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 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October, i8g4. 
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THE 
 
 COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 BY 
 
 NEHEMIAH ADAMS, D. D., 
 
 PASTOR OF ESSEX STREET CHURCH, BOSTON. 
 
 \\^^ 
 
 
 ^>» 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. 
 
 CLEVELAND, OHIO: 
 
 JEWETT, PROCTOR AND WORTIIINGTON. 
 
 NEW YORK : SHELDON, LAMPORT AND BLAKEMAN. 
 
 1856. 
 
 >^ OW THB ' 
 
Jb' 
 
 R^ 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1855, by 
 
 JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY, 
 
 In the Clerk's office of tiie District Court of tlie District of Massachusetts. 
 
 C A M IJ R I D G Y. : 
 
 ALLEN AND FARNHAM, STERKOTyPEUS AM) PRINTERS. 
 
mTKODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Viewing with deep interest, from time to time, those 
 who leave the House of Worship when the Lord's Sup- 
 per is to be administered, the thought has presented it- 
 self of preparing a volume which might, in some parts 
 of it, be interesting as well as useful to them. 
 
 While, therefore, this book is also designed for Com- 
 municants, they to whom it owes its origin are kept in 
 mind. 
 
 And while the book, as a Communicant's companion, 
 does not follow the useful, ordinary method of a series 
 of questions addressed to the communicant, it is hoped 
 and believed that it will no less lead him to examine 
 himself, and so to eat of that bread and drink of that 
 cup. 
 
 (V) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. CHRIST DIED FOR US 1 
 
 n. ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS 14 
 
 III. MIRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXION 33 
 
 IV. THE THREE CROSSES 51 
 
 V. MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST 65 
 
 YI. HE SHOWED THEM HIS HANDS AND HIS FEET . . 77 
 
 VII. COMMUNION WITH CHRIST 89 
 
 Vin. SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE . . . • 106 
 
 IX. THE WALK TO EMMAUS 1"^2 
 
 X. THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME . . . 140 
 
 XL THE SACRAMENTAL HYMN 160 
 
 XII. THE FIRST AND LAST EXODUS 178 
 
 XIII. EXPOSTULATION 197 
 
 (vii) 
 
^ 07 THE ^ 
 
 L 
 
 CHRIST DIED FOR US. 
 
 "But god commexdeth his love toavard us, in that, while wi 
 
 WERE YET SINXERS, CHRIST DIED FOR US." 
 
 We would sooner do and suffer any thing for others- 
 than die for them. When men, in their love and com- 
 passion for others, find that they are likely to perish 
 themselves, they generally stop, then flee from the burn- 
 ing room, or shake off the drowning man, who by his 
 grasp would prevent them from saving their own lives. 
 Parents, husbands, wives, sometimes throw themselves 
 into the arms of death impulsively, when they see a 
 child or companion perishing, but a deliberate surrender 
 of one's self to die to save another, is extremely rare. 
 A man who is merely without reproach, a negative 
 character, one with nothing strikingly good about him, 
 can hardly awaken interest enough in others to die for 
 him deliberately, leaving out of view sudden, impulsive 
 acts of heroism. Scarcely for a righteous man would 
 one die, yet, peradventure, for a man with something 
 
 1 (1) 
 
2 THE O?\QrrST0>' SABBATH. 
 
 positively iDteresting about him, for a sood man, 
 some would even dare to die. Still it is a rare ease. 
 Men would say, T have a family, or, I am under ohliga- 
 tious to others. K the best and most useful man were 
 ready to die, and the question were asked. Who will 
 die and save his life ? which of ns would be persuaded 
 to make the substitution ? If. w^eary of the world, one 
 should consent, his motive would prevent his act from 
 being an exception to what has now been said. 
 
 That w^e mav see in what lieht we res^ird the substi- 
 tution of one life for other lives, we will imagine the 
 following case. 
 
 A crew, escaped from a wreck on the high seas, have 
 filled their boat to the water's edge, and oc-cupied every 
 possible place in it. Another survivor of the wreck 
 swims up. boldly lays hold of the stem, and begs to be 
 taken in. This unhappy being is yourself. With 
 streaming eves and voices choked with grief, they say, 
 There is no room for you. Benumbed with holding on, 
 you pereeive that soon you must resign yourself to a 
 waterv srave. Then the sorrows of death compass you, 
 and the pains of hell get hold upon you. One of the 
 company feels unutterable compassion, and says to the 
 rest, He shall take my place. What reason does he 
 2[ive ? That man. he says, I have reason to believe, is 
 not prepared to die. My peace is made with God. If 
 I save him from death, it may subdue him to repent- 
 ancCj and save his soul. The company refusing to 
 
CHRIST DIED FOR US. d 
 
 take any responsibility in the case, the man leaps into 
 the sea. He is irrecoverably gone. His place being 
 vacant, you are drawn out of the sea, placed in his seat, 
 and reach your home. 
 
 That man died for you. He bid farewell to all which 
 was dt'ar to him ; in full health and strength he met 
 the anguish of dying, gave up his body without a 
 burial to be devoured in the deep, or wander in the cur- 
 rents of the ocean, or bleach on a strange shore. He 
 chose to appear before his God, his probation termina- 
 ted, to meet his unalterable doom. We will raise no 
 question about the right of an individual thus to sacri- 
 fice his life. ^A"e are concerned now only with his act 
 and his motive. His motive was purely benevolent. 
 He saved your life to save your soul You were a 
 stranger to him till you sailed together, and he was 
 under no obligations to you of any kind. 
 
 As you sat in your peaceful home, or lay on your 
 bed, and oftentimes in your purneys, in your business, 
 in all companies, the memory of that friend would affect 
 you deeply. At the evening lamp, or in the night 
 watches, as the blast pressed against your windov\^, and 
 your thoughts were directed to the sea and its perils, 
 you would remember, A man died for me. The cup of 
 suffering he took from my hand, and drank it himself. 
 He pressed his way before me, and met the king of ter- 
 rors, and turned the monster from me. I live by his 
 death. All that I have is due to his love ; it has been 
 
4 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 the means of my conversion to God ; my eternity in 
 heaven, under God, I owe to him. 
 
 What may we suppose you would do to signify your 
 ; gratitude? Could you learn that there were relatives 
 of his to whom you could show kindness, you would 
 find it a relief to your feelings if you might help them. 
 The family name of the man, wherever you should 
 meet it, would always thrill you. When the anniver- 
 sary of your rescue came round, no day in the year 
 would bring with it such thoughts and feelings. Ever- 
 more this would be the impression upon your mind, A 
 man died for me. To the grave of the ocean he volun- 
 tarily and deliberately went down, and saved me from 
 death and hell. 
 
 How would it be if others with you were saved by 
 this man ? Would that lessen your love, and sense of 
 obligation ? Let us consider whether it would be so. 
 
 The boat, containing yourself and the whole of the 
 ■ crew, we will now suppose, was accidentally left fast- 
 ened to the wreck. The end of the rope which is in 
 the boat cannot by any means be severed ; the wreck is 
 settling and will soon go down, carrying with it all 
 your company ; they see that the end of the rope at- 
 tached to the wreck can be cast off, but cannot be 
 reached by the arm alone ; some one must lift an in- 
 strument and push it off; the wind is blowing a gale, 
 from the wreck ; you have no oars, and the man who 
 should push the rope from its fastening into the water 
 
CHRIST DIED FOR US. O 
 
 must give up all expectation of returning to the boat, 
 and will see it drift away, leaving him to die. Could 
 he grasp the rope as it falls, he would be saved ; but 
 this is impossible. Time is wasting ; the wreck gives 
 signs of sinking, when one of the company says, I will 
 give my life for you all. He refuses the proposal to 
 cast lots, — he cannot be restrained ; and then, with an 
 unutterable struggle of feeling on your part, you let him 
 make the sacrifice. As he shakes hands with you sev- 
 erally, and that word, farewell, comes from you each in 
 turn and all together, confused with loud weeping, do 
 you think that this mean thought would rise in your 
 mind : After all, I am indebted to him only my propor- 
 tional share with the rest ? No ; if you had the heart 
 of a human being, you would embrace him, saying, O 
 my brother, will you die for me ? The work is done, 
 and as you drift away from him, leaving him on his 
 coffin of a wreck, waving with his hand his farewell, 
 and you finally see him engulphed and disappear, say, 
 w^ould you be willing to give up any part of your obli- 
 gation, that it might be borne by another ? Your con- 
 stant declaration would be. He died for me. 
 
 All that has now been imagined has, for substance, 
 but in an infinitely higher sense, been done for each 
 of us. 
 
 Many think of Christ, and of their obligations to him, 
 as they do, for example, of the services rendered by the 
 patriots of their country to the whole people, but do not 
 
 1* 
 
6 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 think of him as bestowing favor on them in particular, 
 or expressly for each of them. This is erroneoos, for it 
 is the excellent glory and praise of Christ as a Saviour, 
 that he is to every individual all which he can be to the 
 race, and that every one can with as perfect truth ap- 
 propriate his whole redeeming work, his birth, his suf- 
 ferings, his death, his intercession, as though he alone 
 were to be saved by Christ. 
 
 We admit that he died for all. " Behold the lamb 
 of God which taketh away the sin of the world." 
 These words, not to quote others like them, teach us 
 that one human being is at least as much included in 
 the benefits intended by the Saviour's death as another. 
 God is no less the creator of each of us in being the 
 parent of the whole human family. 
 
 But the death of Christ is indispensably necessary 
 for our individual salvation. Repentance is a personal 
 thing, so is faith ; and the Saviour with his whole aton- 
 ing work is as necessary to save one soul as the souls 
 of a race. For the same principle of Divine government 
 would be violated in saving one soul without an atone- 
 ment, as in saving all ; and the converse is true, to save 
 one soul involves the whole great principle of atone- 
 ment. Were any one of us the only sinner of the race, 
 to save him without a sacrifice for sin would as truly 
 violate the rule of justice as to save a world. A case 
 at law involving a very small sum, may call up the fun- 
 (damental questions of jurisprudence. 
 
CHRIST DIED FOR US. 7 
 
 Christ himself, it may be noticed, very frequently 
 speaks in the singular number when he refers to the sal- 
 vation of men. " Him that cometh unto me I will in 
 nowise cast out." " And I will raise him up at the 
 last day." " Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; 
 if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will 
 come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me." 
 " If a man love me, he will keep my words ; and my 
 Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and 
 make our abode with him." This regard for the indi- 
 vidual is strikingly shown when the seventy returned 
 wdth joy, and said that even the devils were subject 
 unto them in the Saviour's name. The Saviour entered 
 into their feelings : " 1 beheld Satan fall as lightning 
 from heaven." He proceeded to give them further do- 
 minion over the powers of evil. But he concludes by 
 saying, " Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that the 
 spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because 
 your names are written in heaven." Neither associated 
 privileges and honors, nor official greatness and success, 
 he seems to say, are to be compared with the relation 
 of the individual soul to God. 
 
 Repentance and faith are strictly personal. More- 
 over, each soul needs the w^hole of Christ and his sacri- 
 fice as the ground of justification. Had Christ died 
 for one lost soul, he would not be its Saviour in any 
 other degree than he must now be to each of us if we 
 are saved. If justified at the bar of Godjit will be 
 
 i^ 
 
 -uisiv 
 
8 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 because it can be demanded on behalf of each, " Who 
 is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died." 
 
 Indeed, Christ bestows his benefits as a personal 
 Saviour and friend. When a man sees himself to be a 
 sinner, and the bitter cry is wrung from him, " Have 
 mercy upon me, O God," when he sees that he ought to 
 be punished, and wonders at Divine forbearance, it is 
 not enough for him that Christ died for men in general ; 
 he seeks a personal interest in Christ, and his effort is to 
 persuade himself that this can be attained. Perhaps 
 there is no such joy and satisfaction known to the 
 human breast as this confidence, Christ is my Sav- 
 iour, making us say with Thomas, " My Lord and 
 my God." In the extremity of life, there is a face of a 
 friend, a hand, w^iich the dying man cannot spare a 
 moment from his side. We need then the most inti- 
 mate personal love and kindness. Thus the dying think 
 of Christ and of their personal relation to him, however 
 they may have si-ighted and forgotten him in life and 
 health. It was so with Voltaire, and Hume, and Paine, 
 who each made personal address to Christ in the agony 
 of dying. The whole may be summed up in these most 
 encouraging words of Jesus, "And this is the will of 
 him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, 
 and believeth on him, may have everlasting life ; and I 
 will raise him up at the last day." If on that day, an 
 angel should challenge our personal right of admission 
 to heaven, we should rest it on this, Christ died for 
 
CHRIST DIED FOR US. V 
 
 me, in every sense in which he died for the world, and 
 is as truly my Redeemer through faith in him as he is 
 the Saviour of the world. 
 
 Come, then, my soul, if this be true, and if the 
 persuasion is taking possession of you that you have in 
 Christ a personal Saviour, who as truly died for you as 
 though you were the only object of his death, come, 
 and let us look upon him as he lays down his life for 
 you. If he died for you, all which was necessary to 
 accomplish his death was for you. He is coming out 
 of the gate of Jerusalem, bearing a burden on his shoul- 
 der ; it has the form of a cross, it is a gibbet, it is his 
 dying bed. He cannot lift and bear it any longer; his 
 strength is gone ; they change it to the shoulder of 
 another man. I thank thee, Simon ; that is for me. 
 The cross is extended on the earth ; his form is stretch- 
 ed upon it, I hear the blow of the hammer as each 
 hand and the feet are nailed to the wood ; this is for 
 me. They have lifted up the Son of man, for me. 
 Behold, they mock him, and in many ways insult him, 
 and he bears it patiently, for me. It were enough to die 
 forme in a peaceful chamber; the king of terrors is 
 terrible enough in the quiet room witli sympathizing 
 friends about the bed. What a dying bed is the cross, 
 with fiends about it in human shape I all this was for 
 me. The sun grows dark, the earth quakes, the rocks 
 rend, the graves open, the dead arise, the vail of the 
 distant temple is rent in sunder without hands, and, " it 
 is finished," — my redemption. 
 
10 THE COMMUXIOX SABBATH. . 
 
 " And was tlie ransom paid ? It was ; and paid, 
 .» (What can exalt its bounty more !) — for thee." 
 
 As though I had taken a lamb from my flock and offered 
 it in sacrifice for my sins, so has Jesus died for me. 
 For this he came from heaven ; for this he was God 
 manifest in the flesh ; for this he expired, to save me. 
 The last thing which men will do, or can do, for another, 
 Jesus has done for me, and now, if not deceived, I am 
 going to heaven to claim that for no one, nor for the 
 world, did Jesus die more truly than for me. Ye multi- 
 tude which no man can number, I hear your great an- 
 them ; praise him as you will ; I am coming, a chief 
 sinner, yet obscure, and less than the least of saints, to 
 take your mighty praise, offer it to Christ, and tell him 
 that you have not expressed one half of my obligations 
 to him, and that his love to me " can ne'er be told." I 
 will take Abel's hymn of praise, the first ascription to 
 redeeming love in heaven, and with all its accumu- 
 lated strength of love and joy, I will offer it merely as 
 the pitch of my song, and tell my Saviour, as I fail and 
 faint beneath the praise, that " his love can ne'er be 
 told." Does a distant, new world, ages hence, desire 
 to see a redeemed sinner, an object of the Saviour's 
 love, one who owes as much as any other to that love ? 
 Here am I, send me. At a period so remote that figures 
 convey no intelligible idea of it, is it asked whether it 
 be true, as frequently expressed on earth, that the re- 
 demption of one immortal soul, taking into view its 
 
CHRIST DIED FOR US. 11 
 
 boundless capacity of joy and suffering, were itself 
 enough to warrant all that Christ did and suffered? 
 Every one who reads these lines would then be as eli- 
 gible as any other to be offered in proof of this stupen- 
 dous truth. 
 
 The personal relation and obligation of each soul to 
 Christ, when fully admitted, has great power to give in- 
 dividuality and strength of character to piety, which 
 loses much when we lose ourselves in the great multi- 
 tude. Moreover, instead of making us exclusive or 
 solitary in our religious feelings, it is sure to expand 
 our love for all men when one feels how Christ has 
 loved him and died for him, and then that every other 
 human being is as truly the object of the Saviour's 
 sufferings and death as he. Toward every one for 
 whom Christ has done all which he has done for him, 
 a Christian feels, at times, great love and desire, and 
 has no rest till every one knows and feels the love which 
 Christ has for him. 
 
 When, therefore, the bread is given into my hand, 
 and it is said. Take, eat; this is my body which is 
 broken for you, and, with like assurance, the cup is 
 placed at my lips, let no thought of those around me, 
 nor of the world at large, divide the sufferings of Christ 
 between them and me, but let me cleave to this truth, 
 that he is my personal Saviour. Let me hold converse 
 with him in this persuasion ; have covenant transac- 
 tions with him, and regard him as though he were a 
 
12 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 .private benefactor, who, having sacrificed himself for 
 me, had been restored to life. What inseparable union 
 would I feel to a fellow being, in such circumstances. 
 Then, what a foundation there is for love and attach- 
 ment between me and Christ, greater already on his 
 part than it can ever be on mine, and drawing me to 
 constant communion and perfect consecration. 
 
 The simple object of the Supper is. Remembrance of 
 him, promoted by symbols of his death. I go there to 
 meet him, and to speak with him of his decease which 
 he accomplished at Jerusalem. I shall not hear his 
 voice, nor see his shape, nor do I expect impressions to 
 be made on my mind of his sensible presence ; yet 
 there will not be a word in my tongue, nor a thought 
 in my heart, " but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it alto- 
 gether." Believing him to be at my side, I shall tell 
 him every thing which interests me, ask counsel, lay in 
 his hands all that concerns me for the time to come, and, 
 without seeking a response from him, feel that he has 
 heard, that he fully understands, and will consider it, 
 and in his own time and manner will do for me all that 
 I need. I will recount to him my sins, all the circum- 
 stances of them, all their aggravations, and feel it a 
 relief that when my heart condemns me. He is greater 
 than my heart and knoweth all things. 1 will be sure 
 to speak to him of his mercies, the pecuhar features of 
 each blessing, how considerate, how forbearing, how 
 delicate, how generous, how touching, how perfectly 
 
CHRIST DIED FOR US. 13 
 
 suited to my wishes. Anticipating events of deep im- 
 portance, I will say, If thy presence go not with me, 
 carry me not up hence. No response, did I say, is to 
 be looked for ? As I sit and speak to him and weep at 
 his side, there comes a gift, and this message, from him: 
 " This is my body which is broken for you ; this cup is 
 the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you." 
 I ask no more. Let him say no more, for how shall he 
 not, with this, also freely give me all things ? 
 
 If you, reader, are one who leaves the Saviour and his 
 table behind you, know that Christ suffered nothing for 
 another more than he did for you. As you go home, 
 he will walk by your side ; as you sit and think of the 
 scene which you have left behind, he will sit with you ; 
 and if you choose to be forgetful and use means to 
 banish serious thoughts from your mind, still remember 
 this, There is no one at that table who is more properly 
 there than you would be, no one for wh(|?n Christ died 
 more than for you, and there is no one who has been 
 or can be more welcome. Wherever you go, Christ 
 died for you. Whatever you do, Christ died for you. 
 If you are saved, Christ died for you. If you are lost, 
 Christ died for you. How long will you turn away 
 from that table which infinite love has spread for no 
 human being more truly than for you ? 
 
II. 
 
 ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS. 
 
 "But this man after he had ofeered one sacrifice for sins, 
 forever sat down on the right hand of god." 
 
 It was ordained from the beginning that life must be 
 paid for sin. This was the reason for appointing the 
 blood of victims as the emblem of atonement. While 
 there is no value in the blood of animals, as there is 
 in their skins and flesh, the Scripture says, The life is 
 in the blood, and the appointment of blood, therefore, 
 to make atonement, signified that life must be paid for 
 sin. 
 
 It would seem that men would have sinned but sel- 
 dom, knowing what they must do to atone for it. 
 Having trespassed against God, and being penitent on 
 account of it, something yet remains for the sinner to 
 do. He goes to his flock and takes a lamb or goat, or 
 to his herds and selects a young bullock, binds him, and 
 brings him to the priest. As he passes along, the soul 
 of the sinner is melted within him. This animal, he 
 
 (14) 
 
ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS. 15 
 
 says, is not to die in order to feed me and mine ; its in- 
 nocent head is to bear my sin ; the knife will demand 
 its blood because I have done wrong. A creature about 
 to be sacrificed must have excited strong emotions in 
 one who, for his own sin, was leading the innocent vic- 
 tim to be put to death. The victim was required to be 
 the best of its kind, without blemish, and was therefore 
 in itself an interesting object. Its fear, its struggles, its 
 blood, its moan, its eye fixed in death, one might sup- 
 pose, would prevent the repetition of a sin, and restrain 
 from other transgressions ; for the thought. If I sin, one 
 must die for me, a life must go for my life, would have 
 the effect, if any thing could do it, to keep one back 
 from presumptuous sins. Any thing but sin could be 
 prevented by such considerations, and any thing but the 
 heart which is desperately wicked would yield to such 
 a motive. 
 
 In addition to special and private sacrifices for sins, 
 there was a yearly day of atonement, when the high-priest, 
 with imposing ceremonies, entered alone into the holy of 
 holies, not without blood, which he offered for himself and 
 for the errors of the people. Thus for four thousand 
 years the animal tribes, by their appointed representa- 
 tives, paid for man the forfeiture of his life by their 
 own. For thousands of years the priests of God stood 
 daily offering the same sacrifices, with their impressive 
 ordinances of the scape-goat, the living bird dipped in 
 its fellow's blood and set free, the running brook, the 
 
,16 THE CO^niUXIOX SABBATH. 
 
 ashes of an heifer, and the sprinkling of the book of the 
 law with blood, all holding forth the same truths. The 
 wages of sin is death ; and. Without shedding of blood, 
 is no remission. 
 
 But we are told that there is no inherent value or ef- 
 'ficacy in the death of a bullock, or lamb, or bird, to 
 atone for sin. Expressly does the Scripture assert this : 
 " It is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats 
 should take away sin." What satisfaction, or recom- 
 ;pence, for the moral turpitude of stealing, or lying, or 
 uncleanness, could it be, to offer up an animal to death ? 
 Does the price of a bullock express the amount of guilt 
 in any sin ? Or, if sin, as w^e are taught, makes the sin- 
 ner deserving of eternal death, is the life of an animal 
 any proper substitution for the death of the soul? 
 
 Nothing is more clearly, and in a more forcible and 
 'impressive manner, revealed in Scripture than this : 
 The sufferings and death of Christ, prefigured by an- 
 'cient sacrifices, are an atonement for sin. Those sacri- 
 fices, we are informed, meant Christ, they pointed to 
 Christ. A question is frequently raised here. Whether 
 the people had any proper knowledge of Christ, or so 
 much as a distinct reference to him and his sufferings, 
 in their sacrifices ? The belief that they had no such 
 reference, prevents some from viewing the ancient sacri- 
 fices as types of Christ, or the sufferings and death of 
 Christ as having any real connection with them ; and 
 the comparison of them to those sacrifices is taken as 
 allegorical. 
 
ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS. 17 
 
 There is an illustration of the truth on this point, 
 which, if properly guarded, and understood with limita- 
 tions, will help us to resolve this difficulty. The objec- 
 tion is, that the mass of the people, probably, had no 
 proper knowledge of Christ, nor any distinct reference 
 to him, in their sacrifices for sin. For the sake of 
 the argument, we will at present admit this to have 
 been so. 
 
 The paper of a bank-note is not worth a dollar, 
 though it is engraved, and signed by the proper author- 
 ities. In itself, that paper, offered in place of money, on 
 the ground of intrinsic value in the paper, would be ab- 
 surd. But there is an agreed value conferred on that 
 paper, and established by law, so that the thing which 
 in itself, we may say, is worthless, may, by appointment 
 of law, be worth the real coin which it represents. 
 
 And now let it be considered how few of those into 
 whose hands that paper passes, understand, while fewer 
 still recall to mind, the idea of paper currency, as a 
 legal representative of specie. Give it to a child, a 
 laborer, perhaps we may say to any one whom you 
 may happen to meet, and while not one in a thousand 
 would consider that it has no intrinsic value, but is 
 only a representative of the precious metals, not one in 
 ten thousand of those who do know it, would, at the 
 moment of using the note, refer in his thoughts to this 
 specie basis. Still, it would be wholly wrong to say of 
 any community. The idea of a metallic basis to its cir- 
 
 2* 
 
18 THE COMMUXION SABBATH. 
 
 culating medium is not understood, is not believed; for 
 the doctrine is established, is known and acted upon, 
 and the presence of this paper is evidence of it, though 
 the popular mind does not recognize it in its current 
 acts. So that we may without difficulty believe that 
 the use of sacrifices answered every purpose as an 
 atonement for sin, even if the people did not, generally, 
 refer in their thoughts to that great appointment of 
 God which gave' them their acceptance. Illustrations 
 occur on every hand of acts indispensable to comfort 
 and life which are unaccompanied by a proper knowledge 
 of the reasons for them. For example, not one in a 
 hundred who use a pump know any thing of the valves 
 in it, much less think of the lower box, which they 
 never feel nor see, and of whose operation there is to 
 them no evidence whatever. 
 
 But there is a passage in that wonderful book, the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, which places it beyond doubt 
 that the people understood the incomplete and prophetic 
 nature of their sacrifices : " The Holy Ghost this signify- 
 ing, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made 
 manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing, 
 which was a figure for the time then present, — that could 
 not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to 
 the conscience; which stood only in — carnal ordinances, 
 imposed on them until the time of reformation." Here 
 we see that the " conscience " of a sinner felt the need 
 of something beyond his victim to atone for his sin. 
 
ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIXS. 19 
 
 The doctrine of a suffering Messiah was known in 
 those days. Christ said to the Jews, " Your father 
 Abraham rejoiced to see my day ; and he saw it and 
 was glad." Moreover, we read, " And the Scripture, 
 foreseeing that God would justify the heathen by faith, 
 preached before the Gospel unto Abraham." Christ 
 and his Gospel were therefore known to Abraham, and 
 by tradition such important knowledge was, of course, 
 preserved, from age to age. But still it is true that, in 
 accordance with the divine plan of progressive revelation, 
 the doctrine of Christ's righteousness and of salvation by 
 his death, " was not made known unto the sons of men 
 as it was revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets 
 by the Spirit ; " but sacrifices for sins w^ere appointed 
 and used as the acceptable way of approach to God. 
 Worthless in themselves, wholly inadequate to atone 
 for guilt, they were agreed upon to represent the infi- 
 nite sacrifice which once, in the end of the world, Christ 
 was to make, when he should put away sin by the offer- 
 ing up of himself. The ancient worshipper who came 
 to make atonement for his sin, was warranted in relying 
 on the blood of his slain bullock, or goat, for the pardon 
 of his sin, as we are in relying upon a thing which has 
 no substantive value, yet is agreed upon as an equiv- 
 alent. 
 
 But the time came when all these oblations were to 
 pass away, and we hear One, in the greatness of his 
 strength, proclaim, " Sacrifice and offering, and burnt 
 
20 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 offerings and offering for sin, thou wouldest not, neither 
 hadst pleasure therein ; which are offered by the law. 
 Then said he, Lo, I come — to do thy will, O God. 
 By the which will, we are sanctified through the offer- 
 ing of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." 
 
 He, by his sufferings and death, did that which all 
 the beasts and the altars professed to do, but which 
 without his appointed sacrifice would have been im- 
 possible. 
 
 The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews labors, with 
 the closest logic and singular power, to show, not that 
 Christ w^as a King, nor a Prophet, both of which he is 
 elsewhere proved to be, but a High-Priest. Now" a 
 high-priest, as his readers well knew, had, for his spe- 
 cific duty, which distinguished his ofiice from that of 
 other men, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin. Observe 
 his statement and reasoning: " We have such an High- 
 Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of 
 the majesty in the heavens. For every high-priest is 
 ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices ; wherefore it is of 
 necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer." 
 This, we all feel, is sound reasoning, and the question 
 naturally arises, what offering had he ? The answer is, 
 he " needeth not daily, as those high-priests, to offer 
 up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the peo- 
 ple's ; for this he did once, when he offered up himself." 
 " Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his 
 own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, hav- 
 
ONE SACRIFICE FOE SIXS. 21 
 
 ing obtained eternal redemption for us." " He is the 
 Mediator of the New Testament — by means of death 
 for the redemption of the transgressions that were un- 
 der the first testament," thus giving sanction and effi- 
 cacy to all the ancient sacrifices. It was not necessary 
 that he should " offer himself often, as the high-priest 
 entered into the holy place every year with blood of 
 others, for then must he often have suffered since the 
 foundation of the world ; but now once, in the end of 
 the v\"orld, hath he appeared, to put away sin by the sac- 
 rifice of himself." " So Christ was once offered to 
 bear the sins of many." 
 
 What has become of all those high-priests and altars, 
 bullocks and rams, the scape-goat and ashes of an heifer, 
 the bird dipped in his fellow's blood and set free ? Have 
 we no isins? Has the world become perfect? Or, has 
 the character of God changed ? Does he forgive sins 
 now without any reference to sacrifice of any kind? 
 Is Christ as a teacher, the fnlfilment of all those offer- 
 ings for sin ? 
 
 In words as plain as possible, Jesus Christ is declared 
 to be a substitute for all those offerings for sin by the 
 offering up of himself to suffer and die. In order to 
 this, he says, " A body hast thou prepared me." His 
 forerunner announces him to the world, but by what 
 name ? " Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away 
 the sin of the world." The prophets dwell upon his 
 sufferings and death, and he himself, expounding their 
 
22 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 prophecies after his redemption, said, " Ought not 
 Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his 
 glory ? " So we are told that " this man when he had 
 offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the 
 right hand of the majesty on high." 
 
 He who was in the beginning, the Word, who " was 
 with God and was God, the same was in the be- 
 ginning with God," became flesh, and suffered and 
 died, his divine nature giving worth and efficacy to his 
 sufferings and death, which were appointed to do that 
 which his representatives, the ancient sacrifices, pro- 
 fessed to do in his stead, until he should come, which 
 is, to atone for sin. 
 
 We must endeavor to make this real and clear to 
 our minds, that he who was laid in the manger, and 
 suffered on the cross, and slept in the tomb, and ascend- 
 ed to heaven, is, to the whole race of man, and to every 
 individual of the race, that which the ancient sacrifices 
 were to the people who offered them ; that he takes the 
 place and fulfils the meaning of the lamb on the day 
 of atonement, the goat and the scape-goat, the one 
 bleeding, and the other bearing away the sins of the 
 people, the bird w^hose blood was shed upon his fellow 
 setting him free. Reading the Psalms and Prophets, and 
 the New Testament, with this in view, their phraseology 
 is not only intelligible, but comes with overwhelming 
 force, and there is no way to evade it but either to turn 
 it all into allegory, or to reject it and the book that 
 
ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS. 23 
 
 contains it as contrary to reason. To make it an alle- 
 gory is to receive the ancient sacrifices as the substan- 
 tial verities, and to regard Christ and his work as 
 merely compared with them in figurative forms of 
 speech, to catch the attention and please the fancy of 
 Jews. Christ is no such secondary object. He is the 
 building and they the scaffolding; Christ is not their 
 shadow ; they were a shadow thrown from him, four 
 thousand years previous to his coming ; and, as a 
 shadow, they, of course, gave a proper idea of him and 
 his office. Had he been coming merely as a teacher, or 
 as an example, or as a messenger to declare the mind 
 of God more perfectly, the shadow which he threw be- 
 fore him was surely most unapt, for the impression 
 made by those rites was, God requires propitiatory sac- 
 rifice for sin ; God cannot be approached by a sinner 
 except by mediators, offering life to expiate guilt. That 
 Jesus Christ himself by his life and death enforced 
 these truths as the principal object of his coming into 
 the world, is obvious from the impression which the 
 whole world of readers, with so few exceptions, have 
 received. To set it aside as contrary to our idea of 
 what is suitable and proper, is surely to claim a prov- 
 ince for human reason between w^hich and the assump- 
 tion of divine authority, there hardly remains so much 
 as a single step. Whether sin is an evil, and how great 
 an evil, whether it can be forgiven, and in what way, 
 and on what conditions, are questions which God him- 
 
24 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 self must answer; and being answered, our province is 
 to judge of the evidence that they are answered, but 
 not to question their propriety. As to the divinely ap- 
 pointed method of forgiving sin, we can no more sit in 
 judgment upon it, than we could object to the different 
 number of moons in the firmaments of different planets. 
 
