What is the outward part or sign in the Lord's Supper? Bread and wine, which the Lord hath commanded to be received.

What is the inward part or thing signified?

The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.

THE

HE Lord's Supper, being a sacrament, must have an outward and visible part, and an inward and spiritual

part.

The outward visible part is bread and wine; the inward spiritual part is the Body and Blood of Christ. The sign is bodily food; the thing signified is spiritual food.

But the bread and wine are not bare and empty signs, but active and working signs: they convey what they represent.

The bread not only represents, but conveys the Body of Christ; the wine not only represents, but conveys the Blood of Christ.

It is true that the Body and Blood of Christ are spiritual things, but they are not the less real because they are spiritual. Perhaps it would even be true to say they are real because they are spiritual.

In speaking of such a subject as this, we are not only getting on very difficult ground, but are standing upon holy ground.

Now at any rate we can understand this, that as our bodies need food, so our spirits need food. And, of course, we can see that food for our spirits must be spiritual food.

And more than this, I suppose you understand something of the process by which natural food nourishes and supports our bodies.

What we eat and drink becomes part and parcel of us, is changed into the substance of our bodies.

So when we speak of eating the Lord's flesh, and drinking His blood, we mean, that Christ's pure nature must become part and parcel of our nature, that we must receive Him into our souls, and have his life for our life.

H

But it is not easy to understand what we really mean when we say that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.

I believe we shall never really understand this mysterious truth, unless we remember that the Body and Blood of Christ was the Sacrifice which Christ offered.

He said Himself, "The Bread which I will give is My Flesh, for the life of the world" (S. John vi. 51, R.V.).

The Body of Christ, then, which we are to receive is the flesh of the Sacrifice; the Blood of Christ of which we are to partake is the blood of the Sacrifice.

To eat His Flesh and to drink His Blood is to be partakers of His Sacrifice.

I reminded you just now that the bodily food which we eat becomes part of us, is changed into the actual substance of our bodies.

So to eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of Christ is to take the Sacrifice of Christ into us; it is for His life of sacrifice to be reproduced in us; that we too may offer up ourselves to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto God.

How the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ it does not concern us to know. This much indeed we may say, that it is through the operation of the Holy Spirit. The saying attributed to Queen Elizabeth should be enough for us

"Christ was the Word who spake it,

And what His Word doth make it,
That I receive and take it."

In the words of one of our most famous divines (Hooker, E. P., V. lxvii. 12):

"What these elements are in themselves it skilleth not, it is enough that to me which take them they are the body and blood of Christ, His promise in witness hereof sufficeth, His word He knoweth which way to accomplish; why should any cogitation possess the mind of a faithful communicant but this, O my God thou art true, O my soul thou art happy."

What are the benefits whereof we are made partakers thereby? Or, to put the question in a somewhat simpler form— What are the practical uses of the Lord's Supper?

The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and wine.

I

HAVE already, in our last Lesson, said something about the Lord's Supper being the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ; but the subject is continued in the answer which you have just repeated.

If the bread is to strengthen our bodies it must be eaten; if the wine is to refresh our bodies it must be drunk; so if our souls are to be strengthened and refreshed, it can only be by receiving into them Christ's Flesh and Blood, that is, His human nature, that by which He is man, that so it may become part of our nature.

Of course you can easily understand that when we speak of eating Christ's Flesh, and drinking His Blood, we are using a figurative expression, and that the figure means what I have just said, viz. that we are to receive Christ into our hearts as the nourishment of our souls.

Now there are one or two things that I should like, if I can, to explain to you about this mysterious subject.

You know that it is not every substance that is suitable for food. You might swallow small lumps of clay, but the clay would not be food. Speaking broadly, nothing serves us as food which has not had life of some sort. We cannot eat dead things; we can only eat what has had life. Our food is composed of many substances, such as carbon, or charcoal, lime, and nitrogen; but we cannot eat these substances in their simple form; we can only eat them when they have been taken up into living forms.

Or, to put this in another shape, there is a certain relation, or correspondence, between us and our food. Only things that have had life can be food for living beings.

And to apply this to spiritual things, only Christ's life, the living forces of His nature, can be the food of our souls. And now I want you to notice the distinction between the Body of Christ, and His Blood.

This distinction extends to the outward visible sign; we receive not only bread, but also wine. Bread strengthens us, wine refreshes us.

So the "Body" of Christ is His life considered as our support, and the "Blood" of Christ is His life considered as our refreshment.

There is one other thing that I should like to point out, if you can keep up your attention for a minute or two longer.

The bread and wine, which are the elements in the Lord's Supper, are not only things that have had life, but things which have had a manifold life. Many grains of wheat have been ground up to make the bread; many grapes have been crushed to make the wine.

And this ought to remind us that we are not to make the receiving of the Holy Communion a selfish thing, since the very elements of which we partake testify that Christ is not our Life only, but the Life of all.

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So S. Paul says, We, who are many, are one bread, one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1 Cor. x. 17, R.V.). As to the manner in which the Body and Blood of Christ are the food of our souls; how they strengthen and refresh our souls, we cannot know; nor is it likely that we should know, since we cannot tell even how it is that our natural food supports our natural life.

We can only fall back upon the Lord's own words: “He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my Flesh

is meat indeed, and my Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me" (S. John vi. 56, 57, R.V.).

What is required of them who come to the Lord's Supper? To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead a new life, have a lively (or living) faith in God's mercy in Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death, and be in charity with all men.

You

OU will notice that this statement, in its main outlines, is very like the statement of what is required of persons to be baptized.

In both, Repentance and Faith are the main requirements. I hope you remember something of what I told you about the nature of repentance and faith. I will only repeat one thing which I then said, and that is, that there is nothing arbitrary in these requirements. They are necessary in the very nature of things. It could not possibly be otherwise.

The main difference between what is required of those who come to the Lord's Supper, and what is required of those who come to be baptized, is, that in the case of intending communicants, more stress is laid upon the personal possession of repentance and faith.

The intending communicants are directed to examine themselves.

This is only an echo of the injunction of S. Paul to the Corinthian Christians: "But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the Bread, and drink of the Cup" (1 Cor. xi, 28, R.V.). We are not to take for granted that we have repentance; we must look into ourselves, and see that we have the fruits and evidences of repentance. Repentance is not merely a sentimental regret. It is not enough to be sorry for sin. Repentance is to forsake sin. It is not enough to have a feeble wish to do better, we must steadfastly purpose to lead a new life.

Neither are we to take for granted that we have faith. We are to examine ourselves and find out whether our faith is a living faith.

It is not enough that we used to have, or once had, a living faith. Faith, if it is to live, must be kept alive. And we must ask ourselves whether we have kept it alive, and