ate reflection, our religious constitution has been introduced into America; and let us hope, that by establishing a system of rational discipline and worship, and by diffusing a salutary spirit of peace and union, it may long be preserved to the edification of our Christian brethren, to the credit of our ecclesiastical government, and to the glory of that Heavenly religion whose author we adore as the God, not of confusion, but of peace.

86

SERMON XXVI.*

ON THE SACRAMENT.

LUKE Xxii. 19 & 20.

gave

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and unto them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

Likewise also the cup after Supper, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

In the course of such observations as I shall make upon the text for the guidance of your judgments, and the peace of your consciences, I shall in my first discourse lay before you some account of the differences of opinion which prevail among Christians upon the nature and end of the sacraments, and I shall assign my reasons for wishing that the contending parties were actuated by a spirit of mutual forbearance and moderation.

In a second, I shall fully explain to you the origin and the import of three very significant words, which are connected with the subject, viz. Sacrament, Mystery, Eucharist; and in a third, I shall endeavour to set right a numerous, but misguided

*December 1821.

class of Christians, upon the real meaning of St. Paul's words in the text, and upon the qualifications necessary for a pious remembrance of their Saviour at the Lord's Supper.

It has often been remarked by the most judicious advocates of the Christian cause, that while various systems of heathenism prescribe ceremonies, some burthensome, and others ostentatious, some unprofitable to good morals, and others injurious to them, the Founder of our religion was content to establish only two rites, easy in performance, and simple in appearance. To this position every inquirer will readily assent, while he takes his views of Baptism and the Lord's Supper from Scriptural testimony alone. Much, therefore, is it to be lamented, that upon points which seem at first so intelligible, long and fierce disputes should have arisen in the Christian world. Melancholy is the picture of human weakness and human pride, when it is remembered that upon the nature and end of the Sacrament critics and theologians should have assailed each other with the most intemperate wrath that Church should be divided from Church-that Sect should be opposed to Sect- and that difference of opinion should have subjected the most conscientious men to invectives, to anathemas, to fines, to exile, to chains, to dungeons, and to the destroying fire. We must necessarily imagine, that in this last solemn interview with his Disciples, and in the appointment of a ceremony which was intended to bring to their memory the approaching death of their Master, he would employ such terms as would

be clearly comprehended by his hearers, and such too as evidently alluded to the customs of the Jews. Thus, in truth, did our Heavenly Master act.

It was the practice of the Jews to bless God, and give thanks to Him, when they ate their meals; they did not bless twice, as we do, before and after; but their blessing was pronounced once over the bread, and once over the wine, separately. This was done by Christ, and done at the Supper. His words were, "Take, eat, this is my body," and it is quite impossible for them to have taken the words literally, and to have supposed that they were eating the flesh of Jesus, who sat with them at table. He did not say this will be my body at any other time, or in any other place, when you commemorate my death. He said expressly and distinctly, “this is my body;" and his hearers could not, for one moment, mistake his allusion. Christ and his Disciples had been celebrating the Passover, and his Disciples must have heard, again and again, that the Paschal Lamb was called by the Jews "the body of the Passover." So far, then, the description of the rite was taken from the familiar language of the Jews, but the resemblance goes no farther than words; for the intention of our Lord was to inform his Disciples, that in breaking bread they were not, like the Jews, to commemorate the event which gave rise to the term Passover, but to signify their remembrance of a far more important circumstance in the sufferings of their Saviour upon the Cross. Again, he took the cup, he gave thanks, he held it out to them, he described it as the blood

of the New Testament, that is, confirmatory of the New Testament. This blood, as we read in Mark, was shed for many; it was shed for you, as we read in St. Luke: it was shed for many, as we read in St. Matthew, who alone adds, you will observe, "for the remission of sins."

St. Paul in the eleventh chapter of the first of Corinthians twice uses the phrase, “Do this in remembrance of me," but does not subjoin one word about the "remission of sins." Now, when our Lord used the word many, he meant to prepare his hearers for believing, that not only the Jews, but the Gentiles were included in that new covenant which our Lord graciously established; and in the Epistle, there are numerous passages where the admission of the Gentiles to the benefit of that covenant is accompanied by a declaration, that the sins, which they had committed in their former state, would be forgiven in consequence of their faith. That faith led them to expect the forgiveness even of future sins upon the indispensible condition of repentance; and this forgiveness, you must never forget, was to be granted, not as the reward of any merit on the part of man, but as an act of the covenanted mercy on the part of God, announced to us again and again in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The absence of the words "for the remission of sins," in St. Luke, St. Mark, and St. Paul, does not by any means obscure the meaning of Christ, when he speaks of the wine to be drunk, as symbolical of his blood, nor does it by any means impair the force of his injunction for the disciples to drink of