 Great violence is done to language, and to the gen- 
 eral tenor of Scripture, and to our moral faculties, by 
 converting plain and literal representations of the Sav- 
 iour^s atoning sufferings and death into metaphor, as the 
 hot sands of a desert change rain into mirage. A prin- 
 ciple of interpretation is then adopted which makes it 
 easy to break the force, or turn the point, of every 
 revealed truth, and God has no longer any moral 
 influence over our minds. Happy they who are kept, or 
 have been recovered, from such a state of mind, and who 
 receive the language of heavenly worship, for example, 
 in its literal sense, with all its rapture of gratitude and 
 love : " Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain and hast 
 redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred 
 and tongue and people and nation." 
 
 Let us look with a glance at the hundreds of millions 
 of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Oceanica, and 
 think, that not one of these can reach heaven except as, 
 in some way, a debtor to His sufferings and death, or to 
 the principles of divine government as affected by Him, 
 who is said to have been " slain from the foundation of 
 the world." 
 
ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS. 25- 
 
 The redeemed who were seen in vision to be a mal- 
 titude which no man can number, are each of them in 
 heaven through his blood. To every one of us, this 
 Lamb of God stands in the relation of a sacrifice for 
 sins, his Passover lamb, his substitute, by sufferings and 
 death, as the victim of divine justice, the ground of his 
 plea for pardon, the reason why God can forgive him, 
 his ransom, his Redeemer, the propitiation for his sins. 
 
 Is there a being who stands in such a relation as this 
 to me ? is there one whose office, whose name is. Lamb 
 of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ? is he, 
 to me alone, all and every thing which he is to the 
 whole world ? If so, nothing concerns me so much as • 
 to understand it. What does it mean ? What does it 
 imply ? 
 
 On my way to the house of God, a great company 
 of my friends, my best friends, intelligent, sober-minded 
 men, come with haste and earnestness around me, and 
 fill me with astonishment and wonder at their coming.. 
 What has happened ? Do you know, they say, what 
 we have been doing in your behalf? There is a com- 
 pany of men seeking your life ; we have succeeded in. 
 giving bonds for you, and you are for the present at 
 liberty. What have I done? These friends are not 
 beside themselves. What is my offence ? How am I 
 in danger ? 
 
 Suppose that I had lived two thousand years ago, in 
 Judaea. I am met in the same way by a company of 
 
 3 
 
26 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 esteemed men. We have been, they say, to the high- 
 priest on your behalf, each with a bullock or ram, or 
 lamb ; a hundred victims have bled to expiate your sin. 
 What sin ? But the character of these friends places it 
 beyond a doubt that they, at least, believe me to be in- 
 volved in some terrible guilt and danger. 
 
 There is one on the throne of heaven, God manifest 
 in the flesh, worshipped by all the heavenly hosts, sway- 
 ing the sceptre of universal empire, w4io once upon a 
 cross on Mount Calvary, died for me. Yes, for me. 
 Not merely for my sins as the part of a great whole, 
 but for my sins, so that I cannot be saved except by the 
 personal application to me of his sufferings and death. 
 Finding this asserted and established in the Word of 
 God, I can have no rest till I receive it and act upon it 
 as the most important truth which God has ever re- 
 vealed to me. Nothing, surely, can affect me so much 
 as this. Were I a state prisoner, and from the window 
 of my cell should see casks of gold brought into the 
 prison yard, and piled up till the sum reached to mill- 
 ions, the feeling would be. What worth, what import- 
 ance, attaches to me, that my government must redeem 
 me even at this price ? 
 
 O, my soul, you were " not redeemed with corrupt- 
 ible things as silver and gold, but with the precious 
 blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and with- 
 out spot." You are "bought with a price." One 
 was made sin for me, who knew no sin. • He was 
 
OXE SACRIFICE FOR SIXS. 27 
 
 wounded for my transgressions, bruised for my iniqui- 
 ties, the chastisement of my peace was upon him, and 
 by his stripes I am healed. The worth of my soul, my 
 guilt, my danger, are here set forth as they could be in 
 no other way. I may have made light of sin. I may 
 not have felt that I am a sinner. I may not have been 
 sorry for my sin. I may not have made it my first en- 
 deavor to be delivered from that, and to abstain from 
 that, which here appears to be of such moment. Hence- 
 forth, Christ and his sacrifice for sins must be the great 
 consideration with me, moving me to view myself as 
 God has viewed me, as a sinner to an extent and with 
 liabilities which God has estimated as needing such a 
 work as that of Christ to atone for ; as a debtor to in- 
 finite love, as not my own, but bought with a price, as 
 under obligations to persuade each fellow-creature of 
 his danger and of his remedy, the same in every respect 
 as mine. 
 
 Let him who complains that he has never been able 
 to view himself as a sinner in any proper degree, begin 
 with this truth, that Christ " bare our sins in his own 
 body on the tree,'' that " God hath laid on him the ini- 
 quity of us all," that "we shall be saved from wrath 
 through him ; " let him dwell upon this truth till he sees 
 his danger, and his refuge too. It is best to begin with 
 Christ in every endeavor to affect our minds upon any 
 religious subject, nor can one who believes the Scrip- 
 ture in its representations concerning Christ and him 
 
28 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 -crucified, and truly desires to know what is implied in 
 his death for sin, fail to obtain a proper knowledge of 
 himself, and of the way to be saved. 
 
 Perhaps we are conscious of sin, and are persuaded 
 that our condemnation is just. 
 
 Let us suppose, then, that one should see a great in- 
 . closure filled with animals, as far as the eye can reach, 
 and while he surveys them, the air over his head is 
 darkened by an immense flight of birds, prolonged for 
 many hours, and he is told. All these God has appoint- 
 ed and provided as a sacrifice for your sins ; justice re- 
 quires a substitute for your punishment, and is satisfied 
 upon your repentance, and acceptance of this sacrifice, 
 with this substitution. 
 
 More, infinitely more than this, God has done for 
 me. If the altars of the world for four thousand years 
 'had burned for me, with their countless victims, the 
 sacrifice which has been made for my soul exceeds 
 them. There is a striking omission of all epithets, as 
 though even inspired language had none adequate to 
 the occasion, when it is said, " Ye are bought with — 
 a price." If Christ died for me, there is no reason why 
 I may not be forgiven. If the whole world should, in 
 the same hour, ask for pardon through his death, his 
 death is an atonement sufficient for all the world. 
 Surely, then, "he is able to save them to the uttermost 
 who come unto God by him." 
 
 Such are the truths, and such the wondrous things, 
 
ONE SACRIFICE FOE SINS. 29 
 
 implied, when we show forth the Lord's death. The 
 celebration of the Lord's Supper, therefore, is a solem- 
 nity which has no parallel, and never had one, and, in 
 this world, it never can be equalled. With every suc- 
 cessive approach to it, we will endeavor to enter more 
 fully into the meaning of it, and, in order to this, live 
 more habitually, during the intervals of our communion 
 seasons, under the influence of this stupendous sacri- 
 fice for sins. 
 
 Believing, as the Scripture tells us, that this sacrifice 
 is finished, and that this priest needeth not daily to 
 offer for sins, because he did this once, when he offered 
 himself, we look with interest and concern upon many 
 of our fellow men who make repetitions of the "Sav- 
 iour's sacrifice. With strong desire to free them from 
 these needless ceremonies, we should persuade them 
 that it is as wrong to add any thing to the Saviour's 
 one sacrifice for sins as to take any thing from it ; that 
 human victims might as well be crucified, to set forth 
 Christ and his sacrifice, as to do any thing more with 
 the bread and wine than to eat it and drink it, in re- 
 membrance of him. We cannot be sufficiently grateful 
 for the simplicity which is in Christ, so strikingly set 
 forth in the Lord's Supper. The senses are appealed 
 to, their aid is not refused, but is employed, in spiritual 
 things, yet in the most simple manner. 
 
 " As oft as ye do eat this bread and drink this cup, 
 ye do show the Lord's death till he come." Such is 
 
 3* 
 
30 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 the employment of that company of Christians to be 
 gathered to-day around the Lord's table ; — they show 
 the Lord's death, the greatest event, and, to each of us, 
 the most important event, and in its influence upon the 
 whole race of man, an event involving the greatest con- 
 sequences, of any thing which, to our knowledge, has 
 ever transpired. It it is a great thing to have a place 
 at that table, to be looked upon by heaven as a partici- 
 pator in that transaction, being personally concerned in 
 the benefits which flow from that one sacrifice which 
 is there set forth. 
 
 We, as it were, show the Lord's death to divine jus- 
 tice, as the ground of our justification. 
 
 We show it to ourselves as the all-sufficient reason 
 why we may look for pardon ; as the memorial of infi- 
 nite love for our souls, and as the consti'aining motive 
 to live not unto ourselves. 
 
 We show it to the congregation who assemble with 
 us ; we cause that table to be spread, we appoint due 
 solemnities in our approach to it, we separate ourselves 
 to receive the ordinance, and thus we perpetually re- 
 mind the world around us of the one sacrifice for them 
 and for us. There is no transaction in which men are 
 statedly engaged, which will hereafter seem to us, as we 
 look back to earth, more important and more solemn 
 than the ordinance which commemorated the sacrifice 
 for sins. 
 
 The Communion Sabbath may properly remind us 
 
ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS. 31 
 
 of the day of atonement, when the high-priest entered 
 alone once a year, into the holy of holies, to make recon- 
 ciliation for the sins of the people. Though we offer 
 up no sacrifice, we commemorate the sacrifice of Christ 
 for the world, and we call attention to it. There is a 
 high-priest appearing with a sacrifice for each of us, and 
 he himself has appointed the Supper to remind us of it. 
 We cannot with safety, nor can we innocently, be indif- 
 ferent to this appointment, nor, if we have a proper 
 sense of our most affecting obligations, can we fail to 
 attend upon this ordinance with self-examination, with 
 grateful love, and with practical application of the 
 truths involved in it to our characters and lives. 
 
 But, in a passage which has now been frequently 
 quoted, in this connection, there occurs a word w^hich 
 calls forth the question. Is it possible that one who 
 stands in such a relation, as we have now considered, to 
 this great High-Priest, can be at present, or can hereafter 
 be regarded and treated, as his enemy ? An Israelite, 
 we may suppose, would feel nothing but reverential 
 love toward his high-priest making intercession for him, 
 though merely with the blood of others. How must it 
 have been had the high-priest gone within the vail to 
 die for him ? Had one been an enemy to him, could 
 he have remained an enemy ? " But this man, when 
 he had offered one sacrifice for sin, forever sat down on 
 'the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till 
 his enemies be made his footstool." Can our great 
 
32 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 High-Priest, our atoning Saviour and Friend, have, 
 among those for whom he died and intercedes, one who 
 does not love him, one who is indifferent to him, and 
 even an enemy? From the passage just quoted, we 
 learn that he can. " Lord, is it I ? " 
 
HI. 
 
 MRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 I. DARKNESS. 
 
 ** Now FROM THE SIXTH HOUR THERE WAS DARKNESS OVER ALL THE 
 LAND UNTO THE NINTH HOUR." 
 
 An eclipse of the sun could not have happened at 
 that season, it being the time of the Jewish passover, 
 which occurred at the full of the moon. Moreover, a 
 total eclipse of the sun, as we call it, does not continue, 
 like this darkness, for three hours. It was preternat- 
 ural, and, like the other remarkable events in nature at 
 the time, was appointed as a solemnity of the cruci- 
 fixion. 
 
 It was suitable that the heavens should be in mourn- 
 ing at the death of the Son of God. He made the 
 heavens and their hosts ; "all things were made by him, 
 and without him was not any thing made that was 
 made." Now that he hangs upon a cross, an offering 
 for sin, numbered with the transgressors, well may na- 
 ture sympathize. Grief in every form in which it could 
 be expressed, was suitable at such a time. The scene 
 
 (33) 
 
34 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 at Calvary brought forcibly to mind the ruin and con- 
 demnation of man, who was under the wrath of God 
 for sin, the history of the fall and its direful conse- 
 quences, and the necessity for an infinite sacrifice. 
 God alone was able to expiate the sin of his creatures, 
 by taking man's nature into union with the Divine, in 
 the person of the Word, and making satisfaction to 
 justice by that which He saw to be equivalent, in effect, 
 to the endless punishment of the race. This dread 
 transaction was proceeding; silence and darkness were 
 proper accompaniments; light and joy would not have 
 been appropriate in the death scene of the Son of God. 
 The chamber of death, the house of mourning, invite 
 the shadows rather than the beams of the sun ; light is 
 intrusive at such a time ; mourning, lamentation, and 
 woe, require the secrecy, and all the influences, of retire- 
 ment, and that part of the earth was therefore made a 
 chamber of death, with the curtains of darkness hung 
 about it. 
 
 It was also appropriate to the condition and feelings 
 of the people of God on earth. It was the time of 
 their apparent defeat. Christ said to the wicked who 
 came to take him, " This is your hour and the power of 
 darkness." The followers of Christ were confounded, 
 and of his immediate disciples, all but one were secreted 
 at home, or were out of sight of danger. That one 
 stood by the cross, hoping against hope, an evening 
 star, which a black cloud at sundown quenches for a 
 
MIRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXIOX. 35 
 
 night. Is this He that should have delivered Israel ? 
 this expiring victim in the hands of murderers? All 
 who loved him and trusted in Him might well put 
 on sackcloth, as the heavens did, for their sun had in- 
 deed gone down, and they knew not what should be on 
 the morrow. 
 
 Had there been any witnesses of that scene who ex- 
 ercised full faith that Christ would finally triumph, that 
 this humiliation and suffering were only a preparation 
 for victory, even they could not fail to be in heaviness. 
 To the minds of any who saw in Christ the Lamb of 
 God which taketh away the sin of the world, the suffer- 
 ings of the Saviour must have been the occasion of in- 
 expressible grief. There was something in the sight of 
 Christ which subdued the penitent woman who stood and 
 wept behind him, as he sat at meat. If she were thus 
 affected, Mary Magdalene, and all true penitents, must 
 have wept greatly when Jesus suffered on the tree. 
 The darkened heavens and earth were in sympathy with 
 them, as they repeated to one another the words of the 
 prophet : " Surely he hath borne our griefs, he hath car- 
 ried our sorrows." 
 
 But this darkness was a testimony in favor of Christ, 
 and in condemnation of his enemies. At his baptism, 
 the heavens were opened to him. On the mount of 
 transfiguration, he had a celestial appearance. But 
 God is now testifying to him by a different miracle. 
 He who formed the light on Tabor, now created dark- 
 
86 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 ness, to make the unbelieving world confess, as the cen- 
 turion did, Truly this was the Son of God. The ene- 
 mies of Christianity have endeavored to do away the 
 impression which this miracle was suited to make, but in 
 vain do they oppose conjectures and the silence of some 
 contemporary writers, to the express declarations of the 
 Evangelists, who wrote so near the time of the alleged 
 event, that a false assertion with regard to a phenom- 
 enon like this would have been instantly turned to their 
 discomfiture. Such a man as Joseph us, a prejudiced 
 Jew, could not consistently mention a thing which tes- 
 tifies so powerfully in behalf of Christ. It is indeed 
 charitable in some, to account for this silence by sup- 
 posing that the darkness, though noticeable, was no 
 more than has ordinarily happened in what have been 
 called dark days. But we can hardly suppose that the 
 Evangelists, as mere writers of history, would speak of 
 a natural darkness in connection with things which, if 
 they happened at all, must have been miraculous. 
 Moreover, though the Christian fathers were divided 
 as to the extent of this darkness, there is evidence that 
 it was not confined to Judaea. The well-known excla- 
 mation of Dionysius, the Areopagite, in Egypt, recorded 
 by a historian, is not the only proof of this, when he 
 said, " Either the Deity is suffering, or one is suffering 
 with whom the Deity sympathizes." 
 
 To admit this darkness to be miraculous, is to con- 
 fess that God acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah. It 
 
MIRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXION. 37 
 
 gives great confirmation to faith, to know that heaven 
 thus acknowledged the Redeemer while in the act of 
 expiating our guilt. 
 
 To the enemies of Christ, this must have been an ap- 
 palling spectacle. They did not know enough about 
 astronomy to consider that the position of the heavenly 
 bodies did not cause it, but they must have been im- 
 pressed with the coincidence that darkness, even if 
 caused naturally, should have come on just at that 
 time ; and as wicked people are superstitious, they must 
 have been deeply moved ; " the heathen are dismayed 
 at the signs of heaven," and these murderers, also, must 
 have been impressed with the thought that heaven was 
 bearing witness against them. Perhaps some, if not 
 many, of them relented, and then the centurion at the 
 cross expressed the convictions and the repentance of a 
 multitude, the beginning of whose faith at the crucifix- 
 ion was confirmed by the resurrection, and in whom, 
 with others, this prophecy will there be seen to have 
 been, in part, fulfilled, " When thou shalt make his soul 
 an offering for sin, he shall see his seed." 
 
 This darkness shows that nature and the moral uni-^ 
 verse are in sympathy. When the law was given, there 
 were thunderings and lightnings ; when Israel was to 
 be delivered from Egypt, fire, hail, and darkness afflicted 
 the land; and at the passage of the Red Sea, as we 
 learn from the seventy-seventh Psalm, there were great 
 signs in nature: " the voice of thy thunder was in the 
 
 4 
 
38 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 heavens ; the lightnings lightened the world ; the earth 
 trembled and shook." At the resurrection of Christ, 
 " behold, there was a great earthquake ; " at the day of 
 judgment, the heavens are to be on fire, the elements 
 will melt with fervent heat, the earth and all that is 
 therein will be burned up. The God of nature is the 
 God of salvation ; the God of grace is the great and 
 terrible God, and if nature gave such signs when he 
 redeemed us, how will it be at the last and dreadful 
 day? 
 
 It is pleasant to think, as we sit at the Lord's table, 
 of the contrast in the scene with that of the crucifixion. 
 Nature is not convulsed ; we are not disturbed by in- 
 sulting voices ; the darkness is past, a clear light shines. 
 Nor are we unsuitably affected by the agonizing sight 
 of the Sufferer, in which respect we are compelled to 
 feel that the Romish Church is painfully wrong. Her 
 object in her little chapels at the road side, with figures 
 of the crucifixion in them, throughout the Roman 
 Catholic world, and by her representations in her 
 churches, is continually to show the suffering Christ to 
 the eye ; and this is carried to excess. With her, Jesus 
 seems to be still on the cross. It is not with sectarian 
 prejudice that we express the belief that there is a mel- 
 ancholic and depressing effect upon pious feeling by 
 her disproportionate view of the Saviour's agony, such 
 as the experience of the Apostles surely does not sus- 
 tain ; for if they had given us pictures and images of 
 
MIRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXION. 39 
 
 Christ corresponding to the tone of their Epistles, and 
 as the Saviour himself chose to present himself before 
 the eye of John in Patmos, heavenly exaltation and 
 majesty, triumph and joy, would have shared largely 
 with the crucifixion in their impressions upon our 
 senses. We are glad to be delivered from the control- 
 ling, the limiting, effect of pictures in worship, and to 
 trust ourselves and to have the pious mind even in the 
 lowest stages of intelligence, trust itself, to the full scope 
 of the imagination as an aid to faith, rather than re- 
 ceive dictation from imagery in worship. Things com- 
 prehensible are aided in their effect upon us by their 
 representative images, but things of an infinite nature 
 cannot be expressed by signs, however good, without 
 making the thoughts grovel. It is a part of our Protes- 
 tant privilege, in which we greatly rejoice for its effect 
 upon mental activity in spiritual things, that we are not 
 under bondage, in our worship, to any visible delinea- 
 tions. 
 
 The true greatness of the event which we commemo- 
 rate at the Lord's table, is impressively taught by these 
 marvels. God never does any thing out of proportion. 
 It was therefore not a teacher, nor a martyr who was 
 dying, when the heavens were spread with sackcloth ; 
 he was more than man who expired on the tree ; his 
 sufferings and death were more than the sufferings of 
 one who came to set men an example. The scenery 
 was exaggerated if only a good man and a prophet 
 were dying. 
 
40 ^ THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 If darkness came to mingle her dreary influence even 
 amid the scenes of love and mercy on the cross, surely 
 nothing can prevent the perfect usurpation of her 
 power over those who finally reject that mercy, and are 
 not won by that love. Even now, to those who do not 
 receive Christ and his sacrifice for their sins, the doc- 
 trines of the Gospel, not being viewed in connection 
 with that sacrifice, are dark ; the understanding is dark- 
 ened, the future is dark, and so is the providence of God. 
 That scriptural emblem of the forlorn state of the 
 wicked, darkness, conveys a fearful idea of their future 
 condition. Long and tedious are the night-watches on 
 a sick-bed, when we toss to and fro, with no power to 
 sleep, and a disordered fancy fills us with direful images, 
 and the morning seems as though it would never come. 
 But what must it be to lie down in sorrow and endless 
 night, where the daystar never rises, and the night 
 grows darker and darker, and despair peoples it with 
 horrors. 
 
 But to the believer, the darkness of the crucifixion is 
 only an emblem of that darkest time of night which, 
 according to the proverb, is just before day. By thy 
 death, O Saviour, in the midst of darkness and sorrows, 
 we shall soon pass from under these shades and their 
 gloom, to those scenes where they need no candle, 
 neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them 
 light, and they shall reign for ever and ever. 
 
 The darkness of the crucifixion had a limit. The 
 
MIRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXION. 41 
 
 sure moment was marked by the hand of God when 
 the shades should be dispelled, and light and joy return 
 to the earth. In times of darkness and sorrow, we will 
 look to him who went from the shades of death to 
 perfect and endless joy. One of his ministers was 
 preaching from these words : " Behold, Satan shall cast 
 some of you into prison, and ye shall have tribulation 
 ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give 
 thee a crown of life." A humble woman in great trou- 
 ble, was deeply impressed by the limit which the text 
 seemed so absolutely to fix in that particular instance 
 of Satan's power ; and as she passed along the street, 
 she was heard to say, " Blessed be His name it cannot 
 be eleven." Our suflerings will be for so many days, 
 and no more ; " surely there shall be an end, and thy 
 expectation shall not be cut off." However dark our 
 condition and prospects may seem, no darkness can 
 visit our souls like that which came upon the soul of 
 Christ, and wrung from him amidst the darkness of the 
 heavens that outcry on the tree. But in that moment 
 the stupendous work of suffering for sin was finished, 
 and light began to break over a ransomed world. 
 
42 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 11. THE RENDING OF THE VAIL. 
 
 " And behold the vail of the temple was rent in twain from 
 the top to the bottom." 
 
 la the pale light, the divine sufferer was seen upon 
 his cross between the thieves. "Jesus, when he had 
 cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 
 And behold the vail of the temple was rent in twain 
 from the top to the bottom." 
 
 Simple and brief as these few words are, they relate 
 one of the most significant and important events in the 
 history of the world. 
 
 This vail, as originally made, and, no doubt, imitated 
 in the second temple, was the innermost of two cur- 
 tains of " blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined 
 linen," in front of the Holy of holies. 
 
 None but the high-priest could enter or look within 
 this vail, and he only once a year. At that stated sea- 
 son, the small bells on the high-priest's vesture were 
 heard along the aisle of the temple toward the Holy 
 place, and then within the outer sanctuary, till they 
 ceased behind that sacred vail. Not even heaven itself, 
 perhaps, was more sacred in the eye of a Jew than that 
 sequestered, mysterious spot, concealed by the vail. It 
 would be death to any mortal who should presume to 
 look with curious eye into its dread retirement. The 
 most exalted religious personage of the nation stood 
 
MIRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXION. 43 
 
 alone with the God of all the earth, and offered the ap- 
 pointed blood of atonement. No less inviolable there- 
 fore, than the presence of God, did that vail seem to 
 the whole Jewish people. To see the vail of the firma- 
 ment torn asunder, disclosing the third heavens, would 
 not have been more surprising to them than the Holy 
 of holies opened to the public gaze. 
 
 The fulness of time had come. The incarnate 
 Word was upon the cross, accomplishing, by his one 
 sacrifice for sin, the object of the types and ordinances 
 under the law. He cried again with a loud voice, and 
 yielded up the ghost. At that moment, this sacred, 
 impenetrable vail was, without hands, rent asunder 
 from top to bottom. They who were watching, or do- 
 ing service, in the temple, were no doubt attracted by 
 the noise to the spot, and there the inviolable covering 
 of the Holy of holies was hanging in two pieces, and 
 the sight which only one mortal eye from time to time 
 was permitted to behold, lay open to the common gaze. 
 We may imagine the feelings of Caiaphas as he looked 
 upon that rent vail. Well might he have rent his own 
 garments. There was no more any Holy of holies. 
 The earthquake did not so much astound the people as 
 this rending of the vail. They had felt earthquakes 
 before, but since the destruction of the first temple, and 
 the Holy of holies with it, by fire, no such event as 
 this, so mysteriously significant with regard to their 
 religion, had transpired, What was that death, that 
 
44 THE COMMUXION SABBATH. 
 
 outcry on the tree, that yielding up the ghost, which 
 rent that vail ? Was this the death of a martyr ? Is 
 a good man finishing his testimony and his life to- 
 gether ? No, the Lamb of God is taking away the sin 
 of the world ; he is dismissing the sacrifices, he is dis- 
 placing Aaron and his sons, he has become himself the 
 offering and the priest. O Lord, what are we that we 
 should be permitted to commemorate that event by 
 showing forth that death, as though it had application 
 to us. Yes, for us that vail was rent. The dim out- 
 lines of the great sacrifice, which were seen in the 
 temple service, change to a substantial form ; the 
 shadow of him who was to come no longer holds us 
 in painful expectation, but the author and finisher of 
 our faith is here. No priests are needed now for man 
 with God. He who pretends to be a priest, now, and 
 to offer sacrifice for sins, does an empty service, he 
 holds an antiquated office. He is a torchbearer, a lamp- 
 lighter, in the daytime ; he must contrive darkness, in 
 order to make employment for himself. The vail of 
 the temple gave up the ghost of all the sacrifices and 
 offerings when the Saviour died. Perhaps the unbe- 
 lieving priests employed themselves to mend that rent 
 vail ; their occupation would be gone for ever did they 
 not keep up a mystery in connection with the Holy of 
 holies. But when Christ died, their whole service, once 
 so sacred, became a dead body ; yet to this day there 
 are those who practise their curious arts to make it 
 
MIRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXION. 45 
 
 seem alive. We come, O joyful thought, at every com- 
 munion season, to behold those ceremonies fulfilled by 
 him who is made priest not by a carnal commandment, 
 but after the power of an endless life. He has indeed 
 entered within the vail, but it is a vail which instead of 
 inclosing a dread solitude, includes the world of glori- 
 fied spirits, and the innumerable company of angels, a 
 place from which we are not debarred ; for we have 
 boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 
 and may draw near with a true heart in full assurance 
 of faith. 
 
 m. THE EARTHQUAKE. 
 "And the earth did quake, and the rocks rext." 
 
 Had this earthquake occurred in all respects by the 
 ordinary operations of nature, such a coincidence, in 
 that dread hour, with the miraculous signs, would havie 
 been hardly less impressive than a miracle ; and there 
 would be room to question whether it required less cre- 
 dulity to believe the coincidence than the supernatural 
 sign. But believing all which we do respecting the 
 divine Saviour, those convulsions of nature bring a 
 solemn awe over our minds as we reflect that the gi-eat 
 transaction, which moved the foundations of the earth, 
 was on our account ; and that each of us had as great 
 
46 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 a personal interest in it as any human being. There 
 is an interesting narrative, by an early writer on Pales- 
 tine, of a deist, who was converted to Christianity by 
 contemplating a principal rock near Calvary, which had 
 evidently been rent in a direction contrary to geological 
 laws. It is a common remark, that our hearts, if they 
 do not feel the power of Christ's death, are harder than 
 the rocks ; but when we think who Christ is, and what 
 his death implies, it would seem that the inhabitants of 
 other worlds would find it more difficult to believe that 
 every heart is not broken with sorrow for sin, by the 
 Saviour's death, than it ever was for a deist to believe 
 that the rocks rent when he died. 
 
 IV. THE OPENING OF THE GRAVES. 
 
 " And the graves were opened ; and many bodies of saints 
 which slept arose, and came oct of the graves after his 
 resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared 
 tnto many." 
 
 While the sepulchres hewn in rocks were some of 
 them shattered and opened by the expiring cry of Jesus, 
 it is supposed by judicious writers that the occupants 
 of them did not rise till Christ had risen, though the 
 construction of the words, as in some other instances, 
 by disregarding the order of time, would make a differ- 
 ent impression. Others, however, think that the dead 
 
MIRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXIOX. 47 
 
 arose at the voice of Christ, but did not present them- 
 selves to public notice till the Saviour had risen. 
 
 These saints must, some of them at least, have been 
 such as would be recognized by relatives and friends, 
 or else the power of the miracle would have been lost. 
 But their reappearance, surely, was not to gratify curi- 
 osity nor desire. 
 
 Was it a pleasure to see these departed friends re- 
 stored to life ? What a mixture of emotions it must 
 have created. What sluices of sorrow, what wounds, 
 would be opened By the reappearance of the dead. 
 What information could they give of death and heaven ? 
 We may venture to say, None. Had any knowledge 
 of the unseen world been thus imparted, it would have 
 been caught with the utmost avidity, and been trans- 
 mitted from age to age. It is probable, therefore, that 
 on the return of these souls to their bodies, they could 
 relate nothing in detail respecting the separate state. 
 When Paul had been caught up to the third heavens, 
 as he could not tell at the time whether he was in the 
 body or out of the body, so he says that the things 
 which he heard were " unspeakable things," as well as 
 " not lawful for man to utter." After all, it was but a 
 short-lived pleasure, if any, derived from the reappear- 
 ance of those departed friends ; the thought of another 
 separation would drink up all the joy of a temporary 
 sojourn, as now the anguish of separation for some time 
 
48 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 counterbalances all the pleasure of a happy life. Should 
 we be willing, if we could, to meet departed friends at 
 the Lord's table ? If we reflect upon it, we shall prob- 
 ably conclude that it is far better for us, with our suffi- 
 cient knowledge imparted by a written and completed 
 revelation, not to have the silence broken, nor the sepa- 
 ration interrupted. 
 
