the name of "the breaking of bread;" and that this breaking was for the purpose, not only of signifying the Death of Christ, but also of distribution among the communicants, is abundantly clear from the words of St. Paul: "For we being many are one bread," (one cake or loaf,) "and one body; for we are all partakers of that one loaf."-In other words, the sacred loaf, which represents and conveys the Body of Christ, is one; and a portion of it, after it has been broken, passes into each communicant, who thereupon is made one with the Body of Christ or Christian Society. If the Bread be not really broken and distributed, we lose altogether the significance of our having fellowship one with another in this Sacrament, in the one Body of Christ. See how the trifling with the little details of a Divine Institution may entirely obscure the great spiritual lessons, which are to be drawn from it, and obliterate one of its leading features. For that the Lord's Supper is a Sacrament not only of Christ's Death, but of the fellowship which in Him we have one with another, is certainly one of its most interesting and important aspects. One loaf has been broken among all of us,-partaken of by all,-and has been the means, if faithfully partaken of, of incorporating us into the one Body of Christ. What circumstance can teach us more forcibly how utterly out of harmony we are with the spirit of the Ordinance, if there rankle at the bottom of our hearts a single particle of ill-will, or hostility towards any of our brethren? What can teach us more forcibly that a real participation of the Body and Blood of Christ will be attended with an increase of love to our brethren, with a greater forbearance towards their infirmities, and a more tender and unselfish consideration for their feelings and prejudices? And indeed by considering how far we have advanced in brotherly kindness and charity, we may test not only our growth in grace generally, but also the amount of profit which we have derived from this blessed Sacra

It is a very practical and intelligible test; and one which gives us perhaps fewer openings than

any other to deceive ourselves. We may be quite sure that Divine Love is not really strengthened and matured within us, unless brotherly love has made a corresponding growth. For these are two twins, which have a living ligament passing from the heart of the one to that of the other, -a ligament which gives them a sympathy, so that the health or decline of the one is instantly felt by the other. "He that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?"

Apply this test to your own heart faithfully, before and after communicating; and you shall ascertain both how far you are a worthy recipient, and how far also you have benefited by this inestimable privilege, and turned it to good account in the Spiritual Life.

CHAPTER VI

THE DOCTRINE OF THE EUCHARIST

"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 Christ"-1 COR. X. 16

T

THE history of the Apostolic Church, as given in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles, may be said to be a model and miniature of all that was to come after in Ecclesiastical History. In the Apostles and their associates we find patterns of the different characters and endowments of Christians down to the end of time; after ages only offering feebler repetitions of what those holy men were. In St. John, the devout and meditative Christian; in St. Paul, the extensively active and influential Christian; in St. Peter, the enthusiastic Christian, with strong will and abilities for administration; in Barnabas, the quiet and gentle Christian, whose voice soothes the mourner; in Apollos, the eloquent teacher, who kindles with his lofty theme: in Timotheus, the

disciple who has imbibed the principles of true religion from a mother's precepts, combined with a mother's prayers, are respectively exemplified. And as it is with characters, so it is with heresies, contradictions, controversies, and movements in the Church. A little model and miniature of all these movements (very perfect and exact, as models and miniatures are) is to be found in the primitive Church while yet it was under inspired government. There was a Rationalistic party in the Sadducees. And there was a Romanizing party,—Romanizing, I mean, in tendency and spirit, before the Church of Rome was ever heard of,-among the Pharisees. There was a strong Antinomian party, denounced and censured by St. James. There was a strong party who stood up for justification by human. merit, demolished a thousand times over by St. Paul, so that one would think (although the event has not justified the anticipation) that they never could have held up their heads again. There was a philosophical party, called Gnostics, who adulterated the faith by spurious admixtures of Rabbinical and Oriental speculations, against whom St. John, the great speculative divine of Inspiration, directed all his strength. And, finally, there was in those days the free-grace and free-will controversy (called in these modern times Calvinistic and Arminian), which the holy Apostles left without any logical adjustment, making statements which looked in both directions: so that the result of all Biblical research on that moot point has been well and tersely summed up thus: "Calvinists and Arminians are both right and both wrong; they are right in what they assert, and wrong in what they deny."

And was there any controversy on the subject of the Eucharist in the time of the Apostles, as there has been much since? No formal controversy on this great subject even showed its head,-much less came to a crisis, till the eighth century of the Christian Era. But still there were the elements of Eucharist controversy in the Apostolic Church, though they were not

for a long time to receive their full development. Modern views on the subject err either in excess or defect; the Lord's Supper is either unduly exalted (which is the tendency of all Roman and Romanizing Theology), or unduly depreciated (which is the error of the Protestant sects). Now it is clear that the last of these errors found itself represented in the Corinthian Church in the time of St. Paul. Their flagrant desecration of the Ordinance could not possibly have consisted with any high view of it. Those who snatched their own portion of the common Supper, before the communicants had fully assembled, and the entertainment had been formally opened, could not have regarded with much reverence the sacred Institution, which was to form part of that supper. They looked upon it too familiarly (though one would think the very solemn words of Institution would have acted as a sufficient safeguard against desecration); the Ordinance had dropped in their estimation to the level of a very common thing. Accordingly, St. Paul sets himself to put it on a higher level in their minds, that it might be out of reach of their desecration. For before he enters on their abuse of it in the eleventh Chapter, he expounds, in another connexion, the nature and dignity of the Sacrament in the tenth: "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 Christ?" And still in the eleventh Chapter he harps on the dignity of the Ordinance he speaks of their eating and drinking unworthily, in consequence of their not discerning the Lord's Body, i.e. not appreciating the mystery of it, not distinguishing between it and a common meal. And the guilt incurred by an irreverent and undiscriminating reception is painted by him in these frightfully strong colours: "Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." And he points out that this guilt would be, and in their case had been, followed by certain temporal judgments of God upon

the offenders, sickness and death, which judgments, he says, were corrective, and designed to bring the Corinthian Church to a right mind. "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh " (the word "damnation" in our Authorized Version, which has given rise to so much false alarm, is well known by all scholars to be a thoroughly inaccurate rendering) "a judgment unto himself." The kind of judgment is immediately explained in the verse next following: "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep" (i.e. sleep in death). And the merciful design of the judgment (which was in order to avert eternal condemnation) is subjoined: "But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned" (here the word condemned" is perfectly right) "with the world.”

Now this manner of writing on the part of St. Paul, -the Apostle, generally speaking, not so much of Ordinance as of faith, gave the first impulse to a reaction in the minds of Christians on the subject of the Lord's Supper. His Apostolic word had disentangled the Eucharist from the supper with which it was once associated; had placed it in a shrine of its own; had declared its true nature as a participation of the Body and Blood of Christ; and had pointed out the sad consequences of desecrating it. From that time forth, there arose in the Church a strong tendency to exalt the Eucharist, which, like most strong tendencies, became, as time went on, grossly exaggerated, and resulted at length in what may be rightly called the deification of the Ordinance. Thus in the Apostolic Church we find a party which irreverently derogated. from the dignity of the Lord's Supper; and we also find, in St. Paul's censure of this party, the origin of the tendency which resulted in an undue exaltation of it. For indeed, in that Apostolic Church, as I have said, were the seeds of all future Ecclesiastical History.

It will be well, in endeavouring to expound the Scriptural and Church of England doctrine of the