SERMON XI.

1 COR. 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?

It was my endeavour, last Sunday afternoon, to trace out to you the origin of the institution of the Lord's Supper; to shew you how it stood in relation to the ordinance of the Jewish passover; to prove to you that, as the latter was, so the former is, a feast to observe perpetually, and that they who neglect it are in the most awful danger of eternal death.

It is my purpose now to take other views of this subject; to point out to you the benefits of which they are partakers who keep this feast, and to contrast the ordinance with other rites of the Jewish religion.

But, to guard against misinterpretation, you must remember that whilst I am contending for these benefits, I suppose all the while that we are such partakers as we ought to be. I do not ascribe them to the mere act of eating and drinking, independently of the frame of soul with which we eat and drink; but I suppose that we do so in lowliness of mind, in obedience to our Lord's command, in the sincere endeavour to improve in goodness, in penitence for our sinfulness, in faith in our Lord's atonement, and the benefits resulting from this ordinance.

The first of them, if I may so term it, is a negative benefit; we free ourselves from the penalty which we should incur by neglecting it; we avoid that which would fix itself upon us from having broken our Lord's command. For there can be no doubt that his words are a positive command-not merely a recommendation, but a direct order to eat this bread and drink this wine in memory of him. "This do in remembrance of me," (Luke xxii. 19), were

his words. There is no escaping the force of them. We must acknowledge that here is no option given us as to whether we must, or may not do this. If we do it not, we disobey; and if we disobey wilfully, constantly, and throughout our life impenitently disobey, I cannot conceive on what ground we may hope to escape being hereafter called to account for it. But, by obeying in that spirit, which is implied even in the nature of the institution, we at once put ourselves into security, and freedom from this penalty. We are no longer in danger of being visited for breaking the commandment. We are now safe.

The second is a positive benefit. The observance of the Lord's Supper is a ground of faith to us in looking for the completion of that redemption at the day of judgment, for which we have otherwise no real foundation, no reason whatever to hope. Not merely, therefore, exemption from punishment is the consequence of keeping this ordinance, but acceptance with God; not merely deliverance from death,

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but the confirmation of the gift of eternal life. The Israelites, you heard, were saved by the blood of the lamb and you, the antitype of these Israelites, will be saved by the antitype of that lamb; for, I before remarked that the Israelites and the lamb were the foreshewing of Christians and of Christ. The Israelites stood in relation to the lamb of the passover, as Christians do to the Lamb of God.

And so stands all their history in a certain reference to ours. The wicked land they lived in was to them as the wicked world we live in is to us; the blood of the lamb which they slew, as is the blood of Christ Jesus to us; the deliverance they received from their captivity, as our deliverance from our sins; the death and lamentation which passed into the house of every Egyptian who was out of the pale of their Church, as the death and woe which will be passed on every wicked man out of the pale of Christ's Church; the land of promise into which they were introduced; as the haven into which we shall hereafter be brought, the

angel which preceded them in their way to their rest in Canaan, as the Redeemer who will precede us into our rest in heaven. We look, therefore, from the worthy reception of this sacrament, for benefits spiritual indeed, but corresponding with those which accrued to the Israelites temporally, from their observance of the Lord's Passover.

Such, therefore, are in brief the benefits which we obtain by receiving the Lord's Supper. And these two, deliverance from death, and the gift of eternal life, being the consummation of our estate, include within them every other which our Lord has to bestow upon us. It might suffice, therefore, to have enumerated these; but that you may perceive such to be the tendency of the Lord's Supper, and gradual promotion effected by it towards these ends, I shall now proceed to state some intermediate advantages which it confers.

Through worthily partaking of the supper of the Lord, we are forgiven those sins which we have committed since our baptism.