 What, then, was the wisdom, the benevolence, of this 
 resurrection at the time of Christ's death ? It kindly 
 assisted the infant faith of Christian believers. It was 
 a republication of Job's assurance, " Though after my 
 skin worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I 
 see God." It furnished a demonstration of the rising 
 from the dead, as not only possible, but as being con- 
 nected with Christ. The Apostles and the early believ- 
 ers must have had strong consolation by means of those 
 risen saints with res^ard to their own resurrection. 
 Christ rose, and brought with him a lifeguard from the 
 dead. Not only were Christians thus reassured that 
 Christ was the Messiah, but also that those who sleep 
 in Jesus, God will bring with him. It is difficult to 
 suppose that these risen saints died again ; the common 
 belief is that they ascended to heaven ; and if so, while 
 Christ was still the first-fruits of them that slept, here 
 were his sheaves with him, in advance, from the harvest 
 at the end of the world. As such, they must have con- 
 tributed to the joy and exultation of saints in heaven, 
 
MIRACLES AT THE CRUCIFIXION. 49 
 
 who are still waiting for the adoption, to wit, the re- 
 demption of their bodies. 
 
 This miracle is to us niost interesting and instructive, 
 because each of us is hereafter to experience, at the 
 voice of Christ, that which is here told of these dead 
 bodies and departed souls. He who by his last utter- 
 ance on the cross, opened those graves, will, by the next 
 voice of his, which we shall hear, open our graves. 
 Something else will then be " finished," and that is. His 
 mediatorial office, the power of his death to atone for 
 sin. To-day, the Christian at the table, to-day those 
 who go away from the sight of the table, may each re- 
 flect, that He who died for him on Calvary, and opened 
 the graves by his expiring cry, will bid each of them 
 leave his separate state, and wait by the side of the 
 grave for his rising body. Perhaps the last descendant 
 of yours who could feel any obligation or interest lead- 
 ing him to protect and cherish your grave, will have 
 died, and that burying-place may be smoothed into un- 
 distinguished likeness with the general earth ; the mar- 
 ble, and the iron fences, may have perished ; but your 
 body will be there. All that are in their graves shall 
 hear his voice and shall come forth. From the table 
 spread with the memorials of the body and blood which 
 on Calvary atoned for our sins, that same voice calls to 
 each of us, and says, " This do in remembrance of me." 
 We would be found of him in peace at his coming; 
 
 5 
 
50 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 we must therefore have a state of feeling which will 
 lead us to show forth his death. And so being planted 
 together with him in the likeness of his death, we shall 
 be also in the likeness of his resurrection. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE THREE CROSSES. 
 
 "i am crucified with christ." 
 
 "By whom the world is crucified unto me axd i uxto the 
 
 WORLD." 
 
 Here are three crosses, the same as on Mount Cal- 
 vary. But who are these which are represented as 
 crucified with Christ ? One is a Christian. The other 
 is the world. The Christian says, I am crucified with 
 Christ ; and speaking of Christ, he says. By whom the 
 world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. 
 
 He who uttered those words, declares himself to be 
 beyond the power of the world to awaken his desires 
 and efforts for any happiness superior to that which is 
 derived from knowing and serving Christ. To be cruci- 
 fied is not, primarily, to be put to death ; it is to be 
 affixed to a cross. The world had thus been treated 
 in a certain sense by Paul. He had placed it on a 
 cross ; meaning, that instead of its having full power 
 to engage his affections, it was like a crucified person 
 
 (51) 
 
52 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 who is devoted to a shameful death. Such a person 
 had any other effect than that of fascination upon the 
 beholder. It was so with the world as to its power 
 over Paul's mind. 
 
 He adds, — 'and I unto the world.' The world has 
 lost its power to fascinate me, as though I were hanging 
 on a cross. If enticing pleasures should present them- 
 selves to one hanging on a cross, they could not awaken 
 desire in his mind. He was in such a state that the 
 world had no power to govern his affections, and had 
 withdrawn from him in some respects, as from one who 
 is separated from the world by the cross. 
 
 Paul could pass through the streets of such a place 
 as Corinth, and even dwell there, and not be drawn 
 aside by its intoxicating pleasures, nor be made ashamed 
 of his religion with its crucified Lord, by the pride of 
 learning and all the accomplishments for which the city 
 was famous. That place whose preeminent wealth and 
 luxury a Roman poet alludes to, when he says, " It 
 does not happen to every man to go to Corinth," affected 
 the Apostle only with compassion for its sins. He was 
 not, however, a misanthrope ; he took no gloomy 
 views of the world ; he looked at things in their 
 true light. Such was his superiority to the various 
 forms of pleasure which Athens afforded, that of its 
 thousands of altars, with their splendid rites, in many 
 cases, of eloquence and music, and wealth and beauty, 
 he was attracted by none save that which superstition 
 
THE THREE CROSSES. 53 
 
 had reared to the unknown God. He was more con- 
 cerned for the ignorance and sins of the people indicated 
 by that altar, than charmed by that beautiful place. 
 This is but one illustration of the state of his mind. 
 The world was a crucified thing to him, and he was 
 dead to the world. Yet he' had not succeeded, like a 
 hermit, in steeling himself against the power of the 
 world. He was as sensible as ever to every excellence, 
 and had not lost his eyes, nor ears, nor his taste, by 
 being a Christian. After reading his two Epistles to 
 the Corinthians, which are not surpassed by any thing 
 from his pen, it is interesting to think of that dis- 
 claimer with which his address begins, that he did not 
 come to Corinth with " excellency of speech." Yet if 
 the rhetoricians of that city had, any of them, left 
 among their writings such a piece as that of Paul on 
 the Resurrection, not to mention other parts of these 
 epistles, it would have held rank for ' excellency of 
 speech ' with any thing which the Greek moralists have 
 bequeathed to us. Paul was therefore by no means insen- 
 sible to excellence of any kind as he found it in the world, 
 but his superior love to Christ created that state of his 
 affections of which he speaks when he says, " By whom 
 the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." 
 
 Paul had a clear, affecting sense of Christ's love to 
 him. Though his religious experience, in the beginning 
 of it, was peculiar in consequence of the Saviour's 
 personal appearance to him on the road to Damascus, 
 
 5* 
 
54 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 this was not the principal thing which convinced him 
 of that love. This was the " faithful saying," worthy of 
 all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world 
 to save sinners. The death of Christ as an expiation 
 for sin, had more influence over Paul's mind, than all 
 other truths ; the idea of what he calls justification 
 by faith, the possibility of forgiving sin consistently 
 with great interests at stake, and of doing it in a way 
 which not only manifests infinite love, but awakens 
 and perpetuates love of the most powerful kind, and, 
 in the most effectual manner, secures the highest 
 obedience of the forgiven, was, as a philosophy, as a 
 governmental arrangement, as well as an act of mercy 
 and love, and an expedient resulting in the highest 
 honor of God and the largest amount of human 
 happiness, sufficient to fill the mind and heart of 
 this man with supreme pleasure. And when this 
 truth gets full possession of any mind, that the divine 
 Word became a sacrifice for sins, that he loved us 
 and gave himself for us, there is nothing of which we 
 ever beard, the imagination never pictured any thing, 
 which deserves to be compared with it. This was with 
 Paul a living, abiding reality ; he had no double-mind- 
 edness in his faith ; the sceptics of his day did not 
 shake his belief, nor did he need to read every thing 
 which might be written, to be sure that some neol- 
 ogist had not discovered an objection to his system 
 which could not be refuted. " I know whom I have 
 
THE THREE CROSSES. 55 
 
 believed, and am j^ersuaded that he is able to keep 
 that which I have committed mito him against that 
 day." The assurance that Christ loved him and died 
 for him, (though in no sense in which he has not suf- 
 fered and died for us,) held him steadfast in his faith ; 
 and this absorbed his affections. So it is in every case 
 in which we are persuaded of our obligations to Christ, 
 and of the infinite, personal benefit derived from him. 
 This is the way in wdiich the world becomes crucified 
 to us and we to the world. It is not by striving to 
 hate the world, nor by efforts to withdraw ourselves 
 from it. When a strong affection takes possession of 
 us, all other objects inconsistent with it are really cru- 
 cified to us, and we are crucified to them. We see this 
 in friendship and love, and in attachments to engrossing 
 pursuits. 
 
 It is moreover evident from Paul's writings, that the 
 matchless excellence of the Saviour's character extin- 
 guished his supreme love for all other objects. His 
 feelings never kindle as when he speaks of Christ. He 
 had such pleasure in the knowledge already gained of 
 Christ, that he counted all things but loss for the excel- 
 lency of that knowledge. The mystery of God and 
 man in the Saviour's person, is, indeed, the most awak- 
 ening of all revealed truths. Moreover, perfection is, 
 in Christ, reduced to the scale of human feelings and 
 conduct, while, added to the human qualities of the 
 Saviour, deity appears, exciting further desires to 
 
56 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 know him. It is, therefore, natural that the character 
 of Christ should awaken stronger feelings than any 
 other object in a mind which fully perceives and loves 
 it. The experience of good men everywhere confirms 
 this. When they express their feelings toward Christ 
 in their hymns, they show a kind and degree of love 
 never exceeded. There is a charm in the character of 
 Christ for a mind that appreciates him, which can ex- 
 pel the supreme love of every thing else. 
 
 Paul was conscious of receiving benefits from Christ, 
 which, as an intellectual and moral being, he felt, laid 
 him under the greatest obligations. It was by Christ 
 that he was led to see his true character as an account- 
 able being, and the relation in which he stood to God. 
 Up to that time, his self-knowledge was mainly an 
 error. Now he had views of himself which he never 
 had before, was made acquainted with his own mind 
 and heart in a way which, to such a man, must have 
 been more interesting than any other knowledge. As 
 we read his account of his religious experience in the 
 seventh of Romans, we perceive that his awakening to 
 a true knowledge of hii^iself was esteemed by him a 
 benefit which no earthly honor or pleasure could equal. 
 His convictions of sin were an invaluable means of 
 self-knowledge, and they made him acquainted with 
 the great system of truth which from that time began 
 to unfold itself to his view. When he saw that God 
 would not suffer him to make satisfaction to divine 
 
THE THREE CROSSES. 57 
 
 justice, but required him to believe on him who justi- 
 fies the ungodly ; when he perceived that it was possi- 
 ble for God not to impute his trespasses to him, and 
 that He would save him as a helpless sinner through 
 grace, he is astonished at the wisdom, the love, the 
 condescension of this plan, harmonizing justice ^^dth 
 mercy ; he is lost in wonder at the method of sacrifice 
 and suffering by which it was effected. He knew, then, 
 for the first time, the exquisite pleasure of repentance. 
 He experienced that which discipline and self-control 
 never did for him, for by the power of regeneration, his 
 passions, for the first time, were like the seas when the 
 moon assumed her rule over them by the tides. For 
 the first time in his life he loved God ; now for the first- 
 time it could be said of him. Behold, he prayeth^ The 
 consciousness of increasing likeness to God, of com- 
 munion with him, and of the joys of a Christian life, of 
 being useful, of exerting an influence for the honor ot 
 God, as well as for the highest happiness of men in the 
 world to come as well as this, had the natural effect to 
 give him that indifference to all things else, which he 
 describes by saying that he and worldly things are 
 crucified the one to the other. 
 
 His expectations and hopes, also, were a powerful^ 
 means of producing and perpetuating this state of mind,. 
 Heaven was the object of his supreme desire, for there 
 he would be with Christ. In thinking of death and 
 the grave he found that they had lost their terrors.. 
 
58 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 Nothing seems to fill his thoughts or excite his imagi- 
 nation more, than the resurrection of the dead. 
 
 "We may add to the influences which wrought the 
 effect we are contemplating, upon the mind of Paul, 
 the power that must have proceeded from the work in 
 which he was engaged. Honest industry of every kind 
 is fatal to luxury. It is well said that " work is the 
 salt of the mind." Occupied as he was with an em- 
 ployment which stimulated every power and faculty 
 both of mind and body, inferior things found no relish 
 in him, and he had no time for their fascinations. No 
 man could more truly say. One thing I do. The ab- 
 sorbing power of his employment was, however, due to 
 its being derived from such sources as we have already 
 considered. 
 
 Let it be supposed that the reader is one to whom 
 the world seems cheerful and bright, whose hopes and 
 prospects fill the heart with the most pleasurable emo- 
 tions, or the actual gratification of whose affections in 
 themselves innocent, is the source of thrilling pleasure. 
 It is proposed to such an one to be a Christian. It is 
 most probable that the thought would be repulsive, and 
 be regarded as inconsistent with present and allow- 
 able happiness. Perhaps the idea of being " crucified" 
 to the world, and having the world crucified to us, oc- 
 curs to the mind as the proper and inevitable effect of 
 being a Christian. Is religion suited to one on the 
 eve of perfect earthly joy or in the rapturous possession 
 
THE THREE CROSSES. 59 
 
 of the heart's desire ? We know that it is good in 
 affliction, exceedingly proper at mature and sober 
 years, and indispensable in death. But was it ever 
 designed for one who has all that heart can wish within 
 reach, or in possession ? How^ would we persuade a 
 beloved friend in these circumstances that this is so? 
 
 Your calculations for happiness are all made, your 
 image of earthly bliss is formed, you are expecting to 
 be perfectly happy. If one should say to you that ' all 
 which cometh is vanity,' that is, fleeting, perishable, 
 that our desires for happiness are never satisfied by the 
 world, that w^e still crave something better than the 
 most perfect earthly bliss, and even this may at any 
 moment be dashed from our embrace, it would all be 
 true, but your answer would probably be, that you are 
 willing to take this risk, receive things as they come, 
 and stand in your lot. There is, therefore, a more sat- 
 factory way of presenting the subject. You are per- 
 mitted by the God who formed you with these suscep- 
 tibilities, to be happy in the innocent gratification of all 
 your desires ; he does not grudge you this happiness ; 
 he does not lie in wait to rob you of it, but, in the en- 
 joyment or the anticipation of your heart's desire, he 
 informs you that there is a happiness which alone can 
 give a satisfying pleasure to other joys. Most unac- 
 countable would it be if the God who made us capable 
 of pleasure, had no power to make us happier in know- 
 ing and loving him, than by any of his gifts. There 
 
60 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 are no circumstances of human joy to which the con- 
 sciousness of loving God is not a pleasurable addition. 
 Not only so, there is no pleasure which beforehand, or 
 in the enjoyment of it, or in retrospection, is not defi- 
 cient without the love of God. 
 
 Then it is furthermore true that as the love of God 
 is the only satisfying happiness, it creates distaste for 
 other things which are inconsistent with it. God is an 
 enemy to nothing which is not an enemy to him ; we in 
 like manner, by loving him, become indisposed to noth- 
 ing which would be for our good. To become a Chris- 
 tian, therefore, is not the violent and unnatural disruption 
 of attachments, and the sacrifice of happiness, and the 
 exchange of gladness for austerity which some suppose. 
 They think that in being religious, they must first be 
 stripped of every thing which they love, and pass over 
 to some untried objects which they cannot force them- 
 selves to love. Let them at once love the Redeemer of 
 the world, as Paul did, and for the same reasons, which 
 in no respect were more pertinent in his case than in 
 theirs, and they will not be conscious of expelling their 
 ;sinful attachments, but as the growth of the perfect 
 flower breaks open and throws aside the old embrace- 
 ment which seemed essential to it, so the heart which 
 receives Christ and religion, parts, without reluctance, 
 with former sinful pleasures and attachments. This is 
 true in the first experience of religious feelings; but 
 afterwards temptation arises, the flesh lusts against the 
 
THE THREE CROSSES. 61 
 
 spirit, and through life there is a conflict. But the 
 conscience and the judgment take part with spiritual 
 things, the renewed heart continues to find its only 
 satisfying pleasure in them, the motives derived, espec- 
 ially, from the consideration of Christ, lead us to view 
 ourselves and the world as Paul did when he speaks of 
 being crucified to the world and of the world as crucified 
 to him. Not that he is dead to the world, but dying ; not 
 that the world is dead or ceases to importune, but the 
 world is on its cross consigned to death ; and as Christ 
 died for sin on our account, every motive of gratitude 
 and love, every desire to be like him, constrains us also 
 to be, as it were, on the cross. Nor is it perpetual 
 agony, as the figure would seem to represent. Beauti- 
 fully does the Apostle explain this : " I am crucified 
 with Christ ; nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ 
 liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in the flesh 
 I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, 
 and gave himself for me." When he says, ' nevertheless, 
 I live,' he means, I know, in its highest sense, now, what 
 it is to live; indeed, it is as though Christ lived, 
 thought, acted in me, and by me, not constraining me 
 against my will, but through my grateful submission of 
 my all to him, who loved me and gave himself for me. 
 Let those who dread the sacrifice and suffering which 
 they imagine are required by religion, through self-de- 
 nial, consider, that love for an endeared object is not 
 conscious of self-denial or suffering, that in our devoted 
 
62 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 attachments we sustain the heaviest burdens, and per- 
 form labors and offices of kindness which wealth could 
 not procure ; and so it is in religion which is actuated, 
 as true religion always is, by love to Christ. Let him 
 who dreads it, have experience of it in its power to 
 resist and subdue sin. He will say as a revered and 
 lamented missionary said, in his last moments, " I did 
 not know that it was so easy to die." * 
 
 But supposing that religion were only the experience 
 of stern suffering in obedience to Christ, that through 
 life no joy visited our hearts ; or, that while we had 
 great spiritual satisfaction and pleasure, as Christ must 
 have had, in doing our duty, it were necessary to sepa- 
 rate ourselves from the world and from every thing in 
 it whitjh gratified our feelings. If Christ died for us as 
 the only method of atoning for our transgressions, 
 surely we should not refuse to suffer with him ; if for 
 us he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
 grief, how could we, if required, decline to endure any 
 thing which might be made to appear right and proper ? 
 In that sense we should be willing to be crucified to 
 the world and to have the world crucified to us. 
 
 So that when we read that " with him they crucify 
 two thieves, the one on his right hand, the other on his 
 left," we may each of us see himself and the world 
 represented truly by those malefactors, we saying, as 
 
 * Rev. John Scudder, M. D., Madras. 
 
THE THREE CROSSES. 63 
 
 one of them did, ' And we indeed justly, for we receive 
 the due reward of our deeds.' Each of us, could he 
 have paid the forfeiture of his sins by being crucified, 
 and suffering as Jesus did, would have been permitted 
 to do it if divine mercy had been willing to save us in 
 this way. But we could not atone for our sins, even 
 by crucifixion ; the death of Christ was not a substitute 
 for our crucifixion, but for our endless misery. " All 
 mankind by the fall, lost communion with God, are 
 under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all 
 the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains 
 of hell forever." Instead of its being productive of the 
 richest and sweetest pleasures known to the human 
 heart to be, in the sense explained, crucified with Christ, 
 our life on earth would justly have been a protracted 
 anguish, perpetual darkness would have covered us 
 while we made expiation for our sins, and an agony 
 like that of him who bore our load, would have wrung 
 from us continually the cry. Father, if this cup may 
 not pass from us except we drink it, thy will be done. 
 
 But now when we say, I am crucified with Christ, 
 and profess that the world is crucified to us, we recog- 
 nize that which is the only true source of all wisdom 
 and happiness, of likeness to Christ, and perfect re- 
 demption. If, therefore, at any time, our corruptions 
 struggle for the mastery, and the world tempts us to 
 forget or forsake Christ, we may well remember that 
 our proper place at such moments of temptation would 
 
64 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 be, with the tempting world, at the side of the dying 
 Redeemer, crucified with him. There let that tempting 
 world be fixed by us, and then let it assail, or court, or 
 upbraid us ; we, each of us a penitent thief upon a cross 
 by the Saviour's side, within sight and hearing of all 
 that he suffers for us, can certainly endure temptation ; 
 surely we can watch with him one hour ; the sins which 
 he is atoning for, we will not commit, or repeat, to his 
 face ; the sacrifice and service he requires as a testimony 
 of our love, we shall not fail to render. Those three 
 crosses on Mount Calvary may therefore stand before 
 the eye of every follower of Christ, as memorials and 
 emblems of his progress in redemption in this life, of 
 his profession, of the infinite cost of sin, and the highest 
 motive to die unto it, and to live unto righteousness. 
 
MEMBEESmP IN CHRIST. 
 
 " For "vte are members of his body, of his flesh, axd of his 
 
 BOXES." 
 
 Such language would greatly mislead, were there not 
 something most intimate and peculiar in the relation 
 between Christ and his people. The idea is, that there 
 is the most perfect union and identification of all be- 
 lievers with Christ, such as can be expressed only by 
 speaking of us, not merely as members of his body, but 
 of his flesh and of his bones. Why this latter intensi- 
 fied particularity ? It is warranted, we shall find, by the 
 representations of the Bible. 
 
 We must take those enlarged views of redemption 
 which the epistles of the New Testament present, if we 
 would anive at a higher degree of faith, and greater 
 comfort ; for if we dwell inordinately upon our individ- 
 ual unimportance, or our individual demerit, we fail to 
 view ourselves in connection with a stupendous system 
 which gives us dignity and bliss as a necessary result 
 
 6 * (65) 
 
66 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 of its plan. When the glory of God, and not man, be- 
 comes, in our view, the end of redemption, we see that 
 man is of necessity raised by it to privileges and honors 
 which he cannot account for, which he cannot believe, 
 if he confines his thoughts merely to his rank in crea- 
 tion, or to his ill desert. God is evidently using this 
 our race to illustrate great principles, and to effect great 
 purposes connected with the eternal interests of the uni- 
 verse. What is sin, what are its effects on the whole 
 nature of the. sinner ; the consistency of mercy and par- 
 don with justice, not in exceptional cases, but under a 
 system of forgiveness through an atonement ; the won- 
 derful harmony between divine efficiency, and the per- 
 fect free agency of the creature ; the love and compas- 
 sion of God ; the wonders of the cross ; the effect upon 
 the whole moral being of restoration from a fallen, de- 
 praved state, to a higher condition of bliss than was 
 lost ; and withal the direful influence of sin in the des- 
 perate resistance by some of all the means and motives 
 employed to save them ; then the just, the terrible con- 
 sequences of unforgiven sin, illustrated forever in the 
 punishment of those who refused to be saved ; — to 
 illustrate these things will be among the results, and is 
 now the object, of redemption. While the lost will 
 greatly illustrate certain important principles in the gov- 
 ernment of God, it is in those that are saved that his 
 character will be principally exhibited. So the Scrip- 
 tures everywhere teach. Hence, redeemed men are 
 
MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST. 67 
 
 necessary to His great plan ; God loves them, prizes 
 them, honors them, in some respect, as a man does his 
 materials, implements, and the products of his labor. 
 As men feel toward the precious stones, or the gold 
 and silver, or the costly wood which are to compose 
 their fabrics, or the fruits and rare flowers on which 
 they have expended great toil, or the productions of 
 their genius, so, from infinitely higher considerations, 
 the redeemed are identified with the glory of God in 
 his thoughts of them. " Since thou wast precious in 
 my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved 
 thee." " I have redeemed thee ; thou art mine." Not 
 only is it true that God is our portion, but we are his, 
 — "the Lord's portion is his people." Now, if we 
 merely look at ourselves as poor, weak, sinful worms 
 of the dust, we may well despair ; it requires no small 
 measure of faith to believe that we ever can become 
 truly great and good ; yet in the same way might the 
 unsightly mineral think and reason, though destined to 
 become a principal diamond on the brow of a queen. 
 
 Surely if we think what endless variety of beauty 
 and glory inert matter, in its most unpromising shapes, 
 assumes, under the forming and adorning hand of God, 
 we may cease to doubt that our spirits, once his image, 
 are capable of something more than our perverted, 
 blind hearts dare to hope for. Of matter, all the diver- 
 sified objects of sight, and sound, and touch, and smell, 
 and taste, are made, wTought by infinite skill into a 
 
68 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 stupendous variety of forms. The God who uses mat- 
 ter thus, can make man, body and soul, to exceed all 
 his perfect conceptions of himself, and compel his wea- 
 ried fancy to confess, " It doth not yet appear what we 
 shall be." 
 
 There is a beautiful figure connected with this topic 
 in the Epistle of James. " Of his own will begat he 
 us by the word of truth that we should be a kind of 
 first-fruits of his creatures." The first ripe fruit, the 
 cluster of grapes, and even the unexpected appearance 
 of an early vegetable, or a new sheaf, fills one with 
 pleasure. We are to be a 'kind of first-fruits' among 
 the creatures of God, exciting delight as proofs of infi- 
 nite efforts, infinite wisdom, and astonishing success. 
 We must therefore think of ourselves in connection 
 with Redemption as being each a subject and an illus- 
 tration of the mediatorial government of God, some- 
 thing on which He is to exercise infinite love and power. 
 Poor, degraded, lost soul, — in your own esteem, — you 
 are to Him what a pearl is to the eye of the pearl-diver 
 among the weeds and mire of the sea. Wherever the 
 grace of God has changed a soul into his own image, 
 there is invested a degree of worth with which the 
 mines of all the earth hold no parallel. But all this 
 is merely preliminary to more important considerations. 
 It simply shows us that when the Bible speaks of the 
 perfect identification of Christ and his people, (members 
 of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones,) it is war- 
 
MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST. 69 
 
 ranted by the relation which Christians sustain to the 
 mediatorial kingdom of God. 
 
 We come, however, to a more specific view of what 
 the Bible says concerning our membership in Christ, as 
 we remember that Christ sees in us who believe, the 
 special objects for which he suffered and died. " He is 
 the Saviour of all men, especially of those that be- 
 lieve." 
 
 We should intensely love those for whom we should 
 die. How the martyrs loved Christ! We know how 
 Ignatius, going into the Roman theatre to be devoured 
 of lions, for Christ's sake, poured out his soul to Jesus. 
 John Huss of Bohemia, burning at the stake, sung a 
 hymn which was heard above the roaring flames, and 
 as he was expiring he cried, Come, Lord Jesus. Lam- 
 bert, the martyr, when they offered him the crucifix, to 
 worship it before they lighted the flames, joyfully ex- 
 claimed, None but Christ, none but Christ. Thus, and 
 infinitely more, did Christ love you, and died for you. 
 He looks upon his people, each and all, as the fruit of 
 his coming into the world, the objects of his sufferings, 
 his agonies. He associates them with his victory over 
 death and the grave, his ascension, and with his glory, 
 for, as one who loves another loves to have that friend 
 know and share his bliss, Christ said, " Father, I will 
 that those whom thou hast given me be with me where 
 I am, that th*"y may behold my glory which thou hast 
 given me." Whatever He is as a Saviour they are es- 
 
70 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 sential to it. He could not be a Saviour without them ; 
 they are identified with him as the flesh and bones are 
 identified with the person of a human being. 
 
 It makes this seem natural and easy when we con- 
 sider among other things that Christ and we have the 
 same nature. In all points as we are, without sin, He 
 is as really one with us as the head with the members of 
 the body. Whatever joys his human nature is now 
 capable of, he knows that we, in the same circum- 
 stances, would be capable of the same. " Who shall 
 change our vile body that it may be fashioned hke unto 
 his glorious body." " When he shall appear, we shall 
 be like him, for we shall see him as he is." 
 
 The language of Scripture corresponds with this — 
 "joint heirs with Christ;" "ye are Christ's, and Christ 
 is God's," in which a comparison, a simile, is evidently 
 implied; " I will declare thy name unto my brethren." 
 " Behold, I, and the children which thou hast given me." 
 These are the words of Christ. 
 
 The intimate communion which Christ is represented 
 as maintaining with his people agrees with this : " He 
 that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will 
 love him, and will manifest myself to him." " I will 
 come in to him and sup with him and he with me." 
 
 Perhaps the greatest confirmation of the subject is 
 found in the Lord's Supper. Perfect identification, 
 which cannot be exceeded, is expressed by eating the 
 flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. By this, so far 
 
MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST. 711 
 
 as a symbol can do it, we, on our part, identify him: 
 with our flesh, our bones ; and surely, if this be per- 
 mitted, it is because He has first identified us with, 
 himself, — " because He first loved us." 
 
 So perfect did Christ regard the oneness between 
 himself and us that he speaks of it on this \a ise : " As 
 the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, 
 so he that eateth me shall live by me." " Whoso eat- 
 eth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, 
 and I will raise him up at the last day." 
 
 If I am a Christian, I am one of those by whom God 
 has purposed to show his character in the work of 
 redemption. True, I am only one, and that, perhaps,, 
 an inferior one. So the particle of gold might say as it 
 is rolled along over the pebbles toward the gold-hunter, 
 — I am only one piece, and a small piece of gold, — 
 but the eye of that man will recognize it, his hand will 
 eagerly seize it, he sailed over the seas for just this 
 kind of thing. 
 
 If I am a Christian, God has made me so. Blessed 
 truth ! something more than my own change of my 
 governing purpose took place when I became a Chris- 
 tian ; my repentance, faith, the whole of my own 
 agency was indispensable, but, there is a work of the 
 Spirit ; — " nor of the will of man, but of God." Godi 
 has created me in Christ Jesus. If so. He thought it 
 worth the eflbrt. He had a purpose in it ; I am given > 
 to Christ; Christ has recognized me — now his honor,. 
 
72 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 his word, his cause, stand pledged for my safety in 
 connection with my persevering efforts. Striving 
 against sin, and overcoming, my redemption will be a 
 part of his triumph ; his final glory and joy will be 
 mine. Now I see the truth of those great promises — 
 "All things are yours, whether the world, or life, or death, 
 or things present or things to come, all are yours ; and 
 ye are Christ's and Christ is God's." " Who shall sep- 
 arate us from the love of Christ ? " " Him that over- 
 cometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne." 
 
 Some one, perhaps he is a Christian, will say, " If this 
 be so, there must be great forbearance and compassion 
 in the love of Christ to his people, for there are those 
 at the table with me to-day who are exceedingly im- 
 perfect, to me unlovely, but perhaps in the judgment of 
 charity they are Christians. How are they one with 
 Christ ? " He died for them, nevertheless, and is re- 
 deeming them. He loves them, and will present them 
 •' faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding 
 joy." These are such as he came to save, and to do 
 this he identifies them with himself. Perhaps an addi- 
 tional reflection will make the forbearance and com- 
 passion of Christ still more wonderful. ' I take it for 
 granted,' you may say, ' that Christ loves me.' Cer- 
 tainly, how mnch superior you are to these. But is 
 this certain ? That very feeling, that repugnance to 
 weaker Christians, that avoidance of them, that intol- 
 erance of their peculiarities, may make it more difficult 
 
MEMBERSHIP IX CHRIST. 73 
 
 for Christ to love you than them. This is not the spirit 
 of Christ, but is contrary to it, for he condescends to 
 men of low estate, and it may be my estate was so 
 low, my sins, my unworthiness were such that, as an- 
 gels saw him coming to me, they might have said. 
 What condescension, what forbearance, Avhat compas- 
 sion, to set his love on that sinner. Perhaps when you 
 reach heaven you will see, that to overcome such a proud 
 heart as yours, to bear and forbear with you, has nothing 
 beyond it among the miracles of grace, and there will 
 be no redeemed sinner there but you would then be 
 willing to wash his feet, in testimony that Christ con- 
 descended as much in saving you as him. 
 
