MAINTAINED AS THE TRUE SCRIPTURAL FORM FOR ITS OBSERVANCE, BOTH AGAINST PRESENT ATTEMPTS TO CHANGE IT, AND ALSO ENLARGED BY AN ARGUMENT MAINTAINING THE WINE PROPER FOR THE COMMUNION THE LORD'S SUPPER CONTROVERSIAL tract on the Lord's Supper may be a most edifying and comforting composition. It is not essential to controversy that it should be, as it often is, distracting to all who are engaged in it. It is sometimes most potent to draw some men together, and unite them more firmly than ever in the communion of what is imperilled. The matter of controversy, if it be worth controversy, becomes more precious in view of the danger that threatens it. The most effective controversial effort is that which so represents the value of the thing contended for as to make it appear worth maintaining even through conflict. Then the relish of the truth involved is keener than in a situation where that truth is enjoyed in perfect peace. In the present immunity of the churches from persecution, there is not that intense enjoyment of the ordinances that was felt by those who were compelled to seek them by stealth, meeting in glens and caves. There seems to be even an apathy attending that central and most significant ordinance of all, the Lord's Supper, because the freedom to observe it in the right way has long been unassailed. By reason of that apathy, it is now in danger of mutilation and diversion from its proper use and profit. Through very frivolity of secure possession, what was (RECAP) 5611 .597 149259 once stoutly and often fiercely maintained, at the risk and even cost of life, is now easily surrendered and trifled away by neglect. One great contention of the Reformation of the sixteenth century concerned the right of the laity to the cup in the Lord's Supper. It was the right to partake of the cup of wine-i.e., of the wine itself-which Christ appointed for all his disciples, saying, "Drink ye all of it." It was the right to partake of the wine of which he said, "This is the new covenant in my blood for the remission of sins." But now that the churches have so long enjoyed this right without dispute, many are ready to surrender what was secured through such bloody conflict. We say, surrender the cup that the Reformers gave us. For, however innovators may view the cup that contains their substitution for wine, it is certain that the Reformers never endured their mighty conflict concerning the cup, that they might fill it with whatever they thought best. And it is certain that, had they regarded the wine of the cup an indifferent matter, they would never have made the right of the laity to use the cup a matter of contention. We now find ourselves, however, in a situation that makes controversy necessary, if we would preserve to the churches the cup that the Reformation gave back into the hands of the laity. God has allowed this to come about, perhaps, in order to arouse the churches from their indifferent appreciation of this most precious ordinance, the Lord's Supper; an indifference that naturally attends the unmolested enjoyment of it, as it does most good things that are enjoyed in the same way. Our attention is drawn to one particular of defection, in the matter of the wine, just referred to. But that is only the place of the breaking forth of the evil. A proper estimate of the situation revealed by that is, that the mischief extends to the whole subject of the Lord's Supper. A proper effort to stay the mischief, then, will not be to confine oneself to arresting the innovations concerning the cup; we must review the whole ordinance in the light of the particular mischief assailing one part. A spirit of supposed liberality prevails in religious life, and radically affects the posture of professing Christians toward every religious subject. Once the first question was, What is the truth we must confess and practice and maintain? Now the interest in every truth that has been maintained is chiefly the question, What has been held too strictly? What may be yielded? In this interest every subject in religion is reviewed, and every question that has been closed is reopened. The Apostolic injunction is: "Whereunto we have already attained, by that same rule let us walk." This is a rule indispensable to progress, and was once much heeded. But now the things that have been "attained"-i. e., ascertained-and have long been the rule by which Christians have safely walked, are assailed from within the Christian ranks; and the right to assail them has been easily and generally allowed, till there is practically, if even unconsciously, widespread doubt whether the Church has really attained to anything-i. e., ascertained anything-that should be a rule for all to walk by and think alike about. It is obvious that there never was anything in religious practice about which the catholic Church so absolutely thought the same thing and walked by the same rule, as that it is wine that must be used in the proper observance of the Lord's Supper. We.cannot expect to see the Church attain to greater unanimity in any other matter than was attained in that. If, then, this matter was and is not a clear case for the application of the Apostolic injunction cited above, we must conclude that the Apostle has proposed an impracticable rule. The spirit that is abroad has assailed the doctrine and |