of the so-called sacrament, that John Calvin declared was an ancient and beneficial custom, which he earnestly wished might be continued in the Church (Institutes, bk. iv. ch. xix. 12, 13), and which Dr. Charles Hodge declared to be "retained in some form or other in all Protestant churches" (Princeton Review, 1855, p. 445). As far as we misunderstand or ignore this beautiful ordinance of confirmation we abandon to the mercies of our Baptist brethren the whole rational ground and reason of infant baptism.

[IV.] Mar Johanan, the Nestorian bishop, when solicited by High-Churchmen to separate himself from non-prelatical Christians, exclaimed, "All who love the Lord Jesus Christ are my brethren." Above all the narrow, meagre patriotism on earth is the large, free ecumenical patriotism of those who embrace in their love and fealty the whole body of the baptized. All who are baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, recognizing the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, the incarnation of the Son and his priestly sacrifice, whether they be Greeks or Arminians or Romanists or Lutherans or Calvinists, or the simple souls who do not know what to call themselves, are our brethren. Baptism is our common countersign. It is the common rallying standard at the head of our several columns. It is our common battle-flag, which we carry forward across the enemy's line and nail aloft in the heights crowned with victory. We will be confined in our love and allegiance by no party lines. We follow and serve. one common Lord. Hence there can be only "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," and hence only one indivisible, inalienable "sacramental host of God's elect."

LECTURE XVII.

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

WE now enter the innermost Most Holy Place of the Christian temple. We approach the sacred altar on which lies quivering before our eyes the bleeding heart of Christ. We come to the most private and personal meeting-place, appointed rendezvous, between our Lord and his beloved. We are here to have discovered to us the Christian mysteries which have been carefully reserved for hundreds of generations for the initiated alone. To all else the wide world is invited without limit and without condition, but to this sacred rite the covenanted brethren alone. It marks the central, vital epochs in the believer's life and intercourse with heaven. It marks hence the successive stages of his pilgrimage along the King's highway toward the New Jerusalem and the banqueting-halls of our Father's house. It is consequently the central ordinance in the whole circle of church-life, around which all the other ministries of the Church revolve, and through which we have exhibited to the outward senses the indwelling of God with men, the real presence and objective reality of "the holy catholic Church," and the reality and power of "the communion of saints." It will be our place to rehearse succinctly its biblical and ecclesiastical names, its genesis, its matter

(including its elements and sacramental actions), its design and significance and effect, and its future promise.

I. (1st) It is called by the apostle (1 Cor. 11:20), and after him by the Christian Church in all ages, by the familiar and touching title, the "Lord's Supper." The Greek word dɛiлvov, here translated "Supper,” properly designated what we would now call the dinner. or the principal meal of the Jews, taken by them and by all Eastern nations generally late in the afternoon or in the evening of the day. The sacrament inherited this name by natural descent, because our Saviour instituted it while he and his disciples were partaking of this meal. It is called the Lord's Supper because it was instituted at his last supper with his disciples to commemorate his death and to signify and to convey and seal his grace.

(2d) It is also called by the apostle (1 Cor. 10: 21), and after him by all Christians, "the Lord's Table." The word "Table" here of course stands for the gracious provisions spread upon it and for the entire service connected with it. It is the "table" to which the precious Lord invites his guests and at which he himself graciously presides.

(3d) It is called also by the apostle the "Cup of Blessing" (1 Cor. 10:16), the cup blessed by Christ, and so consecrated to be the vehicle of supernatural blessings graciously conveyed to men worthily partaking. In Christ's name and in virtue of his commission the ordained minister now "blesses "-i. e. invokes the divine blessing upon these elements that they may be made the instruments of conveying this blessing to the worthy partakers of them.

(4th) This service is also called "the Communion"

(1 Cor. 10:16). This and "the Sacrament" are the titles most commonly given by the way of eminence to this sacred rite. The act of partaking of these holy symbols, if intelligent and sincere, involves the most real and intimate communion-i. e. a mutual giving and receiving— between Christ, the Head and the Heart of the Church, and his living members, and consequently a vital interchange of influences between all the living members of that spiritual body of which he is the Head.

(5th) The evangelist Luke also calls this sacrament on one occasion (Acts 2:42) "the Breaking of Bread,” because the symbolical action of the officiating minister in breaking the bread signifies the precious truths that the flesh of Christ, torn for us sacrificially, purchased our redemption, and that, as we all partake of one bread as we receive one Christ, so we shall all be one in the most vital and spiritual sense in time and eternally.

(6th) This holy ordinance is also called by our Lutheran brethren, in their symbolical books, “sacramentum altaris," the sacrament of the altar, because they have accepted so far the Romish tradition, retained also in the Anglican Church, which has transformed the "communion table" of Christ and his apostles into an altar. This of course the Lutherans, who are strict Protestants, use only in a figurative, commemorative sense, because this sacrament is in no sense an atoning sacrifice, except in so far as it is the commemoration of the one all-perfect, allsatisfying sacrifice which our Lord offered in his own body on the cross eighteen hundred years ago.

(7th) In the ancient Church, as among some of the moderns, agapæ or "love feasts" were held, at which all the Christians of a community assembled and feasted

in common. At these the consecrated elements of the Holy Supper were distributed and received. The name of the feast thus came to be applied to the sacrament which was the crown of the whole.

(8th) It was called in the ancient Church often "a sacrifice, an offering." But it was never understood to be a real sin-expiating sacrifice in itself. It was given this name, since so sadly perverted in the Roman Church, only because it represents commemoratively the one finished sacrifice of Christ, and because it is connected with the spiritual sacrifices of the worshiper's heart and life (Heb. 13: 15), and with an accompanying collection and oblation of alms for the poor of the church.

(9th) One of the most beautiful of all the designations this sacred service has borne is that of "Eucharist," from the Greek word exaprotéw, to give thanks. To "ask a blessing" upon our food and "to give thanks" for it have always been intimately associated in Christian practice. According to Matt. 26: 26, 27, our Lord is represented as "having blessed" the bread, and then as having given thanks when presenting the cup. It is both "the cup of blessing" upon which we have invoked the divine blessing (1 Cor. 10:16), the cup of thanksgiving, "the cup of salvation," which we take in the house of the Lord, calling upon his name and giving thanks for his salvation (Ps. 116: 13).

II. Its Genesis.-This is essentially and immediately the personal sacrament of Jesus Christ. It was immediately instituted by him in person while partaking of the last supper with his disciples. It immediately commemorates his death. It is always administered by his direct authority. The worthy communicant immediately