 ' You lay great obligations upon us,' T hear you say, 
 'if these things be so.' But in what way? — ' Surely,' 
 you reply, 'if there be this identification between Christ 
 and me, what manner of person ought I to be in all holy 
 conversation and godliness. I must walk worthily of 
 such union. If all this be true, surely I live, yet not I 
 but Christ liveth in me. I must not sin.' " Know ye not 
 that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God 
 dwelleth in you ? " " Shall I take the members of Christ 
 and make them the members of an harlot ? " "If any man 
 defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." ' I fear, 
 almost, to speak, to act.' — " Happy is he that feareth 
 always." — ' I must " deny ungodliness and every worldly 
 lust." ' — " For ye are dead, and your life is hid with 
 Christ in God." ' Having these promises, must I not 
 
 7 
 
74 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 cleanse myself from all " filthiness of the flesh and spirit, 
 perfecting holiness in the fear of God ? '" — " He that 
 hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself even as He is 
 pure." 
 
 If religion, if being a Christian, is any thing, it is 
 every thing ; it implies things of infinite importance, it 
 involves eternal consequences. We must prize our 
 name, our relation, as Christians, more ; do more to- 
 gether as Christians, avail ourselves more of our Chris- 
 tian privileges in testimony of our obligations to Christ, 
 and of our love to those who are partakers of like pre- 
 cious faith with us, through the righteousness of God 
 and our Saviour Jesus Christ. What has Christ done 
 for one who is a Christian ? He has made him a mem- 
 ber of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Not 
 only will he be saved from endless depravity and all 
 the miseries of hell, he will share with Christ in His 
 future glory, — enter into the joy of his Lord. Who- 
 ever believes that this is true of him, will not fail to 
 show it in his endeavors after perfect conformity to his 
 Redeemer. If Christ and I are one, all that belongs to 
 either belongs to the other. Then his cause, his people, 
 his honor, his future glory, are mine ; my soul and body, 
 my property, my time, my talents, my influence, my joys, 
 my afflictions and sorrows, all are his. This is literally 
 true. Such is the perfect identification with Christ of 
 every one who trusts in him ; " for we are members of 
 his body, of his flesh, and of Jiis bones." 
 
MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST. 75 
 
 If we could practically believe this, if it would 
 but influence our feelings and conduct, what should 
 we need more ? It would be a restraint from evil, 
 it would impel to good ; it would be a source of 
 continual comfort and joy : great would be our faith, 
 our hope, our peace, our love to him and to all. In be- 
 lieving and practising upon it, we must not be dis- 
 m,ayed at failures, but remember that we are made 
 members of Christ, not because we are perfectly like 
 him, but in order that we may become so. 
 
 It is affecting and exceedingly encouraging to think 
 that it is a very simple thing which first unites one to 
 Christ. Here is a tree with grafted fruit. The grafted 
 part is full, and even loaded. Once, that graft was a 
 mere scion, but even of that, only a very small part, the 
 edge of the bark, being brought into union with the 
 circulation of the sap in the tree, a communication was 
 established between the tree and the graft, and now the 
 graft is an essential part of the tree. 
 
 One simple, heartfelt act of trust by a sinner, in 
 Christ as an atoning Saviour, makes him one with 
 Christ. " But the righteousness which is of faith speak- 
 eth on this wise : Say not in thine heart, who shall 
 ascend into heaven ? that is, to bring Christ down from 
 above ; or, who shall descend into the deep ? that is, 
 to bring up Christ from the dead. But what saith it ? 
 The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy 
 heart ; that is, the word of faith which we preach. That 
 
76 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 if tbou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, 
 and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised 
 him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." 
 
 To be a Christian I is it repulsive to any ? Does any 
 professed Christian shrink from the obligations which 
 a perfect identification with Christ implies ? Not so 
 will it appear to us when this Redeemer, whose mem- 
 bers we may be, shall be seen by us as he is. Then 
 we shall find that to be identified with Christ is the 
 highest glory and bliss of the heavenly state. Happy, 
 thrice happy, are all who are able to say, 
 
 " Dear Saviour, we are thine 
 By everlasting bonds, 
 Our names, our hearts, we would resign, 
 Our souls are in thy hands. 
 
 " To thee we would still cleave 
 With ever grooving zeal ; 
 If millions tempt us Christ to leave, 
 O let them ne'er prevail. 
 
 " Thy Spirit shall unite 
 
 Our souls to thee, our Head ; 
 
 Shall form us to thy image bright. 
 
 That we thy paths may tread. 
 
 " Death may our souls divide 
 From these abodes of clay ; 
 But love shall keep us near thy side, 
 Through all the gloomy way. 
 
 " Since Christ and we are one, 
 
 Why should we doubt and fear ? 
 If he in heaven hath fixed his throne, 
 He '11 fix his members there." 
 
 Doddridge. 
 
VL 
 
 HE SHOWED THEM HIS HANDS AND HIS FEET. 
 
 " And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands 
 
 AND his feet." 
 
 They stood about him, half persuaded, yet wonder- 
 ing, and believing not for joy. The risen Saviour was 
 surrounded in that upper room with his few timid dis- 
 ciples, kindly seeking to persuade them that it is He 
 who was crucified and buried. He stretched forth his 
 hands ; the prints of nails driven through them were 
 there. Those hands are like those which they had so 
 often seen ; they certainly have been nailed to a cross, 
 and what other crucified person can it be but Jesus ? 
 His loose, upper garment plainly disclosed his feet ; he 
 bends as he stands, and directs attention to them. See 
 that half-circle of astonished men, one or more of them 
 holding candles as they all gaze at those feet, while the 
 eye of the compassionate friend passes over each coun- 
 tenance, watching the contest of faith and fear. Those 
 
 7 * (77) 
 
78 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 hands and feet seem to have gained the first victory, 
 though unfinished, over their unbelief. 
 
 He was not an incorporeal spirit, but his body rose 
 from the tomb. "He showed himself alive after his 
 passion, by many infallible proofs." He expressly de- 
 nied that He was a spirit : " Handle me, and see ; for a 
 spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." 
 "And he said unto them. Have ye here any meat? 
 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish and of an 
 honey-comb. And he took it and did eat before them." 
 After his resurrection from the dead, he was still, as 
 before, God manifest in the flesh, and as such, we are 
 expressly told, " was received up into glory." Thus, to 
 the very moment of ascension, he had the same body as 
 during his sojourn on earth, though its miraculous ap- 
 pearing and vanishing after his resurrection, lead some 
 to think that his body had become essentially changed. 
 It is preferable to think that, for good reasons, he for- 
 bore to use that miraculous power frequently until after 
 his resurrection, though he evidently used it at Naza- 
 reth when thev souo:ht to cast him from the brow of 
 the hill. His body had undergone no change in the 
 grave ; it merely came to life again, like the body of 
 Lazarus, and like the bodies of the saints which arose 
 at the crucifixion. Daring the ascension, the flesh and 
 blood of Christ were transmuted, and his body became 
 capable of spiritual things. But we know nothing of 
 the chemistry of heaven, any more than of its mathe- 
 
HE SFIOWED TIIEM HIS IIAXDS AXD HIS FEET. 79 
 
 matics. " He whom God raised saw no corruption." 
 A striking phrase, describing the instantaneous change 
 which living saints will experience at the resurrection 
 of the dead, helps our faith with regard to the ascend- 
 ing body of our Lord ; — " we shall not all sleep, but we 
 shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of 
 an eye, at the last trump." And we are expressly told 
 that it was an exercise of omnipotence by which Christ 
 rose and ascended : — " according to the working of 
 his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when 
 he raised him from the dead and set him at his own 
 right hand in the heavenly places." 
 
 He is gone into heaven, with no change but that 
 which we shall have, who sleep in Jesus, and the living 
 saints who tarry till he come. Such is the testimony 
 of those two men in white apparel: " Ye men of Gal- 
 lilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same 
 Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so 
 come in like manner as ye have seen him go into 
 heaven." ' When he shall appear, we shall see him as 
 he is.' We read that he looks like " a lamb as it had 
 been slain." In his glorified body, then, it is supposed 
 there will be forever something plainly visible to re- 
 mind the beholder of the wounds in his hands, and feet, 
 and side; they are his glory and joy; remembrancers 
 to him, and to his people, and to the universe, of the 
 cross where he was made a ransom for many. Let us 
 think of him as having a true body as well as reason- 
 
80 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 able soul, and not only made like unto his brethren, 
 but coming to " change our vile body, that it may be 
 fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the 
 working whereby he is able even to subdue all things 
 unto himself." Now if we are to be " like him," " as 
 he is," it is well to have just and vivid conceptions and 
 thoughts of him, so far as Scripture leads us. What 
 thoughts arise, therefore, as we look upon his hands and 
 feet? 
 
 Those hands made, sustain, and govern all things. 
 It is good if we are able unhesitatingly to say things 
 of Christ which are true of only one of his natures, as 
 though they belonged, as they surely do, to the insep- 
 arable oneness of his person. There is a singularly 
 beautiful intermingling of divine and human things 
 pertaining to Christ, in the first four verses of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews ; — " heir of all things," — 
 " made the worlds," — " brightness of his glory, express 
 image of his person," — " upholding all things by the 
 word of his power," — " purged our sins," — " made 
 better than the angels," — " obtained a more excellent 
 name." It is most comforting to our hearts when we 
 can speak of an almighty, omniscient, omnipresent, and 
 in all respects, divine Saviour, as a man, and not feel 
 that it is" inconsistent to do so. Happy are we if we 
 can look at Christ in his manhood and say of him, — 
 he " made the worlds ; " " by him were all things cre- 
 ated ; — and he is before all things, and by him all things 
 
HE SHOWED THEM HIS HANDS AND HIS FEET. 81 
 
 consist." His hands and his feet are most intimately 
 connected with the work of our redemption. 
 
 He would not have had hands and feet but for us, 
 and therefore, being chief executive members of the 
 body, we may look upon them as characters w^hich 
 stand for the work of redemption. As when Christ 
 showed his disciples his hands and his feet he gave 
 them the strongest proofs that it was he, so, if w^e will 
 look upon them with faith and love, we shall receive 
 strong impressions of Christ as a personal Saviour, 
 " bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh." 
 
 These hands and feet w^ere once those of an infant. 
 Immanuel, God with us, was once a young child. His 
 mother many a time rested her forehead upon his young 
 head, as Raphael's picture presents her to us, full of 
 unspeakable maternal thoughts and peace. My Sav- 
 iour was once as young as my own child ; his hand 
 wandered over his mother's cheek as one of his first 
 expressions of infantile love. It is natural that parents 
 should indulge such thoughts ; and let them do it with- 
 out rebuke. We have heard of a father who, having 
 buried his infant, carried for a long time after, a little, 
 worsted shoe in his bosom, nor did any who may have 
 listened to him as he addressed the Senate of his coun- 
 try, or the bench of the Supreme Court, think less of 
 him for knowing that the little thing was at that mo- 
 ment hanging near his heart. Some might call it weak- 
 ness, or childish, and smile at it, as we all smile at a 
 
b2 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 mother's words to her infant, until, perhaps, the little 
 thing is dead, and then the man becomes a woman, 
 and the woman oftentimes instructs and comforts the 
 man. It is unspeakably interesting to think that my 
 Redeemer was once a little child. The great Imman- 
 uel himself will never forget that those hands which 
 now uphold all things by the word of his power, once 
 could not hold even an olive-blossom, and that his feet, 
 before which Gabriel casts his crown, followed by the 
 crowns of heaven, once did not support his own weight. 
 His mother, as she worships at those feet, thinks how 
 often she spanned them and pressed them with her 
 warm, loving palm. ' Holy child Jesus I ' the apostles 
 still loved to call thee, when Herod and Pontius Pilate 
 and the Gentiles and the people of Israel had gathered 
 together against thee. We look on thy hands and feet 
 now, and we are not afraid ; they were made for us, 
 they were weak and helpless as ours were, as the hands 
 and feet of our infants are, and as, in times of trouble, 
 ours now are, and as in days of sickness ours will be. 
 To those hands we commend our dying children, to 
 those hands we-intrust all that is tender and precious 
 in our interests for this life. Nor will those feet lead 
 us, nor our dying friends, through scenes where they 
 themselves have not gone before. 
 
 But we must not linger here. Those hands and feet 
 were soon, very soon about his father's business. Those 
 feet went about doing good. Never went they into 
 
HE SHOWED THEM HIS HANDS AND HIS FEET. 83 
 
 any place where he could not ask his Father's blessing. 
 Never do we see them following after vain persons, or 
 vain and foolish things, nor hastening with an evil re- 
 port, nor to do any mischief, nor did they refuse to go 
 anywhere and at any time, to do good. But though 
 they walked over the tempestuous sea and trode the 
 storm underneath them, they hastened to the bedside 
 of the sick and dying, they stood amidst the miserable, 
 while his hands fed them and lifted them up. They 
 walked with Zaccheus, they went with weeping sisters 
 to a brother's grave. They climbed the mountain, 
 withdrew into the solitary place, where he prayed. They 
 took him to a garden, but it was named Gethsemane, 
 and they failed him there, under the load of our guilt. 
 Those feet with weak, fainting, yet resolute steps came 
 out of Jerusalem while the hands were holding upon 
 the shoulder a cross. What were those hands and feet 
 doing in that hour ? Is it not enough to bear my sins 
 in his own body on the tree, but will he bear the tree, 
 also? He was willing to do that which his enemies 
 themselves were at last unwilling to make him do, 
 and therefore took the load from him. No wonder that 
 the crowns of heaven are every one of them at his feet. 
 It was his hands and feet by which he " endured the 
 cross." Those open palms which had shed life and 
 blessing everywhere, had each a nail driven through 
 them ; and those feet which went about doing good, 
 were fastened among the feet of malefactors. How 
 
84 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 much was implied which was not spoken, when he 
 stood among his disciples after he had risen, and showed 
 them his hands and his feet. They were, and they are 
 now, the most striking remembrancers of his sufferings. 
 
 The history of our hands and feet will be a large 
 part of the history of our lives. The Saviour having 
 showed us his hands and his feet at his table, we will 
 endeavor to carry with us some impressions with regard 
 to our duty as we come away. 
 
 We must follow his steps. We have a helpful direc- 
 tory to duty in this, that we may always ask, How 
 would Christ decide and act in this case ? We may 
 not go where we cannot suppose his footsteps might 
 not be, nor where we cannot take him with us, nor 
 where we cannot implore his blessing. How many 
 steps we shall have taken when we go to his table 
 again 1 how many places we shall visit, unknown and 
 unsuspected now, but they will be safe places if we but 
 set him before us. " In all thy ways acknowledge him, 
 and he shall direct thy paths." Our feet will not carry 
 us with bad company, if we think of the feet of Christ ; 
 nor to spread an evil report against our neighbor ; nor 
 to do any mischief, nor will they profane the Sabbath, 
 nor refuse, for insufficient reasons, to visit the house of 
 God and the prayer-meeting; nor will they move in 
 wanton dances, nor stand in the way of sinners. What 
 errands of love and mercy they may perform ; how like 
 the steps of angels they will be if we keep our eye on 
 
HE SHOWED THEM HIS HANDS AND HIS FEET. 85 
 
 the feet of Christ. Perhaps they will travel to far dis- 
 tant places, and stand on foreign soil. " He will not 
 suffer thy foot to be moved ; he that keepeth thee will 
 not slumber." Our feet may bear us to the grave of 
 one whom we love ; it may be said of you as of him : 
 " Then cometh he to a place which is called Geth- 
 semane." Forerunner ! we cannot follow thee to such 
 an experience as that of the garden and the cross, how- 
 ever bitter and dreadful our suflierings may be. Sick- 
 ness may disable us, and our feet be placed, as it were, 
 in the stocks. They cannot be nailed to the cross, and 
 in all things we may be more than conquerors through 
 him that loved us. If we walk at liberty in our daily 
 business, we must consecrate all we do to him who 
 gives us the power to get wealth. Some who go to 
 his table to-day will tread the paths of learning. Per- 
 haps some who read these words are this day to join 
 the church of Christ. The history of those feet which 
 are thus to tread the aisles of the sanctuary to-day, 
 binding the sacrifice with cords even to the horns of the 
 altar, what a history it may be and will be, if they but 
 mark the footsteps of Christ. It may be said of some 
 of them by grateful nations. How beautiful upon the 
 mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good 
 tidings ; that publisheth peace, that bringeth good 
 tidings of good, that publisheth salvation ; that saith 
 unto Zion, Thy God reign eth. No more will those 
 feet go away from the table of Christ, Sabbath after 
 
 8 
 
86 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 Sabbath, but, " until he come," they are to bring you 
 into the circle of his friends, to sit with him at his table. 
 Let your consecration be without any reserve. Say, 
 " Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my 
 head." 
 
 And shall these hands, which join with Christ's 
 hands in this covenant to-day, have a history this com- 
 ing month or months, inconsistent with such vows, such 
 blessings ? These hands which take the body and 
 blood of Christ, how holy they ought to be. They 
 shall not withhold any thing from Christ which he re- 
 quires of us, nor be shut against the needy ; they shall 
 work no ill to a neighbor, keep back no just due ; they 
 shall be diligent in business, as the hands of Christ 
 must have been when he worked at his trade and digni- 
 fied our labor ; they shall strike no passionate blow ; 
 they shall use severity at proper times, sustained by 
 divine authority ; they shall shed kindness and blessings 
 on others ; they shall write no letters which the eye of 
 Christ might not be permitted to read ; they shall re- 
 ceive no gains on which we cannot ask his blessing. 
 May we be able, at the next communion season, to 
 show Christ our hands and our feet with joy and 
 peace, as he now shows us his. These hands may be 
 full of prosperity in business ; they may give and re- 
 ceive the grasp of new friendships and love ; some of 
 them may be given in marriage; they may receive from 
 God the richest blessing ever laid in them. All these 
 
HE SHOWED THEM HIS HANDS AND HIS FEET. 87 
 
 things, be it remembered, will have been purchased for 
 us by those hands which were nailed to the tree. And 
 some of these hands, now united in love, may be un- 
 clasped by death, be folded upon the bosom for the 
 long sleep, and, as they brought nothing into the world, 
 carry nothing out. But when the hand of earthly love 
 lets go its hold, there is a hand that will clasp ours 
 which will be far better. Therefore, while Christ to- 
 day shows us his hands and his feet, let us show him 
 ours, " a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable ser- 
 vice." 
 
 There is a time approaching when, not by faith, but 
 with our eyes, we shall together look upon those hands 
 and feet. Those hands will separate many, one from 
 another. By one or the other of those hands, each of 
 us will be welcomed, or bid to depart. Christ did not 
 hang by one hand only, and that his right hand, upon 
 the cross. That left hand was also nailed there ; and 
 shall I see it consign me to my doom ? I must not, 
 need not, shall not, if I now commit my soul to his 
 hands. Otherwise, with its print of the nail, it will 
 point me to my doom. 
 
 Let each one who reads these words and is not a 
 communicant, give himself to Christ in sight of his table 
 this day, remaining there as a spectator. If one should 
 remain, it may lead others to do so. How we wait for 
 one another in coming to Christ, but outrun others in 
 getting the world. Let your feet lead you to a seat 
 
88 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 where you may witness the Lord's Supper, and while 
 your hands seek, perhaps, to hide your feelings, you may 
 have covenant transactions with Christ. Be a Chris- 
 tian to-day. By the wounded hands and feet of Christ, 
 be not ashamed of him, but begin to love him and to 
 confess him before men. When all enemies are under 
 his feet, and his hands have divided our last rewards, 
 you may remember this communion Sabbath, as the 
 beginning of communion and fellowship with Christ 
 without end. 
 
^11. 
 
 COMMUNION WITH CHRIST. 
 
 " The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the commun- 
 ion OF THE BLOOD OF ClIRIST ? TlIE BREAD WHICH WE BREAK, 
 IS IT NOT THE COMMUNION OF THE BODY OF ChRIST 7 " 
 
 In celebrating the Passover, before the singing of the 
 hymn, a cup was distributed among the company at 
 the close of the feast, and was therefore called the cup 
 of benediction, or blessing. It was this cup with which 
 Christ instituted the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper, 
 as Luke informs us in these words: "Likewise also 
 the cup after supper," (that is, the Passover Supper,) 
 " saying. This cup is the New Testament in my blood 
 which is shed for you." 
 
 The Saviour sat down to eat the Passover, and 
 changed it into the Lord's Supper, converting the na- 
 tional ordinance into the great, commemorative rite of 
 his future church, thus quietly joining the t^vo dispen- 
 sations of Moses and the Lamb into one, as from the 
 beginning they were the same. So that there is an 
 
 8* (89) 
 
90 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 original congruity between the Passover and the Lord's 
 Supper, which we are also taught when we read that 
 ' Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.' The Sabbath of 
 creation goes, peaceful as sunrise, into the Lord's day ; 
 and, in like manner, as the old, waning moon, which 
 we see, for some time, after daylight, at last takes her 
 place, a beautiful crescent, in the west, so the Passover 
 waned and, still true to its name, passes over to another 
 shape and rules in our sky, till the day break and the 
 shadows flee away. 
 
 ' The cup which we bless,' or consecrate, was orig- 
 inally a token of special communion and love in a 
 transaction the whole of which commemorated the love 
 of God, in a most deeply interesting crisis of his 
 people's history. We, then, may look upon the cup, 
 before we receive it, as a gracious benediction, and be 
 prepared to find in its intended use nothing but loving- 
 kindness. The cup which we bless, let it be observed 
 in passing, derives no virtue from any ministerial act; 
 for ministers do not alone bless the cup ; all who pray 
 with them, bless it, that is, hallow it, set it apart from 
 a common to a sacramental use. Each communicant, 
 therefore, equally with the rest and with the officiating 
 minister, blesses the cup by uniting in the prayer of 
 consecration. 
 
 " Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? " 
 Suppose that it were literally blood. It could not be 
 any more significant than the cup now is intended to 
 
COMMUNIOX WITH CHRIST. 91 
 
 be. To repeat an illustration in a previous part of this 
 book, money is given and received when, instead of coin, 
 a paper representative, duly authorized, is employed. 
 
 It is then, the communion, the participating, of the 
 blood of Christ, which takes place w^hen we give and 
 receive the cup. If so, we do great injustice to the 
 Saviour's design, indeed it is almost a perversion of it, 
 when we invest it with a forbidding, terrific character. 
 It is possible so to represent the Lord's Supper that 
 men will regard it very much with the feelings of Moses 
 when he said, I do exceedingly fear and quake. Indeed, 
 the fear of violating the sacredness of the ordinance is, 
 with conscientious people, unsurpassed by any dread 
 whatever, especially when they connect with it the re- 
 membrance of those fearful words, " eateth and drinketh 
 damnation to himself" by eating and drinking unwor- 
 thily. Explanations and reasonings do but little with 
 such persons. We tell them, almost in vain, that, by 
 their interpretation of those words, it must follow that 
 every one who partakes of the Lord's Supper and is 
 convinced afterwards that he was not then converted, 
 is made thereby a subject of hopeless damnation, — 
 which, of course, they see to be absurd, knowing how 
 many have truly embraced Christ, for the first time, after 
 they had, through mistake and by undue persuasion, 
 made a profession of their faith. The solemn admo- 
 nition of the Apostle to those Corinthians w^ho turned 
 the Lord's Supper into ordinary feasting, and behaved 
 
92 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 in a rude and gluttonous way which seems to us in- 
 credible, is, of course, applicable to all who do not care 
 to ' discern ' any difference between partaking of the 
 Lord's body, and of an ordinary meal. Never, surely, 
 was it designed to repel from the ordinance any, whose 
 conscientious fears of intrusion make them exactly the 
 opposites of the inconsiderate persons to whom the 
 Apostle addressed himself. 
 
 Now the way to encourage ourselves in approaching 
 this ordinance, is not to make it less sacred and sol- 
 emn in our estimation, but to consider the way, for 
 there is a way, in which, sacred and solemn as it is, we 
 may be included in that affectionate appeal of the Sav- 
 iour, " Drink ye all of it." Surely, if this blood was 
 shed for the remission of sins, it is not with a stern 
 heart, nor a cold face, nor a hesitating hand that Christ 
 invites us to this supper. 
 
 Among those in whom pastors have confidence that 
 they are sincere followers of Christ, there is occasion- 
 ally one who complains that the Lord's Supper does 
 not afford that degree of comfort which is desired, and 
 such as others seem to experience. 
 
 There are others who would be glad to be released 
 from the obligation to attend upon the ordinance, per- 
 suaded, as they are, that they were never born of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 Are there not, also, some who live in known sin, yet 
 feel obliged to be at the Lord's Supper either as a duty 
 
COMMUNION WITH CHRIST. 93 
 
 which they fear to neglect, or as a means of concealing 
 their sin, which, if they absented themselves, would be 
 suspected ? 
 
 To these last, every thing may be said which would 
 be appropriate as a reproof for neglecting secret prayer 
 and religion in general ; and beside that, by the more 
 special profession of approach to Christ at his table, 
 and by receiving from him the peculiar tokens of his 
 love, they become hardened in sin and make themselves 
 liable to present and future judgments. 
 
 In warning them, and repeating to them the threat- 
 enings of God, we almost always terrify and distress 
 one of the other classes who are persuaded that they 
 have no right to sit at the table, because they have no 
 hope that they were truly converted. Still their desire 
 is to be sincere, and nothing pains them so much as 
 the absence of satisfying proof that they are accepted 
 of Christ. 
 
 Between these, and reprobates, there is the difference 
 which was once illustrated in a coarse manner, yet w4th 
 great truth, through a figure which being rendered in 
 other terms, is to this effect. The difference between a 
 reprobate and a sincere, though doubting, and even 
 despairing. Christian, is the same as we see in a wicked 
 man who is cast out of a church, and a member who is 
 excommunicated for some grievous offence and yet is 
 at heart a Christian. The two are like different classes 
 of animals when excluded from the sheepfold. The 
 
94 THE COMMUXIOX SABBATH. 
 
 swine seeks the pools of water and the mire, rejoicing 
 in his liberty; the sheep, driven out, bleats around the 
 fold, or, if she wanders a while, returns, and shows that 
 her heart is still in the fold. So, the sorrow and pain 
 which some of our communicants feel at the want of 
 comfortable evidence that they are accepted of Christ, 
 is sufficient proof that they belong to his true flock. 
 There is no better test of piety than our desires. The 
 Psalms of David afford as much proof of his being a 
 child of God, when he laments the absence of relig- 
 ious comforts, as when he exults wath his harp ; indeed, 
 religious joy is more liable to be deceptive than relig- 
 ious sorrow. 
 
 The first class which we referred to, have suggested 
 the remarks which follow; — they complain that they 
 do not derive that satisfying enjoyment from the Lord's 
 Supper as an ordinance which they desire and might 
 expect. 
 
 The reason of this has been found, in general cases, 
 to be, that the individuals expected impressions to be 
 made upon their minds, responses, as it were, from 
 Christ, assurances that he heard and regarded them ; 
 for such things they understand to be communion with 
 Christ. 
 
 They do not sufficiently consider the difference be- 
 tween hope and faith. To pray, to perform every re- 
 ligious duty, with the firm persuasion that God hears, 
 and will, in his own time and way, answer, but to 
 
COMMUXIOX WITH CHRIST. 95 
 
 require no sensible impressions upon the mind at the 
 time, in reply, is to ask in faith. But, to make our 
 comfort and the performance of our duty depend on 
 the response which we may seem to receive, is not the 
 highest exercise of love to God or trust in him. Com- 
 munion with Christ does not require responsive influ- 
 ences upon our hearts in order to be real. This, and 
 other things relating to a proper understanding of the 
 subject, may appear in the sequel. 
 
 In partaking of the body and blood of Christ, we 
 should be persuaded of his infinite love to us. This 
 feeling ought to prevail over every other. It should 
 lead our thoughts, constitute the atmosphere around 
 the table ; for this seems not only to be suggested, but 
 to be required, by the words of Christ, in appointing 
 the ordinance, " This do in remembrance of me." For 
 we never ask any one to remember us but with a feel- 
 ing of love. Remember me! there is always gentle- 
 ness, pathos, seeming entreaty, in such words. They 
 imply need ; they are the words of the parting friend, 
 the absent friend, the dying friend. Remember me! 
 Can coldness, or repulsiveness, or suspicion, or jealousy, 
 live in the heart which feels and utters such a wish, 
 such a request ? Surely, then, if the cup which we 
 bless is the communion, or participation, of the blood 
 of Christ shed for us, and now by his own hand offered 
 to us, reciprocal love and confidence on our part to- 
 ward him should be our ruling emotion. By what 
 
96 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 means could he persuade us, if not by the communion 
 of his body and blood, that he loves us and seeks our 
 love? Therefore to every one who shrinks from this 
 solemn act with a sense of his own unworthiness, for- 
 getting the righteousness of Christ which is placed to 
 the believing sinner's account, and fears, lest the break- 
 ing of the bread may be to him as when the Lamb 
 opened one of the seals, and there were lightnings, and 
 thunderings, and voices, we may speak in the Saviour's 
 name, and remonstrate, saying, " 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 ? " 
 
 But what relation do that body and blood have to 
 me ? — The Redeemer stands at the first sacramental 
 table, and says, " This is my body which is broken for 
 you ; this cup is the New Testament in my blood 
 which is shed for you." Instead of being repelled by it, 
 what is there, in heaven or in earth, which should draw 
 us with such cords of love, or inspire us with such con- 
 fidence ? 
 
 You are dangerously sick, and the attendant holds 
 forth to you a medicine which has cured many who 
 were as sick as you. In prison, doomed for life, a 
 redeemer comes to you with the bills of exchange which 
 have been negotiated for your ransom. You might as 
 properly shrink from the sight of that remedy and of 
 that ransom, as from the table of Christ. Here is the 
 
COMMUNION WITH CHRIST. 97 
 
 balm from Gilead, and the physician with it ; here is 
 the Redeemer, and for you he has found a ransom. 
 
 True it is that there must be reciprocation on our 
 part ; we do not passively receive the communion, as a 
 helpless creature receives extreme unction ; the bread 
 and the wine are helpers of our faith and love; there 
 must be communion with Christ if the ordinance is 
 understood and properly received. 
 
 But what is communion with Christ ? If we can 
 arrive at just ideas upon this subject it will be of great 
 practical use. 
 
 Communion with Christ implies a likeness of views 
 and feelings. Friends cannot be said to have commun- 
 ion of spirit unless they concur in things which deeply 
 interest them, and take essentially the same views of 
 the most important things. Separations between 
 friends, not unfrequently, take place because they differ 
 with regard to some subject which deeply interested 
 both parties, or one of them is absorbed in a thing 
 which gives the other no pleasure. Communion with 
 Christ implies that the things which chiefly interest 
 him, interest us, that we take substantially the same 
 views of things as to their relative importance. 
 
 The supreme motive of Christ, David thus expressed: 
 " I delight to do thy will, O my God ; yea, thy law 
 is within mine heart." The obedience and conform- 
 ity of men to God, was the end for which he lived and 
 died. His primary object was not to bring us off from- 
 
 9 
 
98 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 punishment, but to restore to God his revolted subjects ; 
 and all his exhortations, the words of counsel and direc- 
 tion with which he inspired his Apostles to teach us, 
 have this for their great end, to make us good ; not 
 happy, as the first object, but as a consequence of 
 knowing and doing our duty. That compassion is not 
 the fundamental principle of his character and conduct, 
 but the love of holiness, we learn when it is said, that 
 " the Son of man shall send forth his angels and they 
 shall gather out of his kingdom all things which 
 offend and them which do iniquity, and shall cast 
 them into a furnace of fire ; there shall be wailing and 
 gnashing of teeth." And at the last day, he who died 
 for all, and would have all men to be saved, and was 
 able to save them to the uttermost, will nevertheless 
 say to a multitude for whom he died, " Depart from 
 me, ye cursed." The interests of holiness, the honor of 
 God, are the great concern with Christ. Every thing 
 conspires to make us know and feel this. We submit 
 to God when we come into his kingdom ; own his jus- 
 tice ; yield to his disposal ; exalt Him and abase our- 
 selves. It is the first and essential effect of atonement, 
 in our souls, to set up the authority of God there, and 
 to change us from disobedient, to the obedient children 
 of God. 
 
