LENT LECTURES ON THE

HOLY EUCHARIST.

No. III.

The Benefits imparted to the Faithful Receiver. PROPOSE this evening to consider the benefits which the Holy Eucharist is intended to impart to all faithful receivers of it. In my two former lectures, I endeavoured to set before you the doctrine of the universal Church as held by the early Fathers, and asserted in our own formularies, on the nature of the inward part or thing signified in that Sacrament; for as the benefits which flow from its reception must depend upon the nature of the gift therein bestowed, it was necessary at the outset to realise clearly to ourselves what that gift is. Holy Scripture, the liturgies and writings of the early Church, and our own Communion Office, unite in declaring it to be the real, the supernatural Presence of Christ Himself in His twofold nature of God and man, bestowed in His Flesh and Blood which are verily and indeed taken and received in the Holy Eucharist.

With this great and fundamental truth fixed in

our minds, we come to the consideration of the further question, What are the special benefits which this Sacrament is intended to convey to us? What is the part assigned to it in the Christian scheme? In what relation does it stand to the other Sacrament of Baptism?

As both these ordinances have been divinely ordained, and are of perpetual obligation, we may be sure that to each has been allotted some essential part in the great work of man's restoration; and that as there can be no confusion between the two, so neither would the one without the other have sufficed to carry into effect that work of mercy. There are, however, some important particulars in which the two Sacraments resemble each other. They were both ordained by Christ Himself: they are intended for all people alike: they are, as the Catechism says, "generally necessary for salvation:" moreover, they each consist of an outward and visible sign, and of an inward and spiritual grace. Speaking generally, also, as regards the purpose of their institution, they each contribute towards the same great end of restoring the privilege of intercourse between man and his Creator, which the sin of our first parents had forfeited; for they are the means of bringing each individual soul into an intimate relation with Christ, who is the one Mediator between God and man: as God, one with the Father; as Man, one with us. And so we in Him, who is in the Father, through the Sa

craments by which He dwelleth in us. Again, they are alike in that the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, graciously condescends to take part in each, though in each His work is different; for whereas in Holy Baptism He acts directly upon the soul, bringing each separate child of Adam into close relation with the human nature of Christ, which is the medium of life to the soul; in the Holy Eucharist He graciously exerts His power to render efficacious the outward creatures of bread and wine as the instruments for bestowing the Real Presence of Christ's Flesh and Blood to be the food of His people.

The two Sacraments, then, are each means or channels by which the benefit bestowed by Christ upon the whole human race collectively, through uniting our nature to His Divine nature, is applied and made over to each individual member of that race. Now the benefit which the Incarnation of our Blessed Lord effected for mankind at large, was the restoration of that power of holding communion with God, which had been lost by Adam's sin; and so rendering it possible for a new inward principle of life to be imparted to our souls and bodies, whereby the opposite principle of corruption, which threatened to deliver us over to eternal death, should be ultimately cast out and overcome. God, we know, is the only source of life, He is life itself; and all the forms of life which we see around us, or in the natural world, however imperfect, are the faint re

flections of that life which has existed in Him from all eternity in the perfection of an inexhaustible fulness.

But He alone, who bestowed that wondrous gift upon His creatures, can sustain it. From Him alone, whence as its only source it originated, can fresh supplies be obtained. And so it came to pass that when the golden chain by which, as it were, man, in his primeval innocence, had been united to his Creator, had been severed by sin, and the intercourse between the Supreme Mind and the minds which He had created had been cut off by Adam's transgression, then both body and soul became liable to death; that mysterious principle of life whereby our bodies and minds are enabled to perform their allotted functions, and to grow and expand until they reach a prescribed degree of maturity, became at once liable to decay; the seeds of death and corruption, the terrible consequences of sin, at once began to work; and that power of life, which had been sustained in all its freshness in man whilst in the garden of Eden, gradually yielded to the inroads of disease and corruption when he was banished from the presence of God.

"For as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all men have sinned." Thus, then, as regards our bodies, they must, but for the redeeming mercy of God, have been held ever by death.

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But man is not made only of that which is material. Like other creatures he is endowed with a bodily organization, which, so far as we know, is essential to the completeness of his being. But, unlike the other creatures, he is endowed also with a spiritual and immaterial part. When God breathed the breath of life into him, man became a living soul. Now the life of the soul is analogous to the life of our bodies. Just as the bodily life consists in acting, moving, and performing aright, and controlling the different functions which belong to the body; so the soul's life consists in exerting its own special powers for the end and purpose for which they were bestowed. When, then, the reason, affections, the conscience, and the will, viz., the rational and spiritual part of our nature, are acting in obedience to the laws imposed by the Creator, the life of the soul is then putting forth its energy, and giving evidence of its vigour.

But just as our bodily life has been rendered incapable through sin of resisting the effects of corruption, so also has our spiritual life. The soul, in its natural, fallen condition, has become the sport and prey of passions and desires, which tend to degrade it from its position as the ruler and controller of our lesser bodily nature; and the harmony which once existed between its ends and aims and the will of its Creator ceased to exist. So that, being deprived of God's sustaining and enlightening power, it has of itself a continued tendency to fall