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CHAPTER II.

ON THE OBLIGATION WHICH LIES ON ALL THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST TO REMEMBER HIM IN THIS ORDINANCE; AND THE EXCUSES AND DISCOURAGEMENTS WHICH ARE COMMONLY PLEADED FOR NEGLECTING IT.

FROM the statements and illustrations which have been given in the foregoing chapter, it is hoped that the nature and design of the Lord's Supper will be sufficiently obvious, and also that the attentive reader will clearly perceive the beautiful and admirable adaptation of that ordinance, in all its parts, to serve the purposes for which it was intended. It must be obvious, at the same time, on what class of persons the observance of this ordinance has been enjoined. This is apparent from the very circumstance that, at the time of its institution, the only persons present with our blessed Lord were those who were avowedly his disciples, and who had been assembled together to eat the Passover with him before he suffered. It was only to them, therefore, and other professing disciples such as they, that he addressed the solemn injunction in regard to the celebration of the Supper, "This do in remembrance of me." None else, indeed, can be supposed to have any conscientious and intelligible reason for engaging in its celebration. They can have no scriptural reason for remembering Christ, and he can have no pleasure in seeing himself professedly remembered by those who are not actuated by any feeling towards him either of piety, gratitude, or love; who are actuated only by worldly, hypocritical, or superstitious considerations, and who may thus be chargeable with making the

highest solemnities of his religion nothing else than a cloak for their unrighteousness.

There are two observations, then, which at the very outset, naturally suggest themselves to our minds. The first is, that before any persons either presume or resolve, even with the permission of the Church, to engage in the holy ordinance of the Supper, they are bound to consider, with the greatest seriousness, whether or not they have indeed become disciples of Christ; and the second is, that on the supposition that this is indeed their character, they are not at liberty to decline or neglect to take part in its solemn celebration.

1. In a country where all or almost all the inhabitants have, in their infancy, been admitted to Christian baptism, where the great majority of them at least have afterwards enjoyed the benefit of a professedly Christian education, and where, moreover, a certain degree of outward respectability is understood to belong to the enjoyment of the privileges of the Church, it is naturally to be apprehended that, in many instances, individuals will be found to seek and obtain admission to the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, who are far from being in reality his disciples, and far from having any just impression as to the nature and consequences of the very transaction in which they have unwarrantably and unhappily engaged. It is no difficult matter to acquire a competent degree of mere knowledge on the leading doctrines of the gospel; and when such knowledge is accompanied by a decent external deportment, and by solemn professions of religious feeling, and the habitual observance of private religious exercises, what can the ministers and other office-bearers of the Church be reasonably expected to do, but admit such persons to the privileges which they so earnestly solicit? Under such circumstances, indeed, they would not be justifiable in refusing them admission. The traitor Judas himself was permitted by our Lord to eat the Passover with him and his friends; because, although he knew what

was in his heart-nay, expressly stated that he it was who should actually and ere long betray him, there was not, at that time, any outward and ascertained act of offence that could be adduced against the false disciple, as the ground of his exclusion.

But while, under such circumstances, it may be impossible to prevent the evil of admitting to the table of the Lord many who have no right, and never were invited to be there-many who, in point of fact, are not of the number of his genuine disciples-this is no reason why they themselves should presume to approach it, without considering, in the most serious manner, the actual relation in which they stand to him. To render their participation in the ordinance either pleasing to him or profitable to their own souls, it is necessary that their transaction with him there, should be the solemn and public ratification of a covenant already made with him in secret; a covenant in which they have devotedly, cordially, and gratefully accepted of him in all his offices, as their only and all-sufficient Saviour, and have, at the same time, unreservedly dedicated themselves to his service and glory so long as they have a being. Judging themselves with the utmost seriousness and impartiality, they ought to have some good grounds to believe that they have really forsaken all and followed Christ-that they have been made sensible of their guilty and ruined condition, as sinners by nature and practice that they have been persuaded, that he, and he only, hath the words of eternal life; that he is both able and willing to save all "that come unto God by him," and that, having been persuaded and enabled to embrace him as he is freely offered to them in the gospel, they now feel that they take pleasure in his word, in his worship, and in the keeping of all his commandments. In these different ways it must be made to appear, that they have been covenanting with Christ in secret, before they profess to do so in the public celebration of his supper, and that they have been taught

eagerly to embrace the opportunity, and highly to esteem the privilege of daily communion with him at the footstool of his grace, before they venture to think of having communion with him at his holy table. Those who have been brought up within the bosom of a Christian church, and in the enjoyment of those advantages which such a situation ordinarily implies, can scarcely be supposed to be free from what is both culpable and criminal in the sight of God, if they reach the age of maturity without being in a right condition for complying with the special commandment of Christ with respect to the observance of the Supper. Their criminality, however, would not be removed but increased, by partaking in that holy ordinance while they continue to be spiritually strangers to the power of his gospel, and to the constraining influences of his love. They are guilty, no doubt, of the sin of neglecting to do this in remembrance of him; but this is not the whole of their guilt. They have been guilty of a prior and more comprehensive sin, namely, that of never having accepted of Christ himself, or cordially embraced the truths of his gospel. This is the sin of their unbelief; and while they continue in this sin, it would only aggravate both their guilt and their danger, were they to add to it the sin of impiety and hypocrisy, by professing to accept of him in the solemn though symbolical transactions of that ordinance of which we are speaking.

Considerations such as these should make all persons very careful in enquiring into the real nature of their spiritual state, and into the true relation in which they stand to Christ, before they venture, even with the sanction of official authority, to encompass the Table of the Lord.

2. We now come, however, to direct our attention to the second observation which was suggested on this subject, namely, that on the supposition of our really believing, or finding reason to conclude, that we are indeed his disciples and have indeed embraced the doc

trines and promises of his gospel, it is not a thing which is optional-not a mere matter of choice or indifference, of convenience or supposed expediency-whether we shall, or shall not, publicly remember Christ, and show forth his death by partaking of the ordinance of the Supper. On this supposition, we are bound to partake of it, not only by a regard for our own consistency and our own spiritual edification and comfort, but also, and especially, out of respect and submission to his express and dying commandment.

All those to whom this commandment is addressed, are no more at liberty to dispense with its observance than they are to dispense with the observance of any other commandment that he ever gave. It is worthy of particular notice, that at the same time that he instituted the ordinance to which this commandment refers, and indeed before rising from the table at which it was dispensed, he gave to his disciples what he called a new commandment that they should love one another. Now, on what ground can it be imagined that his authority in regard to the latter should be held to be absolute, while, in regard to the former, it may be held to be dependent on circumstances; or that an unqualified and uniform obedience is to be expected from them in the one case, which is not to be insisted on in the other?. It will he observed, that we are here speaking, not of the fitness or unfitness of the state in which his professing disciples are, for engaging in the service which is required of them, but only of the obligation under which they are placed, to obey his injunction concerning it; and however solemn and peculiar the nature of the duty may be, we cannot understand how this should, in the slightest degree, affect-unless to increase -the obligation which that injunction imposes. We can no more understand how the strict observance of our Lord's commandment, in regard to the Supper, should be left to the choice or discretion of those to whom it is so plainly and emphatically addressed, than

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