 Therefore to have communion with Christ, we must 
 enter into the great purpose of his coming, his death, 
 resurrection, and mediatorial reign. The authority and 
 
COMMUNION WITH CHRIST. 99 
 
 the glory of God must stand in our view as it did in 
 the view of the Saviour, as the great end for which we 
 exist, and ought ever to live, saying, " For thy pleasure 
 we are, and were created." Those prayers of Christ 
 which breathe such a spirit of love to God and confi- 
 dence in Him, such submission and joy in view of his 
 will, must find an approval in our breasts. 
 
 It is in vain that we expect communion with Christ 
 as a friend and Saviour unless it is based on this agree- 
 ment between us. Every thing without this, however 
 melting, or rapturous, or in any way emotional, is im- 
 aginative and deceptive. " If ye had known me, ye 
 should have known my father also." While this is ad- 
 monitory, is it not also encouraging ? It shows religion, 
 in its highest exercises and attainments, to be based on 
 correct views of things, a right understanding, and not 
 on fancy, which is not subject to our volitions, and is a 
 faculty which in many is deficient ; while correct knowl- 
 edge and obedience to the truth are within the reach of 
 all who are willing to hear and receive instruction. 
 
 Having seen to it that our hearts are right with him 
 as to the ruling motive and the fundamental principle 
 of our views and feelings, our object will properly be 
 to ascertain in what way Christ, and the soul of one 
 who thus agrees with him, have communion by means 
 of his ordinance of the Supper. 
 
 Communion with Christ takes place when we have 
 intercourse with him by faith. This is true of com- 
 
100 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 munion in prayer, and it is the same, of course, at the 
 table, where our minds are more forcibly impressed, by 
 the sight of his appointed memorials of his own body 
 and blood. When it is said, ' He that cometh to God 
 must believe that he is,' a mere conviction of his exist- 
 ence is not meant, but, a practical conviction that he 
 is cognizant of our prayer, to believe w^hich is to be 
 persuaded of his omnipresence and omniscience ; " that 
 he is " there, where we pray, and is a rewarder of them 
 that diligently seek him. Applying this to Christ, we 
 must believe that he listens to what we say to him in 
 the secrecy of our thoughts, and if we believe any thing 
 aright concerning Christ, w^e must believe this. Our 
 danger and our great error will consist in thinking that 
 we must receive from him any impressive signs that he 
 listens and responds to us. We must not require nor 
 expect this. We must perform our part of the com- 
 munion by expressing to him our thoughts and feelings, 
 and leaving the rest to him. 
 
 His methods of communing with us will be various. 
 Some who complain that they do not have it, are mis- 
 taken, They express to him feelings of deep interest 
 to them, with confessions, and penitence, and a con- 
 sciousness of entire reliance upon him, a dread of sin., 
 fear of the future, resignation of themselves to his hands, 
 and they do not consider that it is he who has inspired 
 them with these feelings and thus answered their 
 prayers. Strong impressions of his personal access to 
 
COMMUNION WITH CHRIST. 101 
 
 them they may not have, and these are not essential to 
 communion with him. We have communion with 
 Christ when we impart to him, as personally present 
 with us, our thoughts and feelings. But as the great- 
 est favor which he can give ua is, not rapture, nor any 
 form or degree of joy, but to increase our faith, he may 
 withhold from us any sense of his nearness to us, and 
 yet make us feel and act as though we saw or heard 
 him at our side. When we can do this, we rise to a 
 high exercise of faith. The more we are able to do this, 
 the safer will our religious experience be, less fanciful, 
 more uniform, for then it will not depend on frames of 
 mind, or moods of feeling. 
 
 Let us fully believe, then, at the table of Christ, as 
 well as elsewhere, but especially at the place which he 
 has appointed for particular communion with him, that 
 he is at our side. We do not need to ask as a disciple 
 did, ' Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself 
 unto us, and not unto the world.' This disciple won- 
 dered how Christ could conceal himself from the rest 
 of the world upon his promised return, and confine 
 himself to the company of the disciples. But on answer- 
 ing this question, so perfectly natural in the imperfect 
 state of information which the disciples had respecting 
 the Saviour's future history, Christ discloses a truth to 
 him which corrected his misapprehension and imparted 
 a joyful assurance to all his friends. " Jesus saith unto 
 him, If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my 
 
 9* 
 
102 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 father will love him, and we will come unto him and 
 make our abode with him." We are told who put the 
 question which called forth this answer : " Judas saith 
 unto him, (not Iscariot,) " We thank thee, Evangelist, 
 for this information ; yet we would have suspected that 
 such a question would not have issued from Iscariot. 
 Little did he care how Christ would manifest himself 
 to him, or that he should do it at all. The answer, too, 
 was one which it required a mind predisposed at least 
 to spiritual impressions to appreciate and remember. 
 
 It is the chief privilege and benefit at the Lord's 
 Supper to have personal communion with Christ. 
 Never may we in this world come near to him with 
 greater encouragement or help to our weak faith than 
 when we sit at his table. We eat of his body, we 
 drink of his blood ; will he invite, will he command us 
 to do this, and he be wanting in his part of the com- 
 munion ? for bread, will he give us a ' stone ? We 
 should not call our children to our table, for commun- 
 ion with us, and fail to regard their wishes. He will 
 choose his own best way of promoting our fellowship 
 with him, but he will not be wanting on his part. For, 
 communion implies more than one. 
 
 Suppose that we anticipate this ordinance, as we 
 do a meeting with some very dear friend ; that we pre- 
 pare for it, that we consider beforehand what we will 
 say to Christ when he is at om* side, during the supper, 
 what confessions, what temptations, what trials, what 
 
COMMUNION WITU CHRIST. 103 
 
 requests, what praises and thanksgivings we will make 
 known to him, and what exercises of repentance, faith, 
 love, humility, forgiveness, contentment, hope, submis- 
 sion, we will desire to have while he is with us ; what 
 thoughts of heaven, what fears of dying, what prayers 
 for his special presence in any expected hour of need, 
 we will express. Suppose that we talk with him as 
 with the best friend, compared with whom an earthly 
 friend, a lover, even, is a poor, helpless worm ; and that 
 we seal our covenant to be his with his precious blood, 
 and by eating of his body broken for us, — this, this, will 
 indeed be communion, such as no other place, or scene 
 of worship, affords, or is intended to afford. This does 
 not make it necessary that we imagine his looks, or 
 that we see him hanging on the cross, or making any 
 sign to us. " For we walk by faith, not by sight." 
 We cannot, however, do this, habitually, and not expe- 
 rience the fulfilment of the Saviour's promise, " we will 
 come unto him and make our abode with him." 
 
 A proof that we have done this, and experienced the 
 fruit of it, will appear by this additional evidence of 
 habitual communion and fellowship with Christ, that 
 we espouse the things which are dear to him. 
 
 This is a peculiarity of love, that every thing which 
 interests the beloved object, interests us. His friend- 
 ships, his hatreds, especially his endeavors to promote 
 his own interests, to vindicate himself, or to effect a 
 desired object, moves our affections, and we identify 
 
104 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 ourselves with them. So that if we have communion 
 with Christ, we shall be identified, increasingly, in our 
 feelings, with those things for which the Saviour laid 
 down his life. 
 
 But there are some who, while they seem to be in 
 the family of Christ, have only that relation to it which 
 transient inmates have to a family. In some house- 
 holds, there are those who are with the family only at 
 meal time. They sustain, it is true, a pleasant, friendly 
 relation to the family ; but they are not of the family. 
 The intimacies of family communion, the secrets of 
 love, and joy, and sorrow, of prosperity and disappoint- 
 ment, the hearing the letter from the absent child or 
 parent, the consultations about the interests of the fam- 
 ily, — they are not admitted to these things. So, we 
 may be only occupants of seats at Christ's board, al- 
 ways present, indeed, at meal time ; but where are we, 
 and what are we, at other times ? Christ's family have 
 family meetings, other meetings than those at his table 
 and to receive food in his house, meetings of very near 
 and dear fellowship, where plans for promoting the wel- 
 fare of the family and the honor of the divine Head 
 are considered, and where He comes in, the doors being 
 shut, and says. Peace be unto you. 
 
 " There would I find a settled rest 
 While others go and come ; 
 No more a stranger, or a guest, 
 But like a child at home." 
 
COMMUNION WITH CHRIST. 105 
 
 Do we know any thing of this ? Or are we mere table 
 companions of Christ ? If so, it would be strange if 
 we did not complain of not having enjoyment at the 
 Lord's Supper, and did not know what communion with 
 Christ means. Or if we professed to have enjoyment 
 there, it would be suspicious. Do we expect to go 
 from a life of worldliness and sin to a peaceful, happy 
 dying bed, or, having been indifferent to the interests^ 
 of Christ's kingdom on earth, do we think that an 
 entrance will be ministered unto us abundantly into 
 the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ? No more can we expect communion with 
 Christ at his table unless we lead religious lives. The 
 exercises of mind at the Lord's table, are the ordinary 
 exercises of a Christian, promoted to greater measures 
 by the peculiar means appointed there to ^^ffect our 
 hearts. 
 
VIIL 
 
 SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE. 
 
 " Jesus saith unto her, mart ! she turned herself and saith 
 UNTO him, rabboni ! which is to say, master ! " 
 
 There were, thus far, only two words spoken, in this 
 conversation, all the rest being the explanatory words 
 of the historian. The two words which were spoken, 
 and which constituted the salutations at the sepulchre, 
 were these : " Mary ! " " Master ! " But what a dia- 
 logue ! The heart and tongue of John were necessary 
 fully to unfold the beauty and power of these words. 
 
 They remind us of those household salutations which 
 contain so much. The love born and nourished at 
 home, finds some of its best utterances in sudden greet- 
 ings. As you meet unexpectedly at the doors, or upon 
 the stairs, coming in, going out, or by the way, one 
 word, perhaps, is uttered, the hallowed name of father, 
 mother, the child's name, the words of intenser love 
 than husband, or wife, yet synonymous with them, the 
 half playful brotherly or sisterly appellation, or the 
 
 (106) 
 
SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE. 107 
 
 gush of love at the sight of the youngest born. All 
 that is blissful in human love sometimes finds expres- 
 sion in the simple, sudden utterance of one of these 
 names. 
 
 He who added to his divine nature a heart of ex- 
 quisite mould, possessed, and could appreciate every 
 thing which enters into the nature of human love. He 
 had first awakened the attention of this weeper at the 
 sepulchre, and yet her thoughts were so enchained to 
 that vacant spot where Jesus slept, that she did not 
 turn herself at the question of sympathy, Woman, why 
 weepest thou ? which the supposed gardener was speak- 
 ing to her. Then the charmed word was uttered, and 
 awoke her from the spell which the grave had laid upon 
 her sorrowful spirit. 
 
 Who is this that calls her familiarly by name I This 
 is some other than the gardener. There is a tone of 
 acquaintance and love in the utterance. " Mary I " 
 who can express all that might have entered into her 
 heart in that one moment, conveyed by that name from 
 those lips ! 
 
 It was the salutation of a friend returning unawares. 
 He stood before her alive. She was searching for 
 his remains. All her desire was expressed in those 
 words, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where 
 thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Not 
 thirty-six hours before, the crucifixion had taken place, 
 and from the anguish of that scene this loving heart 
 
108 THE COMMUXION SABBATH. 
 
 had not yet gained relief, but on the contrary, was ex- 
 periencing new pangs on missing the form she loved so 
 well. All the dark and sorrowful past was filled with 
 new dismay, its heavy clouds seemed agitated by a 
 rising wind which was mixing every thing in worse 
 confusion ; the dreadful death was now followed by a 
 rifled grave, the separation was deprived of that poor 
 solace, to weep over the precious dust. In such circum- 
 stances, perhaps we can imagine what that one word 
 must have been to her : " Mary ! " The voice she 
 knew, and in that moment a great stone was rolled 
 away from her heart. 
 
 The first address calling her attention was by the 
 name. Woman. All the Saviour's compassion and 
 kindness to her in times past and in that moment, 
 found utterance in a second word. His heart was 
 touched by the proof she was even then giving him of 
 a love stronger than death, watching at his deserted 
 tomb, fixing her gaze upon that spot where he last dis- 
 appeared from her view, and so entranced by its power 
 over her that she replies to a voice of sympathy and 
 kind inquiry behind her, without at this time turning 
 herself from her look into the sepulchre. Such affect- 
 ing love must have touched the heart of Christ, such 
 fidelity, such undying attachment, must have infused 
 unwonted feeling into the expression of her name. It 
 had in it the joyfulness which love feels in knowing the 
 glad surprise which it has in its power to impart, and 
 
SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE. 109 
 
 SO partook of the bliss which it was itself to awaken in 
 the heart of the disconsolate friend. 
 
 The disciples once saw that same form in the fourth 
 watch of the night walking upon the sea, and they 
 cried out for fear. Thinking only of her buried friend, 
 and of his lifeless remains borne thence, she knew not 
 whether by friendly or unfriendly hands, her thoughts 
 absorbed in efforts to find the inanimate clay, the sud- 
 den appearance of Jesus to her, alive, we would sup- 
 pose, must have overpowered her senses ; but the kind- 
 ness which flowed toward her in the use of her familiar 
 name, kept back the tide of feeling, otherwise too great 
 for nature, from overpowering her heart. " Master I " 
 was there ever a word that conveyed a greater combi- 
 nation of feelings wrought to a higher pitch ? Convic- 
 tion seems to have been instantaneous. The heart of 
 Thomas was not in her. Faith, which had not been 
 clouded even by sorrows, was in a moment changed 
 for sight. Jesus had undergone no change in death 
 and the resurrection ; his voice, and then one glance at 
 him, called up his wonted name. Some heavenly 
 artist alone might truly sketch the look, the motions, 
 the whole expression of that scene on either side ; it 
 was a scene such as earth had seldom witnessed ; and 
 yet in all which gave it real value, it may be repeated 
 in the experience of believers. 
 
 For, who needs to be told of the power which there 
 oftentimes is in one word of Christ to a sorrowful 
 
 10 
 
110 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 spirit ? All that Jesus needed to say to his weeping 
 friend was, " Mary ;" then did her light rise in obscu- 
 rity, and her darkness was as the noonday. So has a 
 sin-stricken soul, laboring and heavy laden, seeking 
 Christ, weeping and casting itself on him, suddenly 
 felt that Christ had spoken one word of peace to it, 
 and the day-star rose in the heart. It was but a word, 
 "be of good cheer," "fear not," "only believe," or 
 something, which, heard before a thousand times in 
 vain, now spoken to a waiting and trustful heart, be- 
 comes like the word which chaos heard, and there was 
 light ; which death and the .grave hear and obey. A 
 life of guilt, a sense of the wrath of God, despair of 
 ever being under any law but that of evil, has yielded 
 to the word of Christ, and there was a great calm. 
 Among the experiences of weeping, broken spirits, few 
 are sweeter and richer than the sense of perfect ease 
 with which a work is done at once which years had not 
 accomplished. Such was the effect of the Saviour's 
 word to the leper, " I will, be thou clean ; " and to the 
 blind eyes, " Be opened," and to the widow's son, 
 " Arise ; " and to the weeping penitent, " Thy sins are 
 forgiven thee ; go in peace." One word of Christ has 
 full power to effect every thing which we need. We 
 must believe this, and not limit that power by magni- 
 fying the difficulties of our case. 
 
 There is no more striking exercise of almighty good- 
 ness than that strength of heart which is sometimes 
 
SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE. Ill 
 
 imparted to uh in trouble. None of the circumstances 
 are changed ; but God has suddenly raised our spirits, 
 unwonted hope has taken possession of us. Some co- 
 incidence, some noticeable event, occurring in singular 
 connection with our thoughts and prayers, suddenly 
 inspires us with all the effect of revelation. The watcher, 
 looking out upon the sky and not suspecting dawn, is 
 suddenly cheered by a sign of day. 
 
 " So fairest Phosphor, the bright morning star, 
 But newly washed in the green element, — 
 Before the drowsy night is half aware, 
 Springs lively up into th' orient." 
 
 Every thing seems changed, and it is because of some 
 new turn in affairs, some kind message, some friendly 
 word of cheer, some discovery of help and relief, a fear 
 disappointed, a lost expectation coming back fulfilled. 
 What power God has to help us wonderfully by little 
 things, and sometimes without the aid of any thing ex- 
 ternal. " In the multitude of my thoughts within me, 
 thy comforts delight my soul." 
 
 The name of every believer is dear to Christ. " He 
 calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out." 
 Think of some of the times and ways in which you 
 have seemed to hear, and may yet hear, Christ speaking 
 to you by name. It may be that you are oppressed 
 with a sense of unworthiness, and feel that no one is 
 interested in you, or loves you. There is one who loved 
 
112 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 you in foresight of all your unworthiness, and himself 
 bare your sins in his own body on the tree. His love 
 is not fluctuating, like yours. " Having loved his own 
 which were in the world, he loved them unto the end." 
 Nothing can divide us from him. " Who shall separate 
 us from the love of Christ." Difficulties which appall 
 us do not move him. " He fainteth not neither is 
 weary." As you sit alone, oppressed with grief, he 
 seems to speak your name, and addresses you. It is 
 a familiar name to him ; he read it in the book of life, 
 before the world w^as ; he has read it times without 
 number ; it is one of the essential records in that book 
 of life ; humble, and a worthless name, as you esteem 
 it, this is the Father's will that of all that he has given 
 him, he should lose nothing. To the man, he says, 
 ^'my son ;" but of her who retains her Christian name 
 with those who have grown up with her, or have come 
 to love her, and of every child, the Christian name is 
 familiar, and in speaking to them, he would use that 
 name. " Mary " shall lend us her name for illus- 
 tration. 
 
 Trouble and anguish have come upon you ; bereave- 
 ment, calamity, a crushing load. He foresaw the 
 whole, he designed it, he knew what it would be ; the 
 furnace of affliction was prepared by him, and " lo I " 
 said the king of Babylon, " I see four men walking 
 in the midst of the fire, and the form of the fourth is 
 like the Son of God." We do not read of Christ call- 
 
SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE. 113 
 
 ing Judas by name; but he said, " Simon, Simon," and 
 " Thou art Peter," and, " Be of good cheer, Paul." 
 Should you but hear him speak your name to you, all 
 would be well. Faith may hear it. " I have called 
 thee by thy name ; thou art mine." 
 
 You are anticipating an hour of suffering. Nature 
 faints at it. Life and death seem hung in even scales. 
 Momentous is to be the issue of that expected hour, 
 and Jesus knows it. All that is delicate and hidden in 
 your condition, he knows ; ' and underneath are the 
 everlasting arms.' One word, " Mary ! " from him, will 
 be enough. Put your hand in his. You can go 
 through any thing if he but speak your name to you, 
 now and then, with a look of love. He will speak that 
 name. " When thou passest through the waters I will 
 be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not over- 
 flow thee." Let come what will, " his loving-kindness 
 is better than life." 
 
 The coming month you are expecting an event which 
 is to have an important, it may be an all important, 
 bearing upon your whole future life. Some child, or 
 near and dear friend, in whom you are bound up, may 
 be in this condition. You are going to the Lord's ta- 
 ble to-day. He that sat on the well when a woman 
 came thither to draw, and uttered to her some of the 
 most important truths of his ministry, and, we trust, 
 saved her soul, but, more particularly, he whose very 
 first words, so far as we are informed, with which he 
 
 10* 
 
114 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 broke the silence of the tomb, were, " Woman, why 
 weepest thou ? " expects you. It will be a favor to you, 
 and to very many like you, we know not how many, 
 perhaps all, if we, ministers, who conduct the service 
 at the table, refrain from much speaking, especially on 
 controverted or agitating subjects, an^ from common- 
 place remarks, and when we have sent forth the bread 
 and the cup to you, if we will be still, and ' let ' your 
 * religious hours alone.' For you are ready to finish 
 the quotation : — 
 
 " Fain would my eyes my Saviour see, 
 I wait a visit, Lord, from thee." 
 
 Commune with him respecting this great event ; think 
 of him as he himself was passing through critical sea- 
 sons of his earthly life ; call him " forerunner," " shep- 
 herd," "Captain;" "my refuge and my fortress; my 
 God, in him will I trust." Receive his body and blood, 
 all which it was possible for him to give you, (or he 
 would have given you more,) and -while he pledges 
 himself to you in this way, give over to him all your 
 precious interests, and make a covenant with him by 
 sacrifice. O hallowed, heavenly moments! What a 
 sight is a communing church, their heads bowed low in 
 converse with Christ. What a being Christ is, Imman- 
 uel, God with us, at the side of every one of those dear 
 saints of his, and at the minister's side, and with each be- 
 loved church officer who bears the vessels of the Lord. 
 
SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE. 115 
 
 What a season must communion seasons be to Christ. 
 Bethlehem ! Gethsemane ! Calvary ! Olivet ! these are 
 rivals with you in the Saviour's interest, when his 
 saints commune with him over his body and blood. 
 The little church of converted Aborigines w^ith their 
 faithful, loving teachers, the church in the greater wil- 
 derness of heathenism and paganism beyond sea, the 
 church of emigrants with household utensils for flagons 
 and cups, the ship's company in mid ocean, the dying 
 saint and the two or three who are gathered together at 
 the bedside, and the great missionary convocation rep- 
 resenting as nearly as possible the kindreds of the earth, 
 are scenes to Christ in which he begins to see of the 
 travail of his soul and to be satisfied. The crown of 
 the whole is, that to each he says, " Mary ! " and that 
 every Mary can, with truth, say, " This is my beloved, 
 and this is my friend." 
 
 Perhaps you need to come, and are coming, to the 
 table, as one who has very much to confess, and to 
 be forgiven. The annunciation and approach of the 
 Communion Sabbath may have arrested and awakened 
 you in sin, or forgetful ness, or in some departure from 
 God. You may have grown cold and careless. Pleas- 
 ure may have enticed you, some earthly love may have 
 beguiled you. How has it been with your Bible, and 
 prayer ? We are told that at one of the missionary 
 schools in the East, the praying girls at one time had 
 each her retreat for prayer in the jungle hard by, to 
 
116 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 which the trodden grass pointed the way, but when she 
 had become prayerless, it passed into a proverb : Her 
 path to the bush is grown over. How is this with you ? 
 If you have wandered, be not dismayed. One office of 
 Christ as Shepherd is thus expressed : " He restoreth 
 my soul." In its connection, it is affecting to read the 
 last verse of the one hundredth and nineteenth Psahn, 
 and to think that a man who had made that record of 
 religious experience and piety, should find it necessary 
 to close all by saying, " I have gone astray like a lost 
 sheep ; seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy com- 
 mandments." Let us have hope. 
 
 Are you on a journey ? are you in the midst of fash- 
 ion, at places where the gay world has her throne? 
 Jesus comes and stands in the midst, and says " Mary!" 
 How does his voice sound there ? Little cares he for 
 that intoxicating show of splendor and fashion, and all 
 the luxurious feelings which make revel there ; he 
 comes because one for whom he died and intercedes, is 
 there, and into that wilderness of spiritual things, per- 
 haps he comes to find the sheep which he had lost. 
 Is his voice welcome ? When he says " Mary ! " do 
 you gladly answer, " Master ! " Or is your name upon 
 his lips in such a place, like the look which he turned 
 and gave to Peter ; and would your name spoken there, 
 or anywhere, by Jesus, make you go out and weep bit- 
 terly ? 
 
 You are engaged in some self-denying or dutiful act 
 
SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE. 117 
 
 of love to an aged, or sick, or poor relative, or friend, or 
 stranger. Perhaps your companions are following their 
 innocent or their delirious pleasures, and have left you 
 alone with your duty and your reflections. Jesus is 
 there ; and, out of heaven, is there a moment of peace 
 surpassing that when, with approving look and tone, 
 he says to you, " Mary ! " At such a moment, what is 
 the whole world to vou ? 
 
 Now you are disappointed in something on which 
 you had set your heart. It seems that the whole of 
 life now will be a different thing, a gloomy thing, be- 
 cause of that loss. Your sun, you say, is gone down 
 while it is yet noon. 
 
 But there is one who openeth and no man shutteth. 
 He meets you amidst the wreck and ruin of your hopes. 
 Perhaps your feelings are agonized. Tears are your 
 meat day and night. Inexpressibly bitter is the cup 
 which you take with you into your solitude to drink. 
 There is one who took from the same hand a cup far 
 more bitter. You have found, you think, your Geth- 
 semane, but Gethsemane forbids that the same name 
 be applied to any scene of trial which comes to us ; 
 trial, too, which is to be for good to them that love God. 
 Remembering Gethsemane, he says to you, " Mary I " 
 ' Can you drink of the cup that I drink of? ' Will you 
 have fellowship with me in my sufferings ? These 
 trials are a part of redeeming mercy, and that ingredi- 
 ent in the cup which makes it revolting, serves to make 
 
118 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 it efficacious. If he, the man of sorrows, but speak 
 your name to you in the greatest affliction, it is 
 enough. He remembers you. ' The Lord thinketh 
 upon me.' All is well. 
 
 Now we see you at the grave's side, sorrowing over 
 that mound, or at the door of that tomb which has 
 changed the world for you into a vale of tears. There 
 comes one as you are bowed down with grief, and he 
 needs but to say, " Mary ! " and what then ? The Res- 
 urrection and the Life bears your name upon his lips, 
 and upon his heart, and it is graven on his hands. 
 These words of Jesus which, it has already been ob- 
 served, were the first after the resurrection of which we 
 have any knowledge, " Woman, why weepest thou ? 
 whom seekest thou ? " were uttered before a tomb. 
 What if your dead should appear to you in celestial 
 beauty, and, side by side, Jesus should also appear? 
 To which of them would you first draw nigh ? At 
 whose feet would you fall? Listantly you would feel 
 the infinite superiority of your God and Saviour to a 
 mere worm, however endeared and however longed for. 
 While you are weeping at the grave, therefore, know 
 that a voice is speaking to you far more to be desired 
 than that of the loved and lost friend or child. " I 
 am the first and the last." Make the grave the place to 
 enthrone Christ in your heart, and his love and sympa- 
 thy will help you to enjoy safely the luxury of grief; 
 for there is luxury in grief. You may carry your sor- 
 
SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE. 119 
 
 row with you as long as you live ; but as the moisture 
 of the climate around the British isles clothes England 
 with a peculiar verdure, so the constant presence of a 
 sanctified grief, makes the heart and mind like a green 
 meadow, opens it to the richest influences, and renders 
 it prolific. Let the risen Saviour but^peak your name 
 occasionally to the ear of your faith alone, and you 
 will go in the strength of it many days. 
 
 There is a watch word for us in Mary's salutation : 
 " Master ! " — " Ye call me Master, and Lord, and ye 
 do well ; for so I am.*' That word must be the ex- 
 pression of the heartfelt love of which obedience is the 
 best, indeed the only sure, sign. He speaks to us, dis- 
 inclined to duty, shrinking from sacrifice and sufi'ering, 
 from death, affliction, protracted grief. He calls us, 
 and points to the dark, or the thorny, or the narrow 
 way. "Master!" our response must be. He requires 
 of us the surrender of something dear to us ; calls for 
 aid to his cause, levies contribution upon his own 
 which he has given us ; and can we say, — do we say, 
 from the heart, " Master ! " We are not our own ; we 
 are bought with a price; what is our ruling motive? 
 what is our end in life ? do we look upon our own 
 things, or upon the things which are Jesus Christ's ? 
 Could it take a bodily form, what passion, what pur- 
 suit, what desire, what employment should we look 
 upon and say, " Master! '' " One is your Master, even 
 
 j^\^ 
 
120 THE cojiMuxiox saeeat:!. 
 
 Christ." Do you know him by that name? or only as 
 Saviour ? " He is thy Lord ; and worship thou him." 
 For, " What offices does Christ execute, as our Re- 
 deemer ? " 
 
 If we do this as the habit of our lives, there will be 
 times when at sudden and great mercies and blessings, 
 temporal and spiritual, he will make us exclaim, as 
 Mary did, " Master!" Mary's exclamation was one of 
 joy. So will ours frequently be, for his divine power 
 has given unto us all things pertaining to life and god- 
 liness, and among them exceeding great and precious 
 promises, the fulfilment of which, beautiful in their sea- 
 son, will be to us like the discoveries of new and won- 
 derful features of scenery in a journey through a land 
 of mountains and streams. 
 
 There is a time coming when these salutations at 
 the Sepulchre will literally be exchanged between Christ 
 and you. Three times in one discourse the Saviour 
 says of every one that believes in him, " And I will 
 raise him up at the last day." Standing at your sep- 
 ulchre, clothed with your new body like unto Christ's 
 own glorious body, the joy of your heart will rise higher 
 than ever when the Saviour, contemplating your perfect 
 beauty, his own gift, and rejoicing with you in it, comes 
 and says to you, " Mary ! " Then, with emotions which 
 will be heaven begun, and with large advances of its 
 joy, you will see the King in his beauty, and, O word 
 
SALUTATIONS AT THE SEPULCHRE. 121 
 
 of rapture, spoken then with new meaning, you will 
 say " Master ! " You who have followed him here in 
 the straight and narrow way, in darkness, in lengthen- 
 ing shadows and sorrows, and to many a grave, will 
 then turn and follow him into heaven. As we look for 
 this, we must desire and ask now to hear our names 
 from his lips in the way of constant admonition and 
 exhortation ; and as constantly, and with corresponding 
 love, our hearts must say to him, " Master ! " 
 
 " Master ! may we ever sav, 
 Taken from the world away, 
 See thy faithful servants, see, 
 Ever gazing up to thee. 
 Grant, though parted from our sight, 
 High above yon azure height, 
 Grant our souls may thither rise, 
 Following thee beyond the skies. 
 
 " Ever upward let us move, 
 Wafted on the wings of love. 
 Looking when our Lord shall come, 
 Looking for a happier home. 
 There we shall with thee remain. 
 Partners of thy endless reign. 
 There thy face unclouded see. 
 Find a heaven of heavens in thee." 
 
 11 
 
IX. 
 
 THE WALK TO ElVOIAUS. 
 
 "And it came to pass, that while they communed together, 
 
 AND REASONED, JeSUS HI3ISELF DREW NEAR, AND WENT WITH 
 
 THEM." 
 
 « 
 
 Perhaps these two men lived at Emmaus, for when 
 they arrived there, they invited the stranger, who had 
 joined them on their way, to abide with them. Per- 
 haps they had been to Jerusalem for to worship. " And 
 they talked together of all these things which had hap- 
 pened." Never had a week, since creation, comprised 
 such events, nor had creation witnessed events more 
 interesting and important. These two men, not of the 
 number of the twelve, were, however. Christian believ- 
 ers ; the name of one of them, only, Cleopas, we know. 
 " They communed together, and reasoned." The tomb 
 of Christ has been opened, and the body is not there. 
 What means this ? Where is he ? They asked ques- 
 tions of each other ; the one expressed a doubt, the 
 other a hope ; he a difficulty, and the other a solution. 
 
