"The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life."

It is then most certain that our Lord ordained the Sacrament of His Body and Blood in order that those who penitently and faithfully receive it may receive the greatest benefits of His Redemption. But, besides this, we read that when He gave His Body and His Blood the Lord also said, "Do this in remembrance of Me. By saying this He ordained the Holy Communion to be a standing Memorial or Commemoration of His Death before God, for the word translated "remembrance" which our Lord uses on this occasion, was the word used to denote the Memorial made before God by the Sacrifices of the Old Law (Numb. x. 10), and also to denote the memorial of the Children of Israel made before God by the Shew-bread which the Jewish Priest was to set in order every Sabbath before the Lord (Levit. xxiv. 7, 8). The same word translated "remembrance" is also used to signify the Memorial which the High Priest was commanded to make before God once every year of the sins of the people of Israel on the great day of atonement (Heb. x. 3).

In this sense the celebration of the Holy Eucharist is the one great Sacrifice of the New Law. Just as in the burnt offerings of the Old Dispensation, the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God was set forth in type or prefigurement, so in our Eucharist the same one all-sufficient Sacrifice is set forth in Memorial or Commemoration. There has been but one real true efficacious sacrifice-that of the Lamb of God. All others derive all their efficacy or virtue only from this, that God has ordained them to set forth and apply the merits

It was not the

and virtues of This One Sacrifice. death of the bullock or lamb which made it efficacious to atone, but the fact that God ordained it in order that in their most solemn worship men might set before Him that Death of His dear Son which in due time He would set forth to be a propitiation.

In this solemn service we offer and present His Death to His Father as the one only plea for the forgiveness of our sins, and the one ground of all our hope. We do not immolate or slay the Son of God afresh-for " Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more," but we make before God a Memorial or Commemoration of His Death we celebrate and represent it before God in sacramental Mystery.

In doing this we join ourselves with that Representation of His past Sufferings which He is now making in Heaven as our Intercessor. Christ has

once offered Himself as the all-atoning Victim, and now He is a "Priest for ever": for ever presenting before God the infinite merits of His Death. There is in the heaven of heavens the appearance of a "Lamb as it had been slain," i.e. slain sacrificially.

Now in this perpetual offering of Himself in His glorified Body the Saviour offers His Church, which is His mystical Body. He and His Church are one: He the Head and His Church the Body, and so when Christ offers Himself He offers His Church as contained in Himself. To this offering of Himself we join ourselves when we faithfully partake of the Holy Communion. So we are taught by St. Paul. "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

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Christ, for we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.

The Lord also, in ordaining the Eucharist, ordained a perpetual means whereby we may partake of the One Sacrifice of Himself once offered. In old times the sacrifices were partaken of by the worshippers. The Sacrifice of the Lord's Passover was partaken of by every Israelite (Exod. xii. 27). The flesh of the Sacrifices of peace offerings must all be eaten the same day (Levit. vii. 15). We read also that when Samuel offered a Sacrifice they that were bidden eat of it (1 Sam. ix. 13); and St. Paul asks, "Are not they which eat of the Sacrifice partakers with the altar?" (1 Cor. x. 18). So it came to pass that the ancient altar of God was called by the prophets the Lord's table (Ezek. xli. 22; xliv. 16; Mal. i. 7-13), because the people of God eat of the Sacrifices which were offered upon it; and so our table is rightly called an Altar, because by it we partake of the one true Sacrifice there broken in mystery. So that the Apostle says, "We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle" (Heb. xiii. 10).

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By partaking of the Altar-table of the Church, we are partakers of the Altar of the Cross. the Israelite partook of his Sacrifice he only partook of the bullock or lamb or goat which was offered at that particular time; whereas the Christian, who partakes of the Lord's table, partakes in some mystical and heavenly way of the Body and Blood of the One Adorable Victim; for our Blessed Lord identified that which is blessed and broken at our altars with His Body sacrificially broken, and His Blood sacrificially shed.

So that by, and in, this Memorial we set forth before God the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God, and

by eating of the Sacrifice we are partakers of the Altar; not only of the Altar in the Church, but of that Altar of the Cross on which the Eternal Son made an atonement for all sin.

Such is the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. It is manifest that such a rite is heavenly and spiritual in itself, and can only be used for heavenly and spiritual purposes. And so there must be a preparation of heart in some degree corresponding to the nature of the Sacrament, and to the benefits which we hope to receive by it.

This is clear, from the great danger we incur by receiving the Sacrament unworthily, for then, in the words of St. Paul, we are "guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord," as if we had crucified Him afresh, and "we eat and drink our own condemnation, not discerning the Lord's Body."

And with respect to the Remembrance or Memorial of the Sacrifice of the Death of Christ we must devoutly feel and thankfully acknowledge that Sacrifice as our one hope, our one plea, our one source of forgiveness and cleansing, if we would acceptably show it forth before the Searcher of hearts.

What then is the necessary preparation? First, that we should feel our need of the benefits set forth to us by our blessed Lord in the eating of His Flesh. As our bodies are only in a healthy state when they have an appetite for their necessary food, so our souls are only in a state of true spiritual health when they hunger after the Bread of Heaven. If Christ offers His Body and Blood to us to the end that we should dwell in Him and He in us, there should be a corresponding desire on our parts to receive such grace. If we have no such spiritual desire, it is because we know not our

spiritual needs, our extreme spiritual destitution if we are without Christ; and we must earnestly pray to God to give us some sense of the need we have to receive Christ as the Bread of Heaven.

Again, we must come to receive the blessings vouchsafed to us in His Sacrament as a free gift— a gift given to our needs, not a reward of our merits.

Indeed, if we in any degree realize that in this Holy Communion we in some real way eat the Flesh of no other than the Eternal Son of God, we cannot do otherwise-i.e. we must ascribe all to God's grace, and come to receive all as His gift, for we cannot even dream of deserving to receive such a thing as the Flesh and Blood of the Eternal Son. Some things the Scriptures lead us to believe that we may deserve or merit or win by our exertions. St. Paul, for instance, speaks of men "laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life" (1 Tim. vi. 19). And Our Blessed Lord speaks of the man who made his one talent into ten ruling over ten cities, and of him who made his one into five over five cities. But no one could imagine for an instant that he could merit to eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of One now at the right hand of God. He could as soon think that he could merit to command the armies of heaven, or to create a new world. If a man attaches any real adequate meaning to such words as those which His Saviour used in ordaining the Lord's Supper, he must see that the adorable Things Signified, i.e., the Body and Blood of the Eternal Son, are infinitely above the reach of human merit or effort, and can only be given to men of God's most free and boundless Grace.