once relinquish the idea of coming thereto. Carry your doubts to the throne of grace. Pray earnestly for all that you feel yourself to need. Diligence at the mercy-scat may remove every hindrance before the day shall arrive. Let your pastor know your doubts. Be free to communicate with him upon the subject of your qualifications. He may encourage, where you would be in fear. You cannot trespass upon his time or patience, when coming on such an errand. That the merciful Lord may guide your self-examination: that he may guard you against every spiritual delusion, every unfounded hope, and all false confidence: that he may enable you to approach the ordinance we have been considering, with an humble and contrite heart; with a living faith and a fervent love; that he may meet and bless you with the confirming influences of his Holy Spirit to "establish, strengthen, and settle you" in all that belongs to the Christian character, so that you may be sealed unto the day of Redemption: God, of his infinite mercy, grant through Jesus Christ our Lord,-Amen. VOL. II.-33 SERMON XXIII. THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. By the Rev. HENRY BLUNT, A. M., 1 CORINTHIANS X. 16. 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? THE important subject of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as treated in the 8th Article of our Church will come under our present consideration. It will perhaps tend to the better comprehension of the subject before us, if, we shortly remind you of the origin and institution of this solemn rite, before we proceed to comment upon our Church's exposition of it. Nothing can be more simple, and to an awakened heart, to one who has been taught to love God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, nothing can be more affecting, than the Gospel narrative of the institution of the Lord's Supper. Hear it, then, in the plain yet beautiful language of Holy Writ, and may all our hearts be warmed and elevated by the views it affords us of the wisdom and loving-kindness, the consideration and tender compassion of our great High Priest who first appointed it! "And when the even was come," say the Evangelists, "Jesus sat down and the twelve Apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired, (or I have most heartily desired) to eat this Passover with you before I suffer: For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." This, then, was the last Passover of which the Lord Jesus Christ was to be partaker; it was more than this, it was the last Passover which God would recognize in his Church; it was the final rite of the old dispensation, the death-song of Judaism. All that the Passover had ever typified was that night to be realized; the true Paschal Lamb was to be delivered to the slaughterers; "the blood of sprinkling," which should, throughout all ages, secure the people of God, by a spiritual deliverance far more wonderful, and far more blessed, than the temporal deliverance of the firstborn in Egypt, was on that coming morn to be poured forth; when he, the Lamb of God, the great propitiation, should close the series of fourteen hundred Passovers, by the sacrifice of Himself. Our Lord then, "heartily desired" to partake for the last time of this solemn rite with his beloved Apostles; he "heartily desired" that the shadow should pass away, and the great and glorious reality, which should bring pardon and peace to a ruined world, should be consummated: yes, strange as it may seem, he "heartily desired" that the coming meal, although a more sorrowful one he had never been partaker of or one more calculated to arm with ten-fold anguish, the sufferings that awaited him. And now his desire had been fulfilled, that evening meal was over; the final Passover was concluded, and the Lord of Life, and his disciples, still lingered in the supper-room, delighting in that spiritual converse which made their hearts burn within them, and presented to them no feeble foretaste, of the communion of the saints in bliss. The bread and wine, always accompaniaments of the Jewish Passover, still remained upon the table; when Jesus, no doubt during some solemn pause in the conversation, when all minds were filled with the thought of those approaching sorrows, of which our Lord had on that evening, for the first time plainly spoken, took up the bread, and breaking it, and pouring forth his blessing upon it, delivered it to his disciples, with these few but emphatic words, "Take, eat: this is my body which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me." Likewise also, "he took the cup," and blessing that in like manner, "he gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it." And he said unto them, "This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you," and "for many for the remission of sins." "Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom." How simple, how touchingly beautiful is the whole of this Gospel narrative. Our Lord well knew, not only the corruption, but the coldness and ingratitude of the human heart. He knew that years, nay centuries must pass away, and that the history of his dying love should fall upon men's cars, and on men's hearts, like a tale of other times, in which they were little interested; while even to the few, the happy few, who should in all ages adore and venerate that Saviour's name, there would be still the strong temptation to suffer their hearts to dwell upon "the things which are seen and temporal," to the frequent forgetfulness of those, which are not seen and are eternal." To meet, then, this never-ceasing, neverslumbering, tendency of our corrupt and fallen nature, was no doubt the primary intention of the striking incident we are considering. This do in remembrance of me." And mark how small a thing it was that the Saviour of the world requested of his followers; as though he had said, When in times to come, you assemble together in my name and in my worship, I ask of you no great, no costly sacrifice; I only ask to live in your memory, and in your love. I only desire to see, and to let an unbelieving world see, that in every generation, throughout all time, there shall still be some who will remember the transactions of this awful night, who will adore and love the despised Saviour, and acknowledge him in this, the lowest point of his humiliation, as their Redeemer and their God. Add, then, this little act, this slight memorial of all the sorrow and the anguish you will this night witness, of all the agonies of that scene, from which to-morrow's sun will hide his face, add only this slight memorial from time to time, to your accustomed sacrifice of prayer and praise; eat one piece of broken bread, and drink one drop of wine, in the name of the Crucified. Do this in remembrance of me, at those your solemn festivals, from this my hour of suffering, until I come again in peace and receive you unto myself.” Who could resist such an appeal? Who disobey such a command? neglect so easy, so merciful a request? It were impossible. More than eighteen centuries have passed away, since in that upper chamber, in some obscure house in the city of Jerusalem, the words which conveyed the request, were spoken by that lowly sufferer to his broken-hearted followers; and is it too much to say, that "their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words into the ends of the world?" From that night to the pres ent hour, all ranks, all classes of Christian believers, have united in fulfilling this last request of their Redeemer. Kings have descended from their thrones, and laid aside their crowns, and for a time forgotten all their carthly pageantry, and knelt in reverence to the King of kings, and been partakers of his humble feast. High and low, rich and poor, all who name the name of Christ, have remembered, and rejoiced to remember, his dying love, by accepting this, his dying invitation. Century after century has passed away, the monuments of human greatness have mouldered into dust, the laws inscribed upon tablets of brass have perished, dynasties and empires have risen and fallen and are forgotten, and these few simple sentences-this short affecting memorial, has outlived them all-never obliterated, never even suspended; no single week, we might perhaps with perfect truth assert, no single day, has ever yet passed by, which did not witness some little assemblage of the followers of the Redeemer, "doing this in remembrance of Him;" and thus, as the Apostle says, "showing forth the Lord's death until he come." Can we wonder then, since such was the origin of this holy service, that in the primitive Church it was partaken of every day? While the person of the Redeemer, was fresh in men's recollections, while the transactions of that awful night were vividly impressed upon their feelings, it is difficult to conceive a single day passing over them without the last accents of the Saviour's voice, “Do this in remembrance of me," sounding in their ears.— While the memory of that " man of sorrows," toiling up the hill of Calvary bearing his Cross, and soon after stretched in unutterable agonies upon it, showing what he was content to "do in remembrance" of them, lived strongly upon their hearts, it is difficult to imagine that a day could have gone by, without their longing for the hour at which they might commemorate such agonies, such love, by complying with the last request of their departed Master. Brethren, the wonder is,-and if men's hearts were what they should be, such could never have been, the wonder is, that from days, the celebration of this service should have been transferred to weeks, and from weeks to months, and from months to some few widely scattered days of festival, between whose long and dreary intervals, the heart of the recipient has ample time to grow cold and hard, and careless, to the blessings he so rarely commemorates. Until at last this service of |