 (122) 
 
THE WALK TO EMMAUS. 123 
 
 So they reasoned together in great darkness ; and the 
 blind was leading the blind. 
 
 A man drew near and passed along the same road. 
 Their earnestness, their frequent exclamation, their lift- 
 ing up of their hands, their deep-drawn sighs, warranted 
 a kind inquiry, " What manner of communications are 
 these that ye have one with another as ye walk and are 
 sad?" There was only one subject, it seemed to them, 
 which could then be thought of. "Art thou only a 
 stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things 
 which are come to pass there in these days ? " 
 
 We read that "counsel in the heart of man is like 
 deep waters ; but a man of understanding will draw it 
 out." This stranger evidently knew how to lead on 
 the conversation, and draw out the secret thoughts and 
 feelings of the two men ; nor did they need much urg- 
 ing, but told him of Jesus of Nazareth, ' and how the 
 chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be con- 
 demned to death, and have crucified him. But we 
 trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed 
 Israel, and besides all this, to-day is the third day since 
 these things were done,' that third day of which he repeat- 
 edly spoke. Whether he is risen or not, we cannot tell. 
 The soldiers who watched him say, that some of our 
 number came by night and stole him away while they 
 slept. In confirmation of it, the priests and scribes say 
 that one of his twelve disciples was certainly a thief, and 
 that they were all, probably, thieves, and have stolen the 
 
124 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 body to persuade men that he is risen. Perhaps there 
 is ground for this accusation ; if Judas betrayed him 
 for money, who knows that Philip has not deceived us, 
 or that Matthew, or James, has not acted a foul part. 
 Had Christ really risen from the dead, he would have 
 appeared to his friends before this. He who came to 
 them in a storm upon the lake, walking on the sea, 
 knew full well what troubled hearts we must have had 
 at his death, and how we looked for that * third day,' 
 which has come, and is nearly past; but where is he? 
 Besides, had he risen from the dead, he would not have 
 risen privately. Was the sun darkened when he was 
 crucified ? What signs and wonders might we not 
 have expected when he came to life ! Did the earth 
 quake, the rocks rend, the dead rise, when he died ? 
 Surely his resuiTCction would have been hailed by all 
 nature with demonstrations of joy, and not only the 
 dead, but all heaven would have signified their more 
 intense interest in such a triumph over the Saviour's 
 enemies. Nor would he have failed to use his resur- 
 rection to confound his foes. We have borne ridicule 
 and insults as the friends of our crucified master ; he 
 would have come forth from the tomb, if alive, in a 
 manner that would have shaken Jerusalem to its foun- 
 dations, and forever have silenced his foes. But he is 
 gone from his tomb. Angels, indeed, say, or rather 
 our women say, that he is risen. The women must 
 have been deceived, and yet the body was not there. 
 
THE WALK TO EMMAUS. 125 
 
 But we trusted it had been he which should have re- 
 deemed Israel. 
 
 The stranger could hear no more. " O fools, and 
 slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spo- 
 ken." We are willing to be called fools when a man 
 has good news for us, and we care not if we are con- 
 founded and put to shame, may but our fears be proved 
 to be without foundation. The inquiring stranger, this 
 apparently uninformed man, this Parthian, or Cretan, 
 this wayfaring man, though a fool in their first impres- 
 sions of him, suddenly appeared possessed of perfect 
 knowledge on the subject which perplexed and dis- 
 tressed them. He undertook to show that all which 
 had happened was precisely in accordance with the 
 Bible. He brought to mind such words as those from 
 Zechariah ; " Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, 
 and against the man which is my fellow, saith the 
 Lord of hosts ; smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall 
 be scattered ; " and from Daniel : " And after three- 
 score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not 
 for himself;" and from Micah : " They shall smite the 
 judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek." He re- 
 minded them that Isaiah said : " He was taken from 
 prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his 
 generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the liv- 
 ing ; for the transgression of my people was he stricken. 
 And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich 
 in his death." David foretold respecting his garments 
 
 11* 
 
126 THE COMMUXIOX SABBATH. 
 
 parted, and that for his vesture they would cast lots. He 
 uttered the very words which the crucifiers used : " He 
 trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him ; let him 
 deliver him, seeing he delighteth in him." Then begin- 
 ning at Moses, no doubt he reminded them of the pas- 
 chal lamb and scape-goat, and of the two birds, one of 
 which was to be killed in sacrifice, and the other, dipped 
 in his fellow's blood, was to go free. All this plainly 
 foretold a suffering Messiah. But their conversation 
 was interrupted by their arrival at Emmaus, and as 
 the two men turned toward their house, the stranger, 
 as any modest stranger would have done, kept on, or 
 'made as though he would have gone further.' In the 
 beautiful spirit of eastern hospitality, " they constrained 
 him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, 
 and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with 
 them." 
 
 And now their interest in the stranger grew to won- 
 der and astonishment. Suddenly their guest became 
 their host. " And it came to pass as he sat at meat 
 with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, 
 and gave to them." . What new surprise was there ! 
 A beneficiary has assumed to be benefactor ; he repays 
 their benefit with a benediction ; it was their own bread 
 which he was eating, yet he assumes to bless it, and 
 break it, and offer it to them! No time ensued for 
 inquiry, or for the expression of surprise. ' And their 
 ■eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished 
 
THE WALK TO EMMAUS. 127 
 
 out of their sight.' Christ is risen. Risen ? we have 
 been wallving with him ; he has been talking with us, 
 he has been a guest at our board. They asked one of 
 the other if he ever had such feelings during a conver- 
 sation, if discourse ever excited such peculiar emotions. 
 " And they said one to another. Did not our heart 
 burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and 
 while he opened to us the Scriptures ? " 
 
 Where did they sleep that night ? Could they sleep 
 at all ? Could they sleep at Emmaus ? " They rose 
 up the same hour and returned to Jerusalem." 
 
 What a different walk they now had ; what different 
 men they were ; what a new world they were in ; all 
 nature seemed to them to be praising God; "now 
 glowed the firmament with living sapphires ; " the moun- 
 tains and the hills broke forth before them into singing, 
 and all the trees' of the field clapped their hands. 
 
 They went to carry good tidings, but when they 
 arrived, " they found the eleven gathered together, and 
 them that were with them, saying. The Lord is risen 
 indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon." Those two 
 witnesses confirmed their faith by relating what things 
 v^^ere done in the way, and how he was known of them 
 in the breaking of bread. • 
 
 " And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the 
 midst of them and said, Peace be unto you." Emmaus 
 did not detain him that night ; he knew that the two 
 friends had hastened back to their company, and that 
 
128 THE COMMUXIOX SABBATH. 
 
 there would be a scene of deep interest, as they received 
 and gave intelligence respecting him. So he fulfilled 
 that promise : " I will not leave you comfortless, I will 
 come unto you." There was great kindness in the 
 salutation which he gave that company, for who were 
 they ? Men who could not watch with him one hour ; 
 all but two had forsaken him and fled, and of these 
 two, one soon denied him, and they seem to have given 
 no credit to his promises. Yet he comes and stands 
 in the midst of them and says, " Peace be unto you." 
 Let us leave them here, and, reviewing the walk to 
 Emmaus, see the instruction which it affords. 
 
 What was the object of Christ in so remarkable an 
 appearance to these two men ? 
 
 It does not seem that the object was to convince the 
 residue, for when these two arrived, they were them- 
 selves saluted by the eleven with the information that 
 Christ had risen. Besides, as they spake, Jesus himself 
 appeared and stood in the midst of them. 
 
 We may, therefore, conclude that the walk to Em- 
 maus, and all which was connected with it, was an 
 illustration of the Saviour's love for the individuals of 
 his people. We cannot find any great or important 
 object, as it would generally be viewed, to warrant 
 such an interview on the part of Christ with those two 
 men ; and we must therefore ascribe it wholly to the 
 Saviour's regard for each of his friends. Here were two 
 of them greatly distressed on his account. Sincere 
 
THE WALK TO EMMAUS. 129 
 
 inquirers after the truth, they were, nevertheless, con- 
 founded by the failure of Christ to manifest himself in 
 a public resurrection. This seems to have troubled 
 them. They looked that his resurrection should be as 
 public as his crucifixion, his triumph as signal as his 
 defeat, but the secret disappearance of his body from 
 the tomb, confirmed the current story that some of his 
 disciples had stolen his body, and that, really, he had 
 not risen. 
 
 Now perhaps these two men, in leaving Jerusalem, 
 were leaving Christ, and his cause, and his friends, for 
 ever, persuaded that the whole mystery of Christ's life 
 and death had proved, at last, a deception, and they 
 were prepared to add these things to the list of delu- 
 sions, some of which, with a mixture of good deeds, 
 had only raised the hopes of men to disappoint them. 
 And now they were irrecoverably in despair, unless some 
 further light from heaven should break forth. But it 
 came to pass as they communed together and reasoned, 
 Jesus himself drew near and went with them. Is not 
 this like him ? Did he not say, I know my sheep ? If 
 one or two out of a flock wander, or are cauo:ht in a 
 thicket, or sink in mire, a shepherd needs no great pub- 
 lic event or influence to make him leave the flock and 
 go after that which is lost until he find it. The great 
 blessedness of those who have Christ for a shepherd is, 
 as much as any thing, in this, that every one enjoys his 
 undivided love and care. As a shepherd's whole mind. 
 
130 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 and strength are concentrated on one sheep in trouble, 
 our good Shepherd as readily expends thought and care 
 upon each of us as though we were his only charge. 
 It is related as a wonderful thing of Philip of Macedon, 
 that he could call every private soldier in his army by 
 name. It were but a partial consolation and comfort 
 if we enjoyed the love of God and the presence of 
 Christ only in common with others ; but while he loves 
 the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of .lacob, 
 and where two or three are gathered together, in his 
 name, he is pledged to come, still he tells us, (and he 
 says it after exalting our conceptions of him as ' the high 
 and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is 
 Holy, that dwelleth in the high and holy place,') that 
 to this man he will look, even to him who is poor and 
 of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at his word. 
 
 Therefore in the sadness and sorrow of these two 
 loving but stricken hearts, Jesus found reason and op- 
 portunity enough for a special manifestation of his 
 loving-kindness. We may, therefore, each have Christ's 
 presence with us whenever we need it. ' The Lord is 
 my Shepherd,' as well as the shepherd of Israel. 
 
 " My noonday walks he shall attend, 
 And all my midnight hours defend." 
 
 His first appearances after his resurrection were to indi- 
 viduals. When you pray, he is within reach of your 
 voice ; when you are sick, he is by your bed ; when you 
 
TUE WALK TO EMMAUS. 131 
 
 are in perplexity and darkness, he draws nigh ; at his 
 table, he sups with you. 
 
 But it is a good thing when two of his friends hold 
 communion with regard to him, or any thing relating 
 to his cause. Never are we deeply interested in private, 
 personal matters, or in a society, or in any project, with- 
 out taking counsel of some friend. It is well for one 
 who is interested in religion to converse with one who 
 is in like circumstances ; and if they together should 
 seek Christ, they might be specially sure of his pres- 
 ence. It would show an interest and earnestness which 
 he would not fail to regard. When two members of a 
 congregation come to a pastor and tell him that they 
 have agreed to be companions in seeking Christ, or that 
 they have helped each other in finding him, few things 
 bring greater pleasure to that pastor's heart. When 
 they together draw near to Christ, and invoke his love 
 and care, he does not forget the spirit of his promise to 
 any two who shall "agree on earth as touching one 
 thing. 
 
 It is pleasant when two brothers, or two sisters, make 
 each other confidential friends with regard to their re- 
 ligious feelings. The distance between members of the 
 same family with regard to religious conversation and 
 communion, the common saying and feeling, I can talk 
 with every one else more freely than with those of my 
 own family, is owing very much to' a consciousness of 
 inconsistency in little things which is recognized at 
 
132 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 home, and to those little differences, or faults, or tres- 
 passes, which make the thought of communing together 
 in spiritual things, repulsive. Strangers do not know 
 these easily besetting sins. But if we, members of the 
 same family, seek sweet counsel together, if brothers, 
 if sisters, would accustom themselves to pray together, 
 if during some heavy calamity which has fallen on the 
 house, or under the influence of some great blessing, 
 they should begin this practice, and while their hearts 
 are under the subduing inflnence of sorrow or joy, they 
 should together seek God, and become attached as 
 Christians by such communion w4th each other and 
 with Christ, these petty inconsistencies would be greatly 
 prevented, family ties w^ould feel the more powerful 
 bond of a divine love, family religion would be greatly 
 promoted, there would be Christian friendships in fam- 
 ilies, beautiful and strong, and that sad distance and 
 alienation which too often exists between the children 
 of a family and extends through life, would be ex- 
 changed for that unity which is described by inspiration 
 as " good and pleasant," One great device of Satan is 
 to make disunion and alienation ; love and concord are 
 to him hateful ; but our Saviour associated, in the minds 
 of his disciples, with the memorial of his love to them, 
 an act of condescension and kindness, in washing their 
 feet, w^hich ought to be remembered and applied by us 
 in all our relations to one another as often, at least, as 
 we sit together at his table. Husbands and wives who 
 
THE WALK TO EMMAUS. 133 
 
 love Christ, are most perfectly furnished with opportu- 
 nities for this Christian fellowship. Without formality, 
 without previous agreement, they converse on things 
 most deeply interesting which pertain to Christ and re- 
 ligion, and their souls make them like the chariots of 
 Amminadib. O what a loss it is when a husband and 
 wife can have no communion together about these 
 things. Claudius Buchanan, writing to his sister, said, 
 " While your dear husband is spared to you, and you are 
 spared to him, enjoy as much spiritual converse together 
 as possible. For when the separation comes, you will 
 reproach yourselves bitterly if you have not been ten- 
 derly communicative on this subject." 
 
 One way in which Christ teaches and assists us is, 
 by making us tell him our troubles. This is forcibly 
 illustrated by this walk to Emmaus. Whenever our 
 hearts seem as though they would break, and we go 
 alone, or with a friend, and spread our complaints be- 
 fore Christ, whenever the burden is so great that we 
 fall down before God and rehearse all our grief, it is 
 always the case, as in the instance now before us, that 
 it is he who is making us relate our sorrows, and plead 
 our cause, in order that we may have full views of the 
 difficulty, and appreciate the help wiiich he only can 
 give, and be prepared to receive answers of peace. 
 Thus he did with these two men. " What things ? " 
 he said. He assumes to be an inquirer, and draws 
 from them the full measure of their trouble, and lets- 
 
 12 
 
134 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 them see it clearly by stating it themselves, and dwell- 
 ing upon it, to convince him how great it is ; and 
 then he proceeds to help them. Thus he delays to 
 answer prayer for help, because we have not yet seen 
 and felt the diversified nature of our affliction ; it 
 is made to turn its sharper points upon us, slowly and 
 surely, till we feel ready to die, and then we can best 
 feel our ill desert, and understand the depth of his 
 mercy. So when we cast our burden upon him, he 
 fulfils the promise that he will sustain not merely the 
 " burden," but " thee." As a way-worn traveller on 
 foot asks one who drives by, to carry his burden, and 
 the kind man says, I will take you also, by casting his 
 burden on this man, the man sustained him. The bur- 
 den may not be parted from us ; but grace is given 
 sufficient for the burden and the thorn. When we are 
 sick, for example, with some perplexing illness, how 
 seldom do men consult God, and lay their case in his 
 hands before consulting a physician. Here was Asa's 
 sin, when he was diseased in his feet. But when we 
 consult God, his chosen method is to make us consult 
 men. He might have relieved the mind of the praying 
 Cornelius by direct disclosures ; but no, he must send 
 for Peter ; and Saul of Tarsus could easily have had 
 visions and revelations of the Lord, but instead of this, 
 Ananias must go and lay his hands upon him. 
 
 In connection with this, it is also interesting to 
 notice, in this walk to Emmaus, how Christ honors the 
 
THE WALK TO EMMAUS. 135 
 
 Old Testament. Instead of beginning with his own 
 life, he began at Moses and all the prophets. One in- 
 structive way for an intelligent, thinking inquirer who 
 would fully know the doctrine of Christ, is to begin at 
 Moses ; and therefore the epistle to the Hebrews, which 
 is well suited to that class of minds, is, very much of it, 
 a commentary on Moses and Aaron as types of Christ. 
 If the Old Testament was enough, in the Saviour's 
 judgment, to inform and satisfy those men about him, 
 what can we, with the finished revelation of God in 
 our hands, need more? But what is worse than to 
 destroy the confidence of a man in this Bible I As we 
 meet with sly insinuations against it in our popular 
 literature, it is pleasant to contrast with them the sim- 
 plicity and artlessness with which these sacred penmen 
 tell us, so honestly, of their doubts about Christ's resur- 
 rection, .the event on which every thing relating to 
 Christianity turned. But it seems to have been a hard 
 thing to convince them. They were slow of heart to 
 believe ; Christ needed to make them handle him; and 
 he eat before them ; and even then, all were not per- 
 suaded ; and at the very close, on the mount of ascen- 
 sion, it is said that they believed, " but some doubted." 
 How cruel to charge these simple-hearted men with 
 stealing, and palming a lie on the world-; and yet is it 
 less cruel to represent them as inventing a story in any 
 degree, or narrating any thing which was not true to 
 the utmost letter ? 
 
136 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 The darkest methods of God's providence are fre- 
 quently his choicest blessings. The way to deliver 
 Israel was, to pour darkness and seeming confusion 
 upon the hopes of believers by the selfsame events 
 which, in all their sadness and gloom, the prophets had 
 testified must happen. If any great calamity is hap- 
 .pening to you, and you love God, you may be sure 
 that it will be attended or followed by some great good. 
 " Ascribe ye strength unto God ; his excellency is over 
 Israel, and his strength is in the cloudsP 
 
 We ought to believe. The evidence in religion is 
 •overwhelming. Pitiably weak and foolish, as well as 
 inconsistent, is our inability to believe the most impor- 
 tant things, under the most powerful evidence, yet be- 
 lieving fables and follies on the slightest foundation. 
 We should come with our difficulties to God, in prayer, 
 and remember the truth of Luther's inscription in his 
 study : " To have prayed well is to have studied well." 
 God the Spirit can do for us, in a Sabbath day's jour- 
 ney, more than all books and teachers and the studies 
 of a lifetime without him, can accomplish. We should 
 ask for faith as we ask for health, or escape from drown- 
 ing, or help in a dying hour. 
 
 Unless we make the sufferings of Christ the first 
 •object of his coming, we have no such Redeemer as 
 the Bible represents. " Ought not Christ to have suf- 
 fered these things, and to enter into his glory ? " The 
 prophets were " searching diligently what, and what 
 
THE WALK TO EMMAUS. 137 
 
 manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them 
 did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings 
 of Christ and the glory that should follow^." The great 
 defect in the opinions of many respecting Christ is. His 
 sufferings are not, in their view, his main object. They 
 confirm his example ; they happened in the way of 
 martyrdom ; and they powerfully attest his sincerity, 
 and his doctrines. Such is not the Messiah of the Old 
 Testament and the Jesus of the New. Some make 
 the declared object of his sufferings and of his blood 
 only metaphorical. They have no Redeemer. Christ 
 was " slain from the foundation of the world," his suf- 
 ferings and death having an effect as soon as man fell. 
 If we would " behold his glory," as he prayed that we 
 may, we must see it through his sufferings, for he suf- 
 fered these things that he might " enter into his glory." 
 As there was no reason why these early disciples 
 should love Christ and be interested in him, and his 
 cause, more than we, like them we should have our 
 Christian friendships, growing out of attachment to 
 him and his service. Christian friendships attract the 
 notice, they secure the company, of Christ. We must 
 love and prize our church-meetings, endeavor to make 
 them more and more spiritual and Christlike, remov- 
 ing from them every thing which interrupts harmony, 
 and conducting them so as to look confidently for the 
 Saviour's presence in them. We must cultivate habits 
 of social prayer, join with one another in visits to the 
 
 12* 
 
138 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 throne of grace ; the walk to Emmaus, and from Em- 
 maus, may be enjoyed often with some Christian friend, 
 our eyes opened and our heart burning within us, and 
 a Saviour believed in and adored, at our side. We 
 shall have such converse in the heavenly Jerusalem ; 
 those who love each other here, in Christ, will love each 
 other there ; brothers, sisters, you will not be afraid, nor 
 ashamed, to manifest Christian feelings to each other 
 there. The love of pious husbands and wives here, 
 will be surpassed there, for they will love each other, 
 chiefly, as they see the likeness of Christ in each other, 
 and together behold him walking with them. 
 
 When those men w^ent to Emmaus with Christ at 
 their side, other travellers, no doubt, passed by, and no- 
 ticed three men walking and talking together ; but they 
 knew not that little group of three, nor what eternal 
 interest was in the subject of their conversation. They 
 knew not the Lamb of God, they knew not the final 
 Judge of men and angels, in communion with these 
 two Christians. Our table to-day, like the table of 
 Emmaus, has one with whom you would esteem it an 
 honor to sit, did you know him. He is the risen Re- 
 deemer, our ascended Lord, our Intercessor ; he will be 
 our Judge. When your friends come home from the 
 table, they wiU be able to tell what things were done in 
 the way, and how he was made known to them in the 
 breaking of bread. O that you would anticipate them, 
 when you meet them again, and say, ' The Lord is risen 
 
THE WALK TO EMMAUS. 139 
 
 indeed, and hath appeared unto me.' With you in your 
 retirement, while his people are at his table, he who 
 drew near to those two men in their lonely and sad 
 walk, will love to be ; and he will break the bread of 
 life to you alone, and bless you, as he blessed those two 
 at their table, at Emmaus. 
 
 And now. Saviour, we have, as it were, reached Em- 
 maus. We have spread a table for thee, and what a 
 table ! We wait for thee to take the bread, and bless 
 it, and give it to us, for it is thy body ; and here is 
 thy blood ! Our eyes are opened ; we know thee ; thou 
 wilt not vanish from our sight. With some of us, " the 
 day is far spent ; " and with some who little suspect it. 
 "Abide with us ; " go with us from thy table, to our table 
 at home, to our duties, to our employments, to our trials. 
 Through life, in death, " abide with us," till we also 
 rise up, and return to Jerusalem, and find the eleven 
 gathered together and them that are with them ! 
 
X. 
 
 THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME. 
 
 " Thou pkeparest a table before me in the presence of mine 
 
 ENEMIES." 
 
 When we examine and interpret this expression, we 
 almost shrink from the singular confidence which rep- 
 resents the Most High in such an act of condescension. 
 But the difficulty is only with our faith ; for, when we 
 compare these words with the representations, in the 
 New Testament, of the love of God to men, and no- 
 tice the figures and symbols there employed, as well as 
 the terms of filial confidence and love in the Old Tes- 
 tament, we find that David used only a warrantable 
 degree of assurance in saying, " Thou preparest a table 
 before me." It is a metaphor, which implies great 
 things, — God preparing for a man a table. 
 
 Among the pleasures of life, a table suitably provided 
 and well arranged, is a soul-reviving sight. They are 
 wise who study a proper degree of pleasure, as well as or- 
 dinary comforts, in spreading their board, and the family 
 
 (140) 
 
THOU PKEPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME. 141 
 
 is favored which has a tasteful hand, ingenious in giving 
 pleasure, to make their table inviting by those name- 
 less arts which love and care, independently of wealth, 
 supply. A well-prepared table is not merely a place to 
 appease hunger. The eye is pleased with its order and 
 fitness ; the impression is made that there has been 
 design and judgment exercised there, by which means 
 there are moral influences exerted upon us, of no small 
 importance. He who has his spirits cheered, and pleas- 
 urable impressions made upon him, once, twice, or three 
 times a day, by a neat, well disposed, though humble, 
 board, if he be not a churl, will be far more useful, as 
 well as happier, in all the relations of life, than one to 
 whom his table suggests no such thoughts and feelings. 
 The wife whose mind and heart are both employed in 
 this thing, need not feel that she lives to no purpose. 
 It is not the satisfying of hunger, merely, but the moral 
 influences connected with doing it, which she promotes ; 
 and doing it well, she binds her family together with 
 sweet influences which children feel and remember in 
 far distant years, and in other homes. What a joy it 
 is to a careworn man to be invited' by one whom he 
 loves, to a repast, though it be only a dinner of herbs, 
 which thoughtfulness of his comfort has provided for 
 him. And when at times something is done to sur- 
 prise him, or with his friends, he sits at the board where 
 that same taste and skill which spread the feast, pre- 
 sides, and sheds happiness upon the circle, he does not 
 
142 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 deserve to be blest if he be not grateful in no ordinary 
 measure. 
 
 That which the best and dearest earthly friend does 
 for a man, day by day, God is represented as doing for 
 one who loves him and trusts in him. What must a 
 table be which God has spread for us ! 
 
 A regard for our common wants is implied in so 
 doing. There are things done for us by those who 
 love us, at home, which wealth has no power to buy, 
 ministrations of kindness dictated by no mercenary feel- 
 ings, and having regard to that ordinary comfort and 
 happiness which are of more importance than great 
 services. My God, who knows my downsitting and 
 uprising, and numbers the hairs of my head, does not 
 confine his goodness to extraordinary acts, but he be- 
 stows things on which happiness depends more than 
 upon unusual favors. " Thou preparest a table before 
 me." God condescends to my ordinary need ; nothing 
 is beneath him which is an object of my need. 
 
 But there is frequently a special preparation even of 
 ordinary blessings, by the hand of God. Not merely 
 our daily bread, but things are provided for us in want 
 or distress, things in themselves cheap and common, 
 but provided under circumstances which make them 
 seem like a table in the wilderness. Will God do this ? 
 Our experience is full of it. Yet it is a wonderful rep- 
 resentation to make, — the Most High preparing a table 
 for a needy man. " Which of you having a servant 
 
THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME. 143 
 
 ploughing or feeding cattle will say unto him by and 
 by when he is come from the field, Go and sit down 
 to meat ? " But God prepares a table for his servant ; 
 it is that which the man's own servants would be ex- 
 pected to do, or that which his dearest friend would 
 love to do for him. They who spend much time and 
 thought in solving mysteries which never can be ex- 
 plained, would do well to leave them and study God's 
 unsearchable love. There is more in this to exercise 
 their faith, to excite wonder, to reward contempla- 
 tion, to improve the mind and heart, than can be 
 found in large volumes upon certain controverted sub- 
 jects. 
 
 It is in the way of triumph over enemies, that God is 
 pleased sometimes to prepare for a man who loves and 
 serves him, some special and noticeable blessing. Much 
 is said in the Bible about injurious treatment from our 
 fellow men ; prayer is very frequently rendered with 
 reference to this, and deliverance from it is gratefully 
 acknowledged. " Let not the foot of pride come against 
 me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me." 
 There is a power to injure us which is not dignified 
 enough to be reckoned with principalities, yet it has 
 great ability for mischief and discomfort, and that is, 
 " the power of the dog." To be run at, and to be fol- 
 lowed, by currish spirits, base, unreasonable natures, is 
 an annoyance from which it is often most difficult to 
 escape ; to resist, provokes it ; to flee, emboldens it, and 
 
144 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 we pray for some power to call it off from us. " De- 
 liver my soul from the lion, my darling from the power 
 of the dog." David prays to be delivered from a certain 
 trouble, "lest they that hate me rejoice when I am 
 moved." When Hannah was made happy, she could 
 not help thinking and speaking about " the adversaries," 
 and rejoicing in God over them. So it was with the 
 virgin Mary. It was natural for her to think of those 
 who had been proud toward her, and it was gratify- 
 ing to think of being exalted above her state in life, 
 over those who had looked down upon her. There 
 was no sinful pride in these feelings, for there was noth- 
 ing malign or vindictive in them. As we read her 
 beautiful song, we are made to say. Surely, God has 
 prepared a table for Mary in the presence of her ene- 
 mies. This is an envious world. Solomon said, that 
 " for every right work, a man is envied of his neighbor." 
 James asks us, "know ye not that the spirit which 
 dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?" — that it is our nat- 
 ural disposition to be moved at the prosperity and 
 happiness of others ? Blessed state, when " each the 
 bliss of all shall view, with infinite delight," and be as 
 truly happy in the happiness of others as in his own ; — 
 in which case there will indeed be fulness of joy and 
 pleasures forevermore. 
 
 When God appears with some token of favor toward 
 one who has had enemies, or there have been those who 
 have oppressed or slighted him, a good man has two sets 
 
THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME. 145 
 
 of feelings. He has a feeling of love and tenderness 
 toward his enemies. With no pride of superiority, he 
 is made superior to them by the hand of God, and the 
 effect is to make him kind and forgiving. Another 
 feeling is, extreme gratification in seeming to be vindi- 
 cated. His natural sense of justice is gratified. There 
 is much exulting language in the histories of holy men 
 on this subject. " For thou. Lord, hast lifted me up, 
 and hast not made mine enemies to triumph over me." 
 One of the blessings promised to him that " considereth 
 the poor," is, " and thou wilt not deliver him into the 
 will of his enemies." Our natural love of justice, our 
 hatred of wrong and oppression, are encouraged when 
 it is said, for example, " When a man's ways please the 
 Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with 
 him." Or, " When mine enemies came upon me to 
 eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell." How many 
 ways God has of blessing us. When he undertakes to 
 do a man good, how precious are his thoughts toward 
 him, how great is the sum of them. When he giveth 
 quietness, who then can make trouble ? 
 
 All these things, rich and great as they are, never- 
 theless are of inferior value and import, and are brought 
 to view only that we may better appreciate something 
 which far surpasses them. When we read to-day, 
 " Thou preparest a table before me," think of the prep- 
 arations made and now awaiting us, for the Lord's 
 Supper. 
 
 13 
 
146 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 God has prepared this table. Eminently true is this, 
 and most affectingly true. Who but God could have 
 prepared this table ? All heaven could not have spread 
 and furnished it. There was no eye to pity, no arm to 
 save. Then it was said, " Deliver him from going down 
 to the pit ; I have found a ransom." We may say with 
 confidence that to angels this table is the greatest won- 
 der in the world. It was the most difficult thinsf to 
 furnish. It is the most interesting object. Bethlehem, 
 Gethsemane, Calvary, the manger, garden, cross, con- 
 centrate all their rays of light and love here. If angels 
 were to preach, they would love to stand here. They 
 come to see this sight, they commune together about 
 it; they desire to look into it; always new to us, it 
 never grows old with them. If angels could not have 
 furnished this table, kings, princes, nobles of the earth 
 never could have done it. The wealth of Croesus and 
 Midas would have been only the small dust in the bal- 
 ance, toward it. Cleopatra may dissolve pearls to 
 drink them, but no mention should be made of coral 
 nor of pearls here ; for the price of it is above rubies. 
 
