right, who were in your state of mind on this subject; uneasy at being charged with a grave neglect of duty to God, and disregard of a practical help to holy living; uneasy but unconvinced; unwilling to be persuaded by mere rhetoric, still more unwilling to be frightened by denunciation; but very willing to listen to reason and yield to conviction.

Finally, you suggested to me to undertake a brief explanation and defence of the Church's doctrine of Holy Communion adapted to such persons.

After grave consideration I accepted the task you suggested, and here I present you with the results. I desire to assure you that what I have here put before you is, I believe, that doctrine of the sacrament, neither more nor less, which is laid down in the New Testament, which was held by the primitive Church, which was taught by the English Reformers, which is contained

in the authorised formularies of our Church, and which has been maintained by all our great theologians from the Reformation to the present time.

I beg your thoughtful and candid consideration of what I have written; and I pray God that it may be helpful to you and others, and may redound to His glory.

I remain, my dear Mr.

Your faithful Friend and Pastor,

EDWARD L. CUTTS.

VICARAGE, HAVERSTOCK HILL,

1881.

THE

BREAKING OF THE BREAD.

CHAPTER I.

THE FALL AND REDEMPTION.

IN attempting to give you an explanation of the meaning of the Holy Communion, and of the position which we claim for it in the Christian religion, I shall have to ask you to go back with me a very long way, even to the very beginning of the religious history of mankind; it is really necessary to do so, for the Holy Communion is an embodiment of the first great principles of religion. Be patient, and I will be brief.

First, consider the Fall of Man.

God created man and gave him the world and all that was in it for a possession; implanted

A

in his mind a knowledge of good and evil; warned him that to do evil would lead to death; which implied the promise that faithfulness would be rewarded with a higher life; appointed the tree of knowledge of good and evil as a sign of this Covenant of Obedience.1

The outward act of disobedience, when man plucked the forbidden fruit and ate, was but the climax and outcome of man's fall; a course of spiritual declension had gone before, and led on to it. The tempter led man to distrust God; to believe that God was jealously keeping man back from higher good; to seek human wellbeing independently of God, in a way forbidden by God. In the process of yielding to the temptation, man first lost his trust in God; with trust, love was lost too; lastly, his will set itself in opposition to God's will; and he deliberately broke His express commandment. So that the overt act of disobedience was only the outward expression of man's alienation from his Creator in faith, love, and will, i.e., in his whole nature.

1 If you wish to see set out more fully what I have so briefly summarised here, I beg to refer you to "Some Chief Truths of Religion," published by the Christian Knowledge Society.

The consequence of this change in man's relations towards God was a corresponding change in God's relations towards man. The Divine

justice is necessarily opposed to sin. The infinitely holy God is in necessary antagonism to the wilful transgressor of the Divine will. Not only then, in the fall, was man alienated from God, but God was alienated from man.

Man was not only fallen but helpless. He lay under a twofold inability.

(1.) He was unable to make any amends to the Divine justice for his sin.

(2.) He was incapable, by any power in himself, of recovering from the deterioration which sin had wrought in his nature.

Moreover, having lost faith in God, and love for God, he had no desire for reconciliation with Him.

Next, we have to consider, briefly-The Way of Redemption.

When we express the necessary antagonism of God's holiness to man's sin in the phrase, "God was alienated from man," this does not mean that God's love was turned to hatred.