NATURE AND EXCELLENCY

OF

THE WORD OF GOD

TO OUR SOULS.

A Sermon,

On JOHN VI. 63.

"THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK UNTO YOU, THEY ARE SPIRIT, AND THEY ARE LIFE."

Preached in the Parish Church of Taxal, in Cheshire, May 6th, 1810.

BY THE

REV. G. NICHOLSON,

LATE PERPETUAL CURATE OF LITTLE BUDWORTH, Cheshire.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR,

By W. Peart, Northampton St. Northampton Sq.

AND SOLD BY

L. B. Seeley, Fleet Street; J. Hamilton, Paternoster Row; and Williams and Co. Stationer's Court.

1817.

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SERMON,

&c.

JOHN VI. 63.

The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

THIS declaration of our most blessed Lord was occasioned immediately by his preceding doctrine concerning the practicability, necessity, and importance of our eating his flesh and blood; and it was occasioned also by the gross misapprehensions of the Jews on that divine subject. For they looked no further nor higher than this world, which is very nearly equal to the religion of Christians, who rely on their ecclesiastical participation of the Sacrament for their salvation; and the palpable impossibility of our naturally eating the Lord's flesh, and drinking his blood, might well stare the naturally minded man in the face. But as our Saviour declares on two other occasions: All things are possible to him that be

B

lieveth; and the things which are impossible with men are possible with God."

And though the sacramental, or daily participation of Christ's body and blood was never intended, either in a strictly literal manner, or by way of transubstantiation, 66 yet Heaven and Earth shall sooner pass away than the word of God, which abideth for ever"-therefore "his words are true and faithful.” And in order to our attainment of new spiritual life, which truly deserves the name of life here, and of eternal life in Heaven hereafter, which, is its consequence and continuation, we must lay hold by faith on Christ, feed upon him spiritually, and be enabled to copy and apply this language of the great Apostle : "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." As a mean to accomplish this, the very words of our text, which were intended to guard against the gross misapprehension of our Lord's antecedent doctrine-I say, these very words of our text being opened and applied to our souls, by God and Man, will absolutely tend to accomplish that living from, upon, and to the Lord Jesus Christ, upon which our present and eter

any

nal strength, life, and happiness depend. But when I said just now, opened and applied to our souls by God and man; do not, I beseech you, misapprehend my meaning, as implying, that man has part, or lot in the matter of justification before God, inherent power, or self-sufficiency, either in whole, or in part; but I simply meant, that without the instrumentality of ministers and people, together with the exercise of our faculties, no useful effect can be expected; and much less so great an effect, as our conversion and salvation from sin, death, and hell, to holiness, life, and Heaven.

By the Divine assistance, therefore, of him, “in whom we live, and move, and have our being," I intend to observe the following arrangement of our present subject:

FIRST, Christ's words are of a spiritual, or theological nature, applying to the soul of man, to the heavenly kingdom, and to our present holy preparation, for a glorious immortality, the free gift of God in Christ Jesus-which subjects indeed are treated of principally and primarily throughout the sacred Scriptures.