 And when we say that God ' prepared ' this table, we 
 are led to think of that stupendous plan which was con- 
 nected with it, far back in the councils of eternity, and 
 of that great dispensation of atoning rites which for 
 four thousand years held the world in a state of expec- 
 tation, and in pupilage, to be instructed into its mean- 
 ing. This table was provided by a sacrifice which ex- 
 
THOU PREPAEEST A TABLE BEFORE ME. 147 
 
 hausted the treasury of heaven. God manifest in the 
 flesh spread it, in person, with his own hands. His hu- 
 miliation, sufferings, and death are here. As our words 
 are diminished and suppressed in proportion as our 
 feehngs are intense, so the infinite meaning of this table 
 has chased away all form and ceremony from it beyond 
 a bare outline of an ordinance, just sufficient to make 
 it cognizable by the senses. What severe and awful 
 simplicity is here ! These two symbols only, simple and 
 plain, dependent on no forms for their efficacy, nor on 
 the vessels which hold them, whether of gold, or silver, 
 or wood, or earth, are the Lord's Supper. Their single 
 signification is, the Lord's death : an object remaining 
 the same from the beginning, ' until he come ; ' thus 
 beautifully holding us in communion with all the peo- 
 ple of God in times past and at present, amid changes 
 of all other customs, and variety and contrariety of 
 opinion, and strange languages, and also setting our 
 faces toward that great event, his final coming. " Ye 
 do show the Lord's death until he come," Judge of the 
 fiving and of the dead, in the glory of his father and 
 of his holy angels ; and such is he who spread, who 
 furnished this table and calls to every human being, 
 " This do, in remembrance of me." 
 
 And now, in recollection of what has been said re- 
 specting a table, as to the place it holds among the 
 influences of our daily life, it is pleasant to think that 
 this great commemorative and admonitory appoint- 
 
148 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 ment is associated with a table. A table is an emblem 
 of home. Influences centre round our tables not ex- 
 ceeded in their power and interest elsewhere. Happy- 
 hours pass by, bonds of love are formed, are nur- 
 tured, communion has its secret places, friendships are 
 cemented and alienations are healed, there. We read 
 of a treacherous enemy who, on being detected, was not 
 put to death because he had eaten with the man whom 
 he had injured, at the man's own board. What joyful 
 meetings and gatherings does a table witness ; and 
 there we specially see the bounties of God's provi- 
 dence. The custom is founded in nature, of acknowl- 
 edging God by prayer, at our tables ; asking a blessing 
 is a poor idea of that service ; it is the recognition 
 by a dependent creature of the hand that feeds him. 
 The table is the central point of all domestic comfort 
 and blessings. Christ speaks of heaven under the 
 similitude of a table ; " ye shall eat and drink at my 
 table in my kingdom." 
 
 When Christianity chooses a table as the symbol of 
 her choicest gifts, we see how" eminently social and 
 benevolent its nature is ; communion, fellowship, giv- 
 ing, the rites of hospitality, kindred, home, invitation, 
 refreshment, invigoration, and cheer, and every pleas- 
 urable idea which comes at the thought of a w^elcome 
 table, are implied in it. 
 
 But we must carry the idea still further. " Before 
 me," each of us can say, and he must, in truth say, — 
 
THOU PREPAREST A TAELE BEFORE ME. 149 
 
 " thou prepares! a table — before me." No human 
 being in the wilds of heathenism could be found and 
 brought in, through the grace of God, to this supper, 
 who could not in the fullest sense, equally with each 
 fellow-creature, say this. " Before me," a rebel, to 
 win, and reconcile me ; a lost soul, to redeem and save 
 me ; a starving soul, to feed me with the bread which 
 came down from heaven. But they who actually par- 
 take of it say, " before me," in a peculiar sense. In- 
 stead of being left to a wretched choice, as they are 
 who had rather starve than come, I am here, and " thou 
 preparest a table before me." Thou makest me to sit 
 down, and girdest thyself, and comest forth to serve 
 me. There are gifts and blessings which come upon 
 us sometimes, whose only effect, for a season, is 
 amazement. Such is this, to be led by a hand that 
 " sweetly forced us in," overcoming all our difficulties, 
 repugnance, and every thing which keeps others away, 
 and making us kings and priests to God, sitting to- 
 gether in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, belonging to 
 the church of all ages, past, present, and to come, in 
 heaven and in earth ; and while others say, " How can 
 this man give us his flesh to eat," making us eat his 
 body and drink his blood, as an expression to us that 
 his love spared nothing for our sake, and that he seeks 
 to incorporate and identify us each with himself, mem- 
 bers of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. We 
 cannot contend with thee in thy love, any more than 
 
 13* 
 
150 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 with thine omnipotence. We are like those little 
 pools upon the sea-shore at low tide ; and now the 
 ocean floods us, and we are lost in it. 
 
 " Nay, but I yield ! I yield ! 
 I can hold out no more ; 
 I sink by dying love compelled, 
 And own thee conqueror ! 
 
 " Come, and possess me whole, 
 Nor hence again remove ; 
 Settle and fix my wavering soul 
 With all thy weight of love." 
 
 There are spectators of our communion season who 
 are out of our sight. One, is the arch enemy of God 
 and man ; and if we believe in the existence and 
 agency of evil spirits, that great apostate angel and his 
 confederates look on when the Lord's Supper is admin- 
 istered to us. " Thou preparest a table before me in 
 the presence of mine enemies." As nothing in this 
 world represents to the view of holy angels such sublime, 
 affecting interests as the Lord's Supper, so there is 
 nothing which to Satan and his angels is such a me- 
 morial of their woe. Man was Satan's victim in this 
 newly created world; a race of creatures had, by his 
 instigation, apostatized, and would have peopled the 
 realms of darkness with rebels in league with fallen 
 angels against God, or would have become the sub- 
 jects of infernal malignity, gratifying a diabolical love 
 
THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME. 151 
 
 of misery by the torments which their despots would 
 have inflicted. The plan was successful in its begin- 
 ning ; man, the sinner, without the shadow of a reason, 
 broke his allegiance to God, and straightway incurred 
 the doom which had already fallen on those who had 
 sinned in heaven. Sovereign mercy interposed, pro- 
 viding a way of pardon for man, and left the tempter 
 and his angels under the everlasting cm*se. Then fol- 
 lowed the stupendous work of human redemption, of 
 which this sacramental rite is the memorial. The 
 sight of a company of human beings around this table 
 must be, of all sights on earth, a mournful, a distress- 
 ing spectacle to these our enemies. 
 
 It reminds them of their own irrecoverable ruin. 
 Our restoration shows them the possibility which there 
 was, in the nature of things, that they could have been 
 redeemed. Perhaps they thought, when they sinned, 
 and afterward, that God could not forgive sin ; their 
 own jurisprudence suggested no expedient by which it 
 could be done ; and their experience in the legislation 
 of heaven furnished no precedent of the kind. When, 
 therefore, they saw that God could be just and justify 
 a sinner, that it was actually done, and done by the 
 incarnation of Him who made them (for by him were all 
 things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, 
 visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or domin- 
 ions, or principalities, or powers,) and that this God 
 manifest in the flesh, passed by them, and bestowed on 
 
152 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 the sinner, man, their victim, this unspeakable gift, we 
 may suppose that their wrath knew no bounds. So that 
 as often as they see the Lord's table spread, it is a hate- 
 ful sight; they hate the sight of the Bible, of a true 
 minister of Jesus, of a real Christian, of a good book, 
 and of many other things ; but the sight of the Lord's 
 Supper and forgiven sinners partaking of it, aggravates 
 their misery. When heaven rejoices over the reception 
 of a goodly number, or even of one soul, into the church 
 on earth, it is a signal for new distress among those dis- 
 appointed and miserable beings who are again notified 
 by every act of salvation, that their judgment lingereth 
 not, and their damnation slumbereth not. 
 
 All which they can do, therefore, is, to hinder, as far 
 as possible, the good effect of this great ordinance upon 
 us. Glad are they when by the suggestion of doubts 
 and fears, they can prevent a troubled soul from deriv- 
 ing benefit from this scene of love and mercy. Some 
 they would persuade that they were precipitate, and 
 then they haunt and worry them with their upbraid- 
 ings. Upon all of us they practise temptations, so 
 that by the commission of sin, or the neglect of duty, 
 or want of suitable preparation, the ordinance may fail 
 of its designed effect. Are they not busy with their 
 fiery darts, during the participation of the supper? 
 Whatever may distract the mind of a communicant, 
 whether it be by untimely or unprofitable remarks of 
 the minister, or by evil associations in the thoughts of 
 
TdOU PREPAEEST A TABLE BEFORE ME. 153 
 
 the Christian, by animosity, or by prejudice, by the 
 sight of one who has been, or still is, an enemy, in all 
 manner of ways, the emissaries of darkness are, no 
 doubt, busy with us, when God has prepared this 
 table for us in their presence. They can injure him 
 only through us. And then, to borrow the blessed 
 Leighton's figure of the arch pirate, who lies in wait 
 for the richest ships, these foes of ours are watching 
 for us as we go away from the supper. For if, as the 
 Saviour says, when the seed of the word is cast into 
 the hearts by the preacher, " then cometh the wicked 
 one and catcheth away that which was sown," surely 
 they must find it greatly to their advantage if they can 
 prevent us from retaining, for any length of time, and 
 especially from reducing to practice, the instructions 
 afforded by the ordinance of the supper. 
 
 Therefore, if we remember that God has prepared 
 the table before us in the presence of these enemies, we 
 shall do well if we go to it, and partake of it, and come 
 away from it, as in their presence. 
 
 We should examine ourselves to see if we do re- 
 pent and forsake sin, which has been the occasion of 
 such disaster; which cost angels their thrones, and 
 binds them in chains under darkness ; so that to save 
 us from the same just condemnation with them, the 
 amazing sacrifice for sin was made. As we walk to 
 the house of God on the communion Sabbath, as we 
 
154 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 take our seats in view of the table, and as we receive 
 the memorials of the Saviour's body and blood, the 
 thought that we are made a spectacle unto angels, with 
 such probable feelings on their part with regard to the 
 supper, and toward us, will naturally make us feel how 
 great a thing it is to engage in that transaction. It 
 will excite our gratitude for the distinguishing good- 
 ness of God toward man, and for that redemption 
 which w© see in the case of fallen angels could as 
 justly have been withheld from us as from them. The 
 Lord's Supper being the divinely appointed representa- 
 tion of that great work which distinguishes the moral 
 government of God, to have a place at that table is, in 
 the esteem of lost angels, to occupy a seat higher than 
 any earthly throne ; it is a place which they regard as 
 second only to a throne in glory, and indeed as the 
 step to that throne. 
 
 What must they think of those who, having been 
 communicants, and holding still a right to sit at the 
 table, yet because they are strangers where they now 
 reside, go away from the table, though included in the 
 invitation to commune ? No light thing would keep 
 them away, could they obtain a reversal of their doom, 
 or a temporary reprieve, for a new probation. 
 
 Do they not look with eager interest over the com- 
 pany of communicants, thinking whether any from that 
 assembly may finally be made their prey ? They know 
 
THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME. 155 
 
 that the promise is only to those who endure unto the 
 end, and therefore they ply their terrible arts for our de- 
 struction. 
 
 But with all that is oppressively solemn in our re- 
 sponsibilities, and fitted to make us fear, let us not be 
 dismayed. He who spread that table, came to destroy 
 him that had the power of death, that is the devil. The 
 roaring lion is chained, and his chain is in the hand of 
 Christ. He could lead him into our assembly to-day, a 
 trembling captive, and make him cry. Art thou come to 
 torment me before the time ? All the power of the 
 enemy cannot hurt us ; devils and wicked men, to- 
 gether, cannot hurt us ; we can hurt ourselves, by neg- 
 lect and sin, but not because Satan and all his hosts 
 are able to tempt us above that which we are able to 
 bear. Safe and happy under the protection of our in- 
 finite Saviour and friend, let us go to each successive 
 communion season with more intelligent views of truth, 
 with a higher standard of duty, with deeper impres- 
 sions of what it is to be saved, and to be lost, remem- 
 bering that at the last day we shall either "judge an- 
 gels," or be condemned in their presence to the punish- 
 ment from which we had been redeemed, but from 
 which they had no Redeemer. 
 
 " In the presence of mine enemies." Imagine all the 
 enemies whom you have ever been compelled to regard 
 as such, gathered together at the door of the place of 
 worship, or seated in some conspicuous part of the 
 
 /v- 
 
 Of THE 
 
J 56 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 house, and in sight of you. On you alone they fix 
 their eyes, as you receive the emblems of the Saviour's 
 body and blood. 
 
 Now, is there one among them toward whom you 
 exercise an unforgiving spirit? He has injured you 
 greatly ; perhaps you have a deep and a just sense of 
 the wrong which he has committed, and you are wholly 
 in the right. At all events, what are your feelings 
 toward him ? what has been your conduct with regard 
 to his trespass ? Have you ever left your gift before 
 the altar, to go and be reconciled ? and have you now 
 returned, from a well meant, though unsuccessful en- 
 deavor, to be at peace with him ? You may then ask 
 for mercy in view of the ten thousand talents which 
 you owe to the justice, to the grace of God, you having 
 forgiven that enemy his trespasses. Is he, in your ap- 
 prehension, an unconverted man ? This is enough to 
 subdue every unkind feeling toward him, as you sit at 
 the table of Christ. Is he a professor of religion ? a 
 member of the same church with yourself? There are 
 differences of opinion and practice among good men 
 which sometimes separate them from one another, but 
 the table of Christ should witness sincere protestations 
 of good-will and desires for peace, on the part of every 
 one who receives the sacrament of 'the supper. 
 
 Let us permit those enemies to bring each his com- 
 plaint to our conscience. Whom have I injured ? 
 Whom have I defrauded ? Whom have I treated in 
 
THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME. 157 
 
 an unbecoming manner ? As they look upon me at 
 the table of Christ, can they justly accuse me before 
 him. who knows my heart, of any wilful injury or neg- 
 lect ? " Thou preparest a table before me in the pres- 
 ence of mine enemies." At such a table, let me re- 
 solve that if I have an enemy, I will have no enmity, 
 toward him or any human being, as God for Christ's 
 sake has forgiven me. 
 
 It is a peculiarity of the table of Christ that it can 
 receive and entertain an indefinite number. Always 
 has it been said, and to-day it is proclaimed again, 
 " And yet there is room." See the vacant seats around 
 you, and before you. See how many go away. If 
 the communion season has its proper effect upon us, 
 we shall each go away purposing to do something 
 toward bringing others to the possession of these infi- 
 nite blessings. 
 
 There is another table of which the Saviour speaks, 
 when he promises some that they should eat and drink 
 at his table, in his kingdom. When we think how 
 many come to the table on earth, we are reminded of 
 the great multitude which will come from the four 
 winds to sit with Christ above. And will each one 
 who reads these lines, be there ? You are invited ; but 
 perhaps you are one who has not yet accepted the 
 invitation. 
 
 Supposing this to be the communion Sabbath, what 
 
 14 
 
158 THE COMMUXIOX SABBATH. 
 
 if yon should purpose with yourself that, by the help 
 of God, when the next communion Sabbath arrives, 
 you will be in such circumstances that, if it were in 
 accordance with the proper regulations of the church, 
 you would be able to join in commemoration of the 
 Saviour's death, at his table. We will suppose that 
 the interval between the communion seasons is a month. 
 During the present month, you are to strive to enter in 
 at the strait gate. If there be mercy in heaven for 
 you, if there is grace there sufficient for you, if the ad- 
 vice and help of others can avail any thing, if .the king- 
 dom of heaven yet suffers violence and the violent take it 
 by force, you are this month to secure the salvation of 
 your soul. 
 
 What if you had come from eternity, with a month 
 allowed you to repent of your sins, and accept pardon 
 through Christ? Bend your whole soul to the effort, 
 as in such a case you would not fail to do ; seek ad- 
 vice, be directed ; and having seen, as you will not 
 fail to see, what you must do to be saved, remember 
 that the time is short, and that whatsoever your hand 
 findeth to do, you must do it with your might. When 
 that next communion Sabbath arrives, many, very 
 many, will be beyond the reach of all such opportuni- 
 ties. To-day they will go from the sight of the Lord's 
 table, little thinking that the next time it appears before 
 them, it will be in their remembrances of earth, beyond 
 the limits of hope. 
 
THOU PREPAREST A .TABLE BEFORE ME. 159 
 
 This table is spread again and again ; you may go 
 a\yay, and return, and find it spread, and the access to 
 it as free as infinite love and the outstretched hands of 
 Christ can make it. But, there is a time when they 
 that are ready will go in with him to the marriage, and 
 the door will be shut. May you obtain the wedding 
 garment before it is too late, and so be a guest forever 
 at the table of Christ, in his kingdom ! 
 
XI. 
 
 THE SACRA^IENTAL HYMN. 
 
 "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the 
 
 mount of olives." 
 
 It is commonly said that there is no such singing 
 heard elsewhere as at the Lord's table. It is certainly 
 true that we are never in so good a frame of mind to 
 enjoy it, as at the sacramental season. It may also be 
 true that the mysterious connection between the feel- 
 ings and the voice, accounts for some of the peculiar 
 excellence in melody at such times. Dying persons 
 while singing have, not unfrequently, been known to 
 utter strains of music not only unusual even for them as 
 singers, but of strange beauty, wild and free, yet within 
 the laws of harmony, with inimitable transitions, like the 
 glide on the strings of the guitar and violin, and with the 
 plaintiveness of the untutored wind among the strings 
 of the ^olian harp. If w^e ever reach a point at which 
 grace for a time holds nature in full control, and the 
 spirit has the mastery over the flesh, and the passions, 
 
 (160) 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL HYMX. 161 
 
 instead of being quenched, are like the living creatures 
 in the wheels of Ezekiel's vision, it is when we have 
 been contemplating Christ crucified, and sorrow, for- 
 giveness, love, hope, and new-born purposes have made 
 our hearts like creation with its vigorous conceptions 
 when the Spirit of God had brooded over it, so that 
 the first opportunity to utter our feelings in a song, is 
 as when it was said. Let there be light. Our sacred 
 passions then find expression and manifestation ; those 
 who are skilled in music pour forth strains with a vigor 
 that controls the inharmonious notes which, in less 
 energetic singing, have such fatal power over the cur- 
 rent of sound. Probably it is not mere fancy which 
 gives rise to the common feeling with regard to the 
 singing at the communion season. 
 
 Singing concluded the celebration of the Passover 
 Supper, so that this first sacramental hymn was, in a 
 sense, the song of Moses and of the Lamb. The 
 passover was a constant memorial of national, domes- 
 tic, individual salvation in a time of deep distress and 
 peril ; a song of praise well became that celebration. 
 There was, as it were, a transmigration of soul from 
 the Passover to the Lord's Supper ; a change of a 
 chrysalis into a higher order of life. The Lord's Sup- 
 per was not instituted at the Feast of Tabernacles; 
 nor was the day of atonement converted into the 
 Christian sacrament ; but the Passover was the point 
 of transition from ritual thanksgivings, under the law, 
 
 14* 
 
162 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 to the perpetual memorial of our deliverance from 
 bondage. The pious Jews sang the passover hymn 
 under the mingled feelings of a jubilee, and of a solemn 
 religious rite ; but when they came to see Christ as 
 their passover, when Aaron gave place in their hearts 
 to Jesus, (to effect which was a great object of the 
 epistle to the Hebrews,) and when the paschal lamb 
 became, in their view, a mere type and shadow of the 
 Lamb of God, we can conceive that the place was 
 shaken where they were assembled together, under the 
 influence of their spring-tide love to their Redeemer. 
 Far more expressive, however, should be our sacramen- 
 tal hymns, with the whole history of the gospel in our 
 hands. And if, with such prospects as the coming 
 history of redemption opens to our view, we did not 
 sing at the Lord's Supper as we sing nowhere else, it 
 would seem that the stones would cry out. 
 
 Some, indeed, may sing acceptably to the ear of 
 Christ who never raise a note with their voice, but still 
 the public singing of those who love him, is better 
 to him than secret love, for the same reasons that he 
 " loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings 
 of Jacob.'' Therefore they who can sing, with the un- 
 derstanding and with the spirit together, do best fulfil 
 this part of the sacramental service, and render more 
 acceptable honor to the master of the feast. 
 
 Their voices, each of them, though blended with the 
 great volume of sound, are discerned by his ear, more 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL IIY3IX. 163 
 
 perfectly than we can trace, in a large choir, the capti- 
 vating ' alto,' which fixes attention by its imitative na- 
 ture as it follow^s the ' air,' like the second rainbow 
 around the meteor itself; "and whether the voice be of a 
 child, at the Supper, early tuned to sacred praise, or the 
 noble voice of the man in his prime, or the melody of 
 her whose soul, in its love to Christ, is itself a melody, 
 Jesus hears it, follows it through, accepts the offering, 
 and loves the giver. 
 
 The members of choirs would seem to have a spirit- 
 ually presumptive right to places at the Lord's table, or 
 rather, the table has a peculiar claim to them. Every 
 member of a choir in a Christian congregation ought 
 to be there. What strains there would be at our com- 
 munion seasons if the chief singers were all there. If 
 the son of Jesse dedicated many of his Psalms "to the 
 chief singer on my stringed instruments," the Son of 
 David surely has a right to dedicate the Sacramental 
 Hymns to the chief singers of his sanctuaries, and to 
 require their presence there. After enjoying the musi- 
 cal gifts of our friends during the day, we are sorry to 
 miss them at the very time wdien our enjoyment of 
 their help would be the greatest, and when they could 
 do most, by offering praise, to glorify Christ. When 
 the members of our choirs, one and all, take those 
 places at the Lord's table which are w^aiting for them, 
 (' and yet there is room ') we may say as one of our 
 
164 THE COMMrXION SABBATH. 
 
 hymns says of Christ's appearing ' in yonder cloud/ 
 and of our gathering together unto him, 
 
 " Then shall "we sing more sweet, more loud, 
 And Christ shall be our sonor." 
 
 " And when they had sung a hymn." — Then, per- 
 haps, Jesus sang. Did he indeed sing ? Jesus wept, 
 and though we do not read of many common expres- 
 sions of pleasure by him, yet, he sang. We have no 
 tradition, there is no record, with regard to his voice, 
 though we read that " never man spake like this man ; " 
 " and all wondered at the gracious words which pro- 
 ceeded out of his mouth." If he sang, all was natural 
 and expressive ; he sang as he loved, and prayed, and 
 went about doing good, with all his heart and soul, and 
 under the influence of supreme love to his father. 
 Deeply impressive must have been those articulations 
 of sound from his lips, the sentiment uttered receiving 
 force from his expression. Jesus sang, and in doing it, 
 is not ashamed to call us brethren, saying, " I will de- 
 clare thy name unto my brethren ; in the midst of the 
 church will I sing praises unto thee," which he did lit- 
 erally, when, with his little church of Apostles, he sung 
 a hymn. There is nothing which interests us, in which, 
 on inquiry, we cannot find that the Saviour was in 
 some way, interested. He listens to those who sing his 
 praise in every place ; he understands music ; he is the 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL HYMN. 165 
 
 Creator of music, he loves it, when it fulfils its noblest 
 purpose, — to glorify him. 
 
 Perhaps in no way do those who sing engage his 
 love more than when, each of them, in their retirement, 
 they take a hymn of praise to Christ, and fixing their 
 thoughts upon him, sing it before him, as an act of 
 worship. No wonder if they find it difficult to get 
 through with it, their emotions interrupting their utter- 
 ance, and tears obscuring their sight, till they are 
 
 " Rapt into sweet communion whicli transcends 
 The imperfect utterance of prayer and praise." 
 
 No nearer approach than this is ever made to the en- 
 joyments and employments of the heavenly world. 
 Then let our songs abound ; in private, let us often do, 
 as Pliny tells the emperor Trajan the early Christians 
 did in their assemblies, — ' sing a hymn to Christ as 
 God ; ' and if at all times, when we sing together, we 
 could thus sing with melody in our hearts unto the 
 Lord, giving life and power to taste and skill, our com- 
 mon acts of praise would have much of the quality of 
 the Sacramental Hymns. 
 
 We need more of the cheering, soothing influence of 
 sacred music ; the heart of man is bowed down with 
 many a secret grief, oppressed with many cares, dis- 
 couraged and ready to faint with weakness and sin. O 
 for great companies of pious hearts in all our congre- 
 gations, with skilful voices, to bring in heaven, like 
 
166 THE COMMUXION SABBATH. 
 
 spring, upon the winter of our life. Those churches 
 which, by their organization, have rehgious societies 
 connected with them, should have that precedency in 
 directing this part of worship which they so properly, 
 and by consent, have, with respect to the call and settle- 
 ment of a minister ; always, however, as in the latter 
 case they are sure to do, if they act discreetly, regard- 
 ing the general feelings and wishes. The highest de- 
 gree of cultivation ought to be secured, musical talent 
 should be brought into the service of sacred praise, and 
 withal, though it is but the expression of an individual 
 opinion, it seems probable that a well-trained choir is 
 essential to cultivate the spirit of sacred music in a 
 congregation, and that our Sacramental hymns ^vill be 
 sung in the most desirable manner in churches where 
 there are well-trained choirs upon the Sabbath. In 
 vain, therefore, do we argue from the singing at the 
 Sacramental seasons, with which we all profess to be 
 satisfied, that we can dispense with choirs. At the 
 same time, the influence of a good choir which has a 
 leader who makes this a chief object, may be, and, in 
 foreign churches more perhaps than with us, it has the 
 effect, to promote the exercise of sacred praise so gen- 
 erally that the congregation becomes like a well-trained 
 choir. 
 
 If we wished to make our places of worship attrac- 
 tive to people at large by the singing, we should make 
 it in the first place, scientifically correct, for the halt 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL HYMX. 167 
 
 and the lame we do not offer to our governor ; and 
 being correct and in itself good, let it be seen that God 
 is adored, that his fear and his love govern the service, 
 and the effect will follow which the Apostle speaks of 
 as inevitable in well-conducted religious services, — 
 the secrets of a man's heart will be made manifest to 
 him, " and so falling down on his face, he will worship 
 God, and report that God is in you of a truth." God- 
 liness in the conduct of this part of worship will be 
 found to be profitable for all things, advancing the sec- 
 ular interests of the congregation, which we desire, of 
 course, only for its effect in promoting the edification 
 or salvation of men. But when the singing is a mere 
 performance, we feel it at once as we immediately feel 
 and detest affectation in prayer. When a piece is 
 sung, and no one hears its words, whether they be Ital- 
 ian, Latin, or English, when the snatches of the operas 
 or secular pieces bring in foreign associations, or when 
 in the midst of a fervent, devotional strain of thought 
 and feeling in a hymn, an unmeaning interlude, or a 
 fanciful excursion on the organ obtrudes itself, formal- 
 ism usurps the place of worship, and to what purpose 
 is the multitude of such oblations but to draw upon us 
 the displeasure of God ? That God must be displeased, 
 in many cases, with what is called our " good music " 
 in his house, and with all the secular motives and feel- 
 ings and language connected with it, that he sees in it 
 nothing but a sacrifice to ourselves, and that he says of 
 
168 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 such sacrifices, " I will not smell in your solemn assem- 
 blies," no one can doubt who remembers that God is a 
 spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in 
 spirit and in truth. How far it has the effect to keep 
 away the influences of the Holy Spirit, not only by its 
 insidious displacement of truly spiritual feelings in all 
 concerned, but by directly grieving him, is a question 
 which deserves to be pondered by every church of 
 Christ. The Holy Spirit must not be expected to 
 favor that place of worship with his presence when the 
 praises of God have no higher motive and end than to 
 furnish what is called " good music." Good it ought 
 to be ; never should it be better than in the house of 
 God, but as the oratory of a theatrical actor who should 
 become a sincere preacher of Jesus, would cease to be 
 theatrical yet be no less powerful, so music, instrumen- 
 tal, as well as vocal, in the house of God, must pass 
 through minds, if not regenerated, imbued, at least, 
 with religious sentiment, so as necessarily to awaken 
 nothing in the mind of the worshipper but religious 
 feelings, and surely not to interfere with such feelings. 
 
 These thoughts are offered in connection with the 
 peculiarly sacred and solemn ordinance of the Lord's 
 Supper, because few things do more, either to promote 
 the presence and blessing of Christ and the Holy Spirit, 
 or to grieve them, and few things contribute more to 
 the comfort and strength of Christians, or to hinder the 
 good influences of the sanctuary, than the service of 
 
THE SACRAMEXTAL HYMX. 169 
 
 song. We ought to pray more for divine instruction 
 and blessing in this respect, for reasons not unlike those 
 for which we invoke the divine blessing upon preachers 
 and their efforts. Christ has consecrated the power of 
 song by associating it with that ordinance of which he 
 says, This do in remembrance of me. Let it be ob- 
 served, in passing from this topic, that they w^ho have 
 the power to insinuate cheering or soothing sentiments 
 or feelings by the power of the voice, do great good in a 
 congregation by dispelling many a brooding thought 
 which might otherwise become fixed melancholy ; and 
 to inspirit many a pilgrim in his way to God. 
 
 And as it is supposed to be the Communion Sabbath 
 when these lines are read, it will be appropriate to say, 
 that we cannot but feel a deep interest in the spiritual 
 welfare and the future condition of those whose melo- 
 dious strains are associated with some of our happiest 
 hours at home or on the Sabbath, but whom we miss 
 when we sing the Sacramental hymn. We think of 
 them as hereafter recollecting the strains with which 
 certain affecting words will forever be associated in 
 their minds, and how they uttered protestations of love 
 to Christ, petitions for pardon, hopes of heaven, con- 
 templations of endless life, and the borrowed language 
 of heaven in its ascriptions to God and to the Lamb. 
 We are all familiar with that wonderful phenomenon 
 of our natures, the memory of music ; how a note or a 
 chord, or a word, or a casual recollection, will cause 
 
 15 
 
170 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 a tune to sweep through the mind, preserving the 
 unbroken order of its notes, though years have gone 
 over us since it was last heard or sung ; so that the 
 singular saying of some philosophers that the vibrations 
 of the air made by words sung or spoken, wander for- 
 ever, seems to have a true counterpart within us, where 
 the memories of music lie bound together, and to our 
 recollections, with links of association more inseparable 
 than words or places. Then what must it be for those 
 to be lost, whose employment on earth has been to sing 
 religious hymns, thereby identifying the most pathetic, 
 the most thrilling truths, in correspondent expressions, 
 with their future recollections of earth. May they re- 
 member these truths and these strains only with the 
 redeemed, repeat them to themselves, and in our hear- 
 ing, when faith and hope will enshrine love in her undi- 
 vided empire over our hearts, and prayer shall have 
 uttered its last Amen, and praise shall summon the 
 minstrels of earth and heaven to their harps. Let it be 
 impressed upon every one who assists in the public 
 praises of God, that we must have a heart to sing the 
 Sacramental hymn, on earth, before we can be included 
 in the number of those harpers harping upon their 
 harps. 
 
 " They sung a hymn." At the institution of an or- 
 dinance to commemorate the sufferings, the death of 
 Je-sus, they sung a hymn ! he directing the service. 
 
 If a hymn could be appropriate then and there, if 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL HYMN. 171 
 
 Jesus, with Gethsemane and Calvary in view, led in 
 singing a hymn, if he who took the cup and gave 
 thanks joined in sacred praise before he went out to 
 suffer, if the last act of worship which he performed 
 with the disciples before the end came for which he was 
 born, was, to sing, w^e are instructed and encouraged to 
 turn every thing into praise, and in every thing by prayer 
 and supplication, together with thanksgiving, to let our 
 requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God 
 which passeth all understanding shall keep bur hearts and 
 minds through Christ Jesus. In the midst of fiery tri- 
 als, in the darkest hours, in the loneliest night-watches, 
 even if we make our bed to swim with our tears, 
 amid the fiercest opposition, in dangers, and even in 
 the prospect of violent death, we have the example of 
 Jesus teaching us with what composure and assurance 
 we may rememV^er that, in all these things, we are more 
 than conquerors through him that loved us. 
 
