrapping it up, if I may use the expression, in the two kindred positive institutions of the Lord's Supper and the Lord's day.

The use of the Lord's Supper, as confirming Christian truth, is however by no means confined to this general proof of the truth of Christianity, as a system which it involves. It not only proves that a certain system of principles, denominated Christianity, is true and divine, but it proves that the doctrines which it emblematically embodies, form the leading principles of that true and divine system. It does not, like some very clear and convincing statements of the evidences of Christianity, leave you in the dark as to what Christianity is. And here we have much reason to admire the "manifold wisdom" discovered in this emblematical institution. Even a slight variation in its details would have rendered it completely unfit for answering this most important purpose. Had our Lord merely enjoined that his followers should frequently assemble around the same board, and eat bread and drink wine together, the rite might have been plausibly represented as nothing more than an exhibition of the tendency and design of Christianity to put an end to all unfriendly divisions among mankind, and to bind them together in the

bands of fraternal affection. Had he even gone somewhat farther, and, on appointing such an institution, proclaimed, "This is the bread of life; he who eateth of it shall never hunger-this is the wine of the kingdom; he that drinketh of it shall never thirst -eat, drink, and live for ever,"-still, without doing any violence to the meaning either of the symbols, or of the words explicatory of them, we might have been told, that all that was meant was an emblematical representation of the tendency and design of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, to make men good, and wise, and happy. But it is impossible thus to give meaning to the emblems in the Lord's Supper, as explained by our Lord, without admitting that the incarnation and the atonement are essential parts of Christianity: and the same evidence which proves Christianity to be divine, proves this to be Christianity. The doctrine of salvation, through the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, as the substitute of sinners, is so wrought into the very substance of this ordinance, that no ingenuity can extract it. So long as the Lord's Supper continues in the church-so long as the words of the institution are repeated, and the instituted symbols displayed, there never shall be wanting in the church a clear demonstration, that the death of the Son of God, as a sacrifice for sin, was a doctrine of the primitive age of Christianity.

It is thus that the Lord's Supper confirms, as well as exhibits the leading principles of Christianity; and it is thus that it answers to the description which is often given of it as a sealing ordinance. To this denomination, which, by the way, is not a scriptural one, very confused, and, in some cases, dangerously mistaken ideas are attached. The covenant of mercy was ratified, or sealed, by the blood of the Son of God, shed on Calvary; and of this blood-shedding, the Lord's Supper is not the repetition, but the commemoration: and as to the Lord's Supper sealing to the recipient his individual interest in the blessings secured by that covenant, the only scriptural idea that can be attached to these words is, that this ordi