 Words would fail to describe the themes for praise 
 which are fit subjects for Sacramental Hymns. At the 
 passover, that portion of the Psalms from the hundred 
 and thirteenth, to the hundred and eighteenth inclusive, 
 called by the Jews, Hallel, or Hallelujah Psalms, were 
 sung by them ; the first two previous to the feast, and 
 the others at the conclusion. Whether these Psalms, 
 or a special hymn, were sung at the institution of the 
 Supper, we have no tradition. It is left to the varying 
 circumstances of our times and conditions, to choose a 
 
172 THE COMMUXIOX SABBATH. 
 
 hymn for each communion season, for how impossible 
 it would be for one hymn to include the great themes 
 which are appropriately made the burden of our songs 
 at such times. We love to sing of the lost image of 
 God restored by the free, unpurchased love of God, 
 through the astonishing condescension of the Saviour; 
 and the kind and gracious work of the ever blessed 
 Spirit, whom we ought frequently to remember and 
 praise, at the communion season, in connection with 
 the Redeemer. Sometimes the distinction which has 
 been made between fallen men and fallen angels, is the 
 burden of our song ; the particular application of di- 
 vine mercy to each of our souls, so many at our side 
 turning their faces away from this great salvation ; the 
 power of religion upon our hearts, to purify, elevate, 
 cheer, ennoble, our whole being ; the hopes it inspires, 
 the joy it sets before us, and always and in connection 
 with every thing else, the sufferings, the sorrow, the 
 shame, the death of the Redeemer, and then his ascen- 
 sion and reign, his presence with us alway, and his second 
 coming, our gathering together unto him, — what strains 
 of music, and what words are competent to express 
 these things ? of which, nevertheless, it may be said to 
 every true communicant, ' all are yours, and ye are 
 Christ's and Christ is God's.' 
 
 Will there be a Sacramental Hymn at the marriage 
 Supper of the Lamb ? A principal expression of heav- 
 enly happiness is represented to be by singing and play- 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL HYMN. 173 
 
 ing upon harps. We take that representation as con- 
 veying something as much like singing as heavenly- 
 things can be imaged by the earthly. Doubtless there 
 will be a celebration, by acts of praise, of the finished 
 work of Christ, and of the first grand assembly of the 
 saints in heaven and of those who shall then come from 
 the earth. If our Sacramental Hymns now make us 
 feel and say that we never hear such singing elsewhere, 
 let us expect that the hymn which will be the song of 
 Moses and the Lamb, when passover, Lord's Snpper, 
 church-meeting, prayer, faith, hope, and singing itself, 
 are each like a translated Enoch and Elijah, and from 
 east and west, and north and south, as well the singers 
 as the players on instruments shall be there, and every 
 soul will have power to sing, its imperfect bodily struc- 
 ture being repaired and tuned, — let us expect, that the 
 first choral song of heaven, that overture, that sym- 
 phony, and then that burst of joy, at the marriage Sup- 
 per of the Lamb, will be unlike any thing to which the 
 morning stars have listened or that made the sons of 
 God shout for joy. Of all the effects of sacred music 
 on many of us, nothing surpasses that of the passage 
 in the Messiah, " And his name shall be called Won- 
 derful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Fa- 
 ther, the Prince of peace." But when the instruments 
 of orchestras give place to harpers, with their hands 
 waiting on their chords to sound out, at the signal, that 
 " Wonderful, Counsellor, mighty God," and the upUfted 
 
 15* 
 
174 THE COMMUNIOX SABBATH. 
 
 cymbals of heaven make emphasis for those words, 
 may each of us be there I each of us for whom this 
 marriage Supper will have been provided, an invitation 
 thereto, in the name of the bridegroom, having been 
 given personally to every one who reads these lines. 
 
 Let us cease, therefore, to turn our backs, Sabbath 
 after Sabbath, upon this Sacramental table. If we have 
 no heart for the Sacramental hymn, we shall not, we 
 cannot, join to celebrate the finished work of redemption. 
 Christ died that each of us might sing, a redeemed, 
 happy spirit, through the whole of our deathless being. 
 
 Angels have no sacramental hymn among their 
 music. They could better perform the " Creation," 
 and we the " Messiah," for of a sacramental hymn, as it 
 may be called, it is said, and " no man could learn that 
 song but the hundred and forty and four thousand 
 which were redeemed from the earth." There is a bold 
 expression in one of John Wesley's hymns : — 
 
 " By faith the upper clioir we meet, 
 And challeno;e them to sino;." 
 
 In vain would they emulate us in celebrating a recovery 
 from sin and hell, in setting forth the experience of re- 
 pentance, faith, hope, and all the spiritual affections of 
 a renewed heart. It will be interesting for each of us 
 to consider whether he could join in that " challenge," 
 and bear his part in sustaining it. But what is this 
 which comes to the mind in contrast with such proud 
 
THE SACRAME^'TAL UYMX. 175 
 
 eminence among the creatures of God ? It is another 
 " challenge " — and it is addressed to certain men by 
 fallen angels — to the finally unconverted, and the false 
 professors, of a Christian congregation. " They that 
 carried us away captive required of us a song, and 
 they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing 
 us one of the songs of Zion." To what fearful expos- 
 ures are we brought, O Christ, by this infinite love of 
 thine, which, unless it succeeds to save us, will plunge 
 us sevenfold deeper into hell. 
 
 " They went out into the Mount of Olives." There, 
 for retirement and meditation, and for preparation, the 
 little company retreated from their last passover, and 
 from the first Lord's Supper. What became of that 
 man whom the two disciples, by Christ's appointment, 
 met, bearing a pitcher of water, and who showed them 
 a large upper chamber furnished, where they made 
 ready the passover ? Jesus and his little company left 
 his house, but did they leave him an alien from Christ, 
 or was he his friend ? Did he ever know, does he this 
 day rejoice to know, the honor which came upon his 
 house as the place of the last passover and its divine 
 substitute ? Or, does he mourn to think that the king- 
 dom of God came nigh unto him, and that he knew 
 not the time of his visitation ? We naturally hope and 
 believe that he was a friend of Christ, but at all events, 
 the sacramental band left him and his dwelling, for the 
 
176 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 Mount of Olives. The going out of the great company 
 of the redeemed from their first meeting before the 
 throne, families, circles of friends drawing off to their 
 mansions, where shall we be, in that going out, after 
 their great sacramental hymn, to their Mounts of Olives? 
 There, no more to betray nor be betrayed, no more to 
 weep, to suffer, to die, no more to be scattered, no more 
 to labor with toil and pain, but everywhere and on all 
 occasions finding living fountains of water, redemption 
 having become a history, and the mediatorship having 
 been resigned, and no more sacrifice for sin, shall each 
 of us receive the end of his faith even the salvation of 
 his soul ? The Sacramental table now divides us. 
 We part here ; if we unite everywhere else, — at fam- 
 ily prayers, at public worship — yet very many of us go 
 asunder here, and so our feelings toward Christ will 
 divide us in that day, when "terror and glory join in 
 their extremes." 
 
 Another Sacramental table may never greet the eyes 
 of some who read these lines. Ere it is spread again, 
 what if they should spread for you that last, narrow 
 bed, from which your eyes will be opened to see the 
 Redeemer and his people leaving you, as here you leave 
 them. It is not too late. To-day, the peaceful, touch- 
 ing sight, the table of the Lord, is to present itself to 
 you, and you, lingering around that scene, can, by re- 
 penting and believing in Christ, be furnished by the 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL HYMN. 177 
 
 hand of the Master himself, with the wedding garment. 
 To-day, you not only may hear, but can join and sing, 
 our Sacramental hymn, which, if you can sing with 
 J'our heart, you may come to the table here, and be in 
 the company of the Saviour's friends at his appearing 
 and kingdom. 
 
XII. 
 
 THE FIRST AND LAST EXODUS. 
 
 " Gather mt saixts together unto me ; those that have made 
 A covekaxt with me by sacrifice," 
 
 Six hundred thousand males, of twenty years old 
 and upwards, together with women and children, 
 marched forth from Egypt in a triumphal procession. 
 " And the children of Israel went up harnessed out of 
 the land of Egypt." A marginal note in the larger 
 Bibles says, — " or, by five in a rank ; " — not in 
 tumultuary haste and confusion, as in fear, but in well- 
 ordered ranks, they went forth. Not by small compa- 
 nies, set free at the death of a master, or their liberty 
 purchased by one or two of their number, do they seek 
 a sea-shore, waiting to be conveyed to some free land ; 
 nor are they private fugitives, begging their way to 
 a place of freedom, but a nation is on the march, par- 
 ents and children, chiefs and people, with their flocks 
 and herds. In their coffers were the treasures of Egypt, 
 which, by a sudden influence from the Almighty, their 
 
 (178) 
 
THE FIRST AND LAST EXODUS. 179 
 
 terrified lords and mistresses had heaped upon tnem, to 
 hasten their flight. " He brought them forth also with 
 silver and gold." 
 
 But perhaps this is the most wonderful of all : — " and 
 there was not one feeble person among their tribes." 
 Great God ! we love and adore thee for this. Let us 
 suppose that there had been some sick child, some 
 lingering, dying husband, or wife, among the He- 
 brews, and the time came for the nation to take up its 
 march. The nation must go, but one and another 
 must stay, and languish and die, and others watch over 
 dying beds, and bury their dead in a land made still 
 more a house of bondage by the departure of their lib- 
 erated nation. But it seems that in more than a mil- 
 lion of people, there was " not one feeble person ; " — the 
 only m'illion of people, probably, in this world, of whom 
 collectively, this had ever been true. In kind and gra- 
 cious preparation of them for this deliverance, God had 
 healed each one whom lingering illness, or a wound, or 
 any infirmity had threatened to detain. No disabling 
 accident near the time of departure, had been per- 
 mitted to befall one of them. " Who is like unto thee, 
 O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and 
 who is the sword of thy excellency ? " " When Israel 
 was a child then I loved him, and called my son out of 
 Egypt" 
 
 Liberty achieved for them by mighty signs and won- 
 ders from the immediate hand of God, liberty obtained 
 
180 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 suddenly, unconditional, perpetual, excited this host, 
 we may suppose, to the utmost pitch of human joy. 
 Their music and banners, the glee and shouts of the 
 young, the gratulations of families and friends, the 
 noise of the camels, and flocks, and herds, the songs of 
 praise bursting from the lips of the more impulsive, and 
 awaking choruses on every side, the quick ti'amp of 
 hoofs, the roar of wheels over those magnificent broad 
 ways, with words of command and cheer from the sub- 
 alterns of their great leader, exultations and laughter, 
 ironical farewells at every obelisk and public work that 
 reminded them of their brick without straw, and then 
 an uproar of joy that they were to see those monu- 
 ments of tyranny no more, — truly ' the shout of a king 
 is among them,' and that exodus was a scene which, 
 probably, will never be equalled but once in the history 
 of the human race. 
 
 In one part of this triumphal host, there was some- 
 thing which, on many accounts, was as interesting as 
 any thing in that great, moving spectacle. It was a 
 sarcophagus, emblazoned with signs of royal honor, 
 guarded with solemn pomp, and making, in some re- 
 spect, in its appearance, a contrast to the general mirth ; 
 and yet a mellowed joy seems to be round about it, 
 rather than sadness. It is " the bones of Joseph." 
 " By faith Joseph when he died, made mention of the 
 departure of the children of Israel, and gave command- 
 ment concerning his bones." " And Moses took the 
 
THE FIRST AND LAST EXODUS. ISl 
 
 bones of Joseph with him ; for he had straitly sworn 
 the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you ; 
 and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you." 
 Dying amidst imperial honors, a grateful nation em- 
 balming his memory in their hearts, he would naturally 
 have expected that, for all his father's house, his services 
 would secure lasting favor and prosperity at the hands 
 of the Egyptian kings. " Bold infidelity I turn pale 
 and die ! " For why, under such circumstances, did 
 Joseph give such commandment concerning the re- 
 moval of his bones, so honored and safe in the keeping 
 of a nation which, under God, had been delivered by 
 him from a seven years' famine ? — Now, on their way 
 out of Egypt to the patriarchal sepulchre in Shechem, 
 these bones give impressive testimony to the faithful- 
 ness of God ; they are themselves a sacramental sym- 
 bol of faith, and, as such, must have had a powerful 
 effect upon the leaders and the people in this eventful 
 moment of their history. 
 
 Who are these people, and why are they here ? 
 These are the covenant people of God, the children of 
 Abraham, his friend. They are on their way to a land 
 selected from the whole habitable earth to be, for a 
 long time, the home of the church, the land of Messiah, 
 the scene of human redemption. This is the first stage 
 of their journey to that land which is to be the glory of 
 all lands, toward which the eyes of the world and the 
 
 16 
 
182 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 thoughts of heaven are to be turned for ages with sur- 
 passing interest. 
 
 Leaving them on their triumphal march, we will go 
 back to Egypt, and look upon the former oppressors of 
 Israel. 
 
 O fearful sight! we shrink back ; we dare not go in. 
 
 Egypt is one house of mourning. All, all, are bury- 
 ing their dead. From Pharaoh's palace comes a fune- 
 ral ; the streets are filled with funerals, the air with 
 wailings ; the first-born child in every house is dead, 
 the first-born of every fold and stall ; thus while Israel 
 marches forth with exultation, and God, their God, is 
 with them, miserable Egypt is among the tombs, with 
 their dead children. Had merely a child of every fam- 
 ily died, the mortality might have seemed a mere epi- 
 demic ; but that, in every case, the dead child should 
 be the first-born, was a sign and wonder above their 
 cavil. What curses were heaped upon Israel! How 
 must they have been filled with rage at Israel's God ! 
 If the death of one child in a single family be an event 
 of unsurpassed grief,' the amount of sorrow in Egypt, 
 where no house was without its dead, made good the 
 declaration, — "none like it, nor shall be like it any 
 more." Then they remember how they slew the male 
 infants of Israel. God oftentimes makes men see their 
 sin, again, in their punishment. In a word, great floods 
 of sorrow, rolling and breaking over every house, min- 
 gled with rage, remorse, thoughts of vengeance, and 
 
THE FIRST AXD LAST EXODUS. 183 
 
 shame at their defeat by this injured people and their 
 God, make Egypt as great a contrast as possible to 
 happy Israel, going forth from captivity to their des- 
 tined home, with God for their guide and friend. 
 
 It was remarked, that probably there would never 
 be but one event and scene in the history of the human 
 race to be compared with this triumph of Israel and 
 perdition of Egypt. There will be such an event, and 
 such a scene, one in which every one of us will not 
 only feel a personal interest, but bear a part. 
 
 We will take for a point of view a place from which 
 we can see the righteous, raised from the dust of the 
 earth and from the seas, at the moment when they are 
 about to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. 
 From Abel, to the last surviving saints, they are on their 
 way to heaven, together. Why on earth ? Why have 
 the redeemed left heaven ? To receive the adoption, 
 to wit, the redemption of their bodies. This resump- 
 tion of the body is the finishing act of redemption. 
 The departure of Israel is an emblem of the departure 
 of the righteous from earth to heaven at the last day. 
 
 This is the people of God. They were given to 
 Christ before the foundation of the world. That word 
 is now accomplished : " And this is the Father's will 
 that hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, 
 I should lose nothing ; and I will raise it up at the last 
 day." He planted a field and watered it, gathered out 
 
184 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 the stones thereof, set husbandmen to till it, and now, 
 lo, the harvest of the earth is come, the sheaves are 
 gathered and on their way to the garner. 
 
 Slowly, and one by one out of a family, and two out 
 of a nation, for much of the time, was this people gath- 
 ered, from every kindred and tongue, till now, a multi- 
 tude which no man can number, they are the product 
 of redemption, the result of an eternal plan, the fruit of 
 unutterable pains and travail of soul on the part of their 
 Redeemer and of his witnesses, and, in many cases, of 
 themselves. God now possesses that for which alone 
 he made the world and created man upon it ; and with 
 these He is to show to principalities and powers in 
 heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God. Their 
 history is to set forth more of God to the universe than 
 all his works beside; and in the ages to come he will 
 show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness 
 toward them through Christ Jesus. " Happy art thou, 
 O Israel ; who is like unto thee, O people saved by the 
 Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of 
 thy excellency I " 
 
 They are delivered from the power of the enemy. 
 While death and the grave held their bodies, their de- 
 liverance was not complete. Now the bars are broken, 
 every precious treasure of a human form is yielded up, the 
 last enemy is destroyed, which is death. Sin is, for them, 
 forever put away, and its consequences ; men and devils 
 can no more afflict; going from earth, the righteous 
 
THE FIRST AND LAST EXODUS. 185 
 
 are going from the dominion of the god of this world. 
 Farewell temptations, farewell- vexations, farewell trib- 
 ulations, an eternal farewell to every tear; the last 
 chain is broken, the ransomed now "return, and come to 
 Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads ; 
 they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and 
 sighing shall flee away." 
 
 They are on their way to a promised land. Land of 
 promise, indeed ! the metropolis of the universe ; not a 
 colony, not some undistinguished world, but the abode 
 of God himself, the seat of his throne ; a place prepared, 
 exclusively, so far as we can infer from the Bible, for 
 the habitation of angels and men. Infinite wisdom 
 and skill selected and prepared that place ; we should 
 faint, more than Sheba's queen at Solomon's glory, 
 if we should see it with bodily eyes. What a place, 
 considered merely as a place, heaven must be, prepared 
 by Infinite love and power for the abode of those who 
 have been redeemed and saved at such cost. " For he 
 hath prepared for them a city." Now, the meaning of 
 those words begins to break upon us with new power, 
 — " Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me 
 be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, 
 which thou hast given me." He said, " I go to prepare 
 a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, 
 I will come again and receive you unto myself; that 
 where I am there ye may be also." 
 
 There will be a time when there will be very few, if 
 
186 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 any, human beings in heaven ; and where will its hu- 
 man inhabitants then be ? At their graves, receiving 
 each his glorified body. Then, what a return, and what 
 a sight, when, reentering heaven, the redeemed, with 
 their forms like Christ's, approach the heavenly world 
 with the Captain of their salvation at their head. O 
 my soul, be among them ! Advanced legions of angels 
 blow with ten thousand trumpets, and begin to sing, 
 " Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, 
 ye everlasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come 
 in." The King of glory ! never before did he receive 
 that name with such accumulated honors upon it. Re- 
 deemer, thy glory now is full orbed. The joy of thy peo- 
 ple is the joy of their Lord. O earth, it seems worth all 
 thy travail, to have yielded such a scene as this. That 
 one hour, that one scene, of reentering heaven, of pass- 
 ing away from earth, with such spoils and triumph, — 
 a lifetime of ecstasy is nothing compared with it ; one 
 might sit in chains threescore years, burn at the stake, 
 be sawn asunder, — any thing would be a cheap pur- 
 chase, for the joy of that hour. Recognitions, wel- 
 comes, fulness of joy, every sensibility touched with 
 new sensations of pleasure, eternity in heaven before 
 them, as they defile through those twelve gates, into 
 the city, — the symbolical departure of Israel, glorious 
 as it was, how can it be compared with this I 
 
 And now, the bones of Joseph, which were carried 
 up out of Egypt by the triumphant church have found 
 
THE FIRST AA^D LAST EXODUS. 187 
 
 their antitype in the carrying away from earth, that 
 house of bondage and place of graves, of a glorified 
 body by every one who, as he fell asleep in Jesus, made 
 mention, in his faith and hope, of this departing of the 
 children of Israel. Not in a princely sarcophagus, but 
 in a body like unto Christ's own glorious body, shall 
 we each leave this Egypt, and (O in what an exalted 
 sense I) be gtithered to our fathers. " For I know that 
 my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the lat- 
 ter day upon the earth ; and though after my skin, 
 w^orms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see 
 God : whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall 
 behold, and not another ; though my reins be consumed 
 within me." 
 
 But there is another part to this picture, as there was 
 to the departure of Israel. There will be an Egypt at 
 the last day ; what is it ? who will they be ? 
 
 Unconverted men will be like Egypt to the departing 
 church. They will be seen to be, like the Egyptians, 
 the enemies of God. The signs and wonders of his 
 providence and grace, public and personal, failed to 
 make them repent. The messengers of God had no 
 success with them, but every thing served only to hard- 
 en their hearts. They would not join themselves to 
 the covenanted Israel, they did not choose rather to 
 suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy 
 the pleasures of sin for a season. But while mixed up 
 with them on earth, the difference was not, in aU re- 
 
188 THE COMMUXION SABBATH. 
 
 pects, so clearly made known. Every Communion Sab- 
 bath, it is true, brought forcibly to view a distinction 
 between the church and the world, and disclosed this 
 coming separation ; but no public continued severance 
 was made. " Let both grow together until the harvest, 
 and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, 
 Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in 
 bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my 
 barn." 
 
 Impenitent men will be under the powder of death. 
 Having risen from their graves to meet the second 
 death, and received their bodies to be more miserable 
 in them, they are to spend eternity conversant only with 
 that which is called in the Bible, Death, the loss, the 
 perdition, of all good. And it will be a time of burial 
 with them. They w^ill bury every hope of reprieve, of 
 mitigated pain, and every friend. The cry that went 
 up from Egypt while Israel journeyed away, would be 
 drowned in that last weeping and wailing. 
 
 Impenitent men will be undergoing punishment. 
 Forward they must move to the left hand of Christ, to 
 be judged and sentenced. What a hideous throng! 
 What a contrast to the righteous ! The good are gath- 
 ered out ; not a solitary good man, nor a child, is in 
 that multitude, but every one is wicked, under arrest, 
 suffering punishment already, and expecting more. 
 There are the sinners of the old world, and of Sodom 
 and Gomorrah, liars, thieves, tyrants, murderers, the 
 
THE FIRST AND LAST EXODUS. 189 
 
 unclean, the profane ; while the more reputable and 
 outwardly respectable of the enemies of Christ will be 
 mixed up promiscuously with them. A man, hitherto 
 respectable and respected, on committing some offence 
 against society for which secret wickedness had pre- 
 pared him, is sent to the State prison, and while they 
 are putting on him the twain colored dress, he says, 
 This is worse than all. Must I march with locked step 
 and folded arms in a file with convicts ? Perhaps he 
 was a graduate of a college, perhaps he preached, per- 
 haps he held a high place in the Christian church. Jus- 
 tice makes no account of our standing, or past associa- 
 tions, nor considers our refinement ; down we go to the 
 common herd of the vile, if we turn aside to crooked 
 ways, and are led forth with the workers of iniquity. 
 As though they were a chain-gang, all the finally im- 
 penitent will go to their final doom. Old companions 
 in sin, members of the same impenitent families, peo- 
 ple Vv'ho had only heard of each other, such as distin- 
 guished conquerors, wicked sovereigns and popes, mur- 
 derers, knaves, whose names are on the annals of crime, 
 will meet, and their meeting will be with revulsion and 
 hatred. The sight of the righteous passing away will 
 be the aggravation of their misery. Their personal 
 separations and grief will be the most dreadful. ' O my 
 father I mother I my husband I my wife I my child I my 
 brother I my sister! Once I sat by your side, and 
 heard the same gospel; hundreds of times I left your 
 
190 THE COMMUXIOX SAEBATII. 
 
 side, and went from the Lord's table where so aiTec- 
 tionately and with tears I was urged to come, and 
 where I should have been as welcome as you. But 
 month after month for years, I went away from Christ ; 
 now, Christ and heaven are going away from me. One 
 more opportunity to accept Christ! to profess him be- 
 fore men ! to join the company of those who showed 
 his death until he come! He is come! All is lost! 
 Once the many who, with me, left the communion ta- 
 ble behind, countenanced me ; now, this great multi- 
 tude of them affrights me !' — But cries and regrets are 
 vain. All this is the beo^inninor of sorrows. 
 
 Thus, while the Israel of God will go from earth and 
 enter heaven with joy, impenitent men will be as 
 Egypt was while burying her dead, except that every 
 oiite will himself be a mourner over his own soul irre- 
 coverably lost. Should .they attempt to follow after 
 the righteous, they could not reach them. They have 
 loaded them with their wishes and their envyings at 
 their lot, and they have departed ; all the happiness 
 which they ever had in common, the righteous have 
 carried away with them, and the wicked are spoiled of 
 every thing. The prophecies of the New Testament 
 are now fulfilled like the prophecies of the Old ; the 
 thirteenth chapter of Matthew, with its parables of the 
 field, and the net, is fulfilled, and, with the twenty-fifth 
 chapter of Matthew, has ceased to be prediction, and is 
 now history. 
 
THE FIRST AXD LAST EXODUS. 191 
 
 It was ' on the morrow after the passover,' that ' the 
 children of Israel went out with an high hand in the 
 sight of all the Egyptians.' The night before, every 
 head of a house among them killed a lamb, went to 
 the door, dipped the hyssop in the bowl of blood, and 
 struck the door-posts, and the lintel overhead, with the 
 dripping herb. That saved him and his house. " By 
 faith he kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood, 
 lest he that destroyed the first-born should touch them." 
 As we look now, once more, on that great throng who 
 are passing away from earth and entering heaven, we 
 may consider that, leaving out of the case those who 
 went to heaven in tender years, every one of the re- 
 deemed had feelings which qualified him to partake of 
 the Lord's Supper. 
 
 We must have them, or we see what will happen. 
 The feelings which qualify us for admission to heaven 
 and to the Lord's table are substantially the same. If 
 I have believed in Christ as my passover slain for me, 
 and his blood has been my plea, and is my defence, I 
 belong to the invisible church ; and one proof of this 
 will be, I shall seek his fold. " Tell me, O thou whom 
 my soul loveth, where thou feedest, and where thou 
 makest thy flock to rest at noon." As surely as we 
 continue to divide here at the table of Christ, we shall 
 divide at the last day, and the same thing which divides 
 us here will divide us there, and that is, our feelings 
 toward Christ, and our relation to him. 
 
192 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 As we see Israel coming out of Egypt under the pro- 
 tection and by the special hand of God, we mourn to 
 remember that multitudes of that rejoicing people 
 failed to reach Canaan. It is not enough to leave 
 Egypt ; it is not enough to be numbered with the 
 people of God. " I will therefore put you in remem- 
 brance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, 
 having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, 
 afterward destroyed them that believed not." No 
 tokens of divine favor, no privileges, no high standing 
 among the people of. God, give us any exemption from 
 punishment, if we wilfully sin. There is no favoritism 
 with God toward the most distinguished of his servants, 
 if they commit iniquity. For, " he spared not the an- 
 gels which sinned, but cast them down to hell, and 
 delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved 
 unto judgment." We serve a jealous God. If we 
 make Christ a minister of sin, by continuing in sin that 
 grace may abound, all his unutterable work of suffering 
 and death will be a stone to fall upon us ; we shall go 
 from the Lord's table and from Communion Sabbaths 
 to a deeper, a far more intolerable, place in misery and 
 despair even than those who sinned in heaven. 
 
 " Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of 
 entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come 
 short of it." 
 
 Every Communion Sabbath leaves the number of our 
 Sacramental seasons less; they will soon end; let us 
 
THE FIRST AND LAST EXODUS. 193 
 
 redeem the time, — and make full proof of the influence 
 which the ordinance of the Supper was designed to 
 have upon us. 
 
 Perhaps the approaching Communion Sabbath is the 
 last for another year, and you are not yet a Christian. 
 Mourn, ye wasted months ; this immortal soul is yet 
 without hope, and without God in the world. When 
 the anniversary of this Sabbath returns, the past fur- 
 nishes no ground for assured hope that he will have 
 come to Christ ; he is venturing into the perilous future 
 with no covenanted protection against eternal death. 
 From the Lord's table, and from the most special ap- 
 peal which Christ makes to us, he has turned away as 
 many times, the past year, as Christ has said from that 
 table, " This do in remembrance of me." 
 
 " To him that is joined to all the living there is hope." 
 " And yet there is room." " The spirit and the bride 
 say. Come." " As the Holy Ghost saith. To-day, if ye 
 will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." 
 
 As we look back over the subjects which we have 
 contemplated in this book, we surely see enough in the 
 importance of their truths and in their personal applica- 
 tion to each of us, to convince and persuade us of our 
 duty, of the infinite provision made for our salvation, 
 and of the willingness of heaven to save all who are 
 willing to be saved in the appointed way. 
 
 17 
 
194 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 CiHiiST DIED EOR US. That whicli we chiefly dread, 
 he endured, for every one of us, that we might be 
 saved. 
 
 One SACRIFICE for sins, attested by all the ancient 
 sacrifices, and fulfilling their design as representatives 
 of his atoning death, stands waiting to justify him that 
 believeth in Jesus. 
 
 Miracles at the crucifixion leave no room to ques- 
 tion the divine authority of the Sufierer, or the stupen- 
 dous import of his sacrifice, who himself bare our sins 
 in his own body on the tree. 
 
 The three crosses teach us the relation which we 
 and the sinful, tempting world should hold to Christ, 
 in view of his own death upon the cross, where " he 
 gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from 
 this present evil world, according to the will of God 
 and our Father." 
 
 Membership in Christ, to which he admits us, is set 
 forth to us by saying to every believing sinner, " For 
 we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his 
 bones." 
 
 " He showed them his hands and his feet," to con- 
 vince and persuade his unbelieving friends that it was 
 he who died for them and rose again. We too may, 
 almost, say, — " We have heard, we have seen with 
 our eyes, we have looked upon, our hands have han- 
 dled, — the word of life." 
 
 Communion with Christ at his table, is the great 
 
THE FIRST AND LAST EXODUS. 195 
 
 object for which it is spread ; this communion is the 
 privilege of all who by faith have fellowship with their 
 Saviour. 
 
 Salutations at the sepulchee between our risen 
 Lord and one wl^o had been a great sinner, have shown 
 us the tenderness, the intimacy, of his love to those 
 who love him, and the near approach to him, by faith 
 and love, which they may enjoy. 
 
 The walk to Emmaus,. still further shows us the con- 
 descending regard of Christ for the individuals of his 
 people, and how easy it is for him to resolve the doubts 
 and confirm the faith of all who truly seek him. 
 
 Thou pbeparest a table before me, and such a 
 table I meeting all my wants, and convincing me of 
 the height and depth and length and breadth of a 
 knowledge which passeth love. 
 
 The Sacramental hymn raises " the heavenward 
 flame," cheering us to pursue the Christian life and to 
 expect an eternity of praise among the ransomed with 
 their harps and songs. 
 
 The first and last exodus of the church of God, — 
 leaving a guilty world, — their enemies and the enemies 
 of God, admonish us that there will, as now, be only 
 friends and enemies of Christ, — wheat and tares, in 
 the field, — good and bad, in the net, in the end of the 
 world ; that we, at this moment, belong, each of us, to 
 one or the other, of these great divisions, and that our 
 present feelings toward Christ need but to be confirmed, 
 
196 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 and our condition for eternity is determined beyond the 
 possibility of change. 
 
 " Then said he unto him, A certain man made a 
 
 GREAT SUPPER AND BADE MANY ; 
 
 " And SENT his servant at supper time to SAY TO 
 THEM THAT WERE BIDDEN, COME ; FOR ALL THINGS ARE NOW 
 
 READY And the servant said, Lord, it is done, 
 
 AS THOU HAST COMMANDED, AND YET THERE IS ROOM." 
 
XIII. 
 
 EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 " Akb now if te will deal kindly and truly with my master, 
 tell me ; and if not, tell me ; that i may turn to the 
 eight hand or to the left." 
 
 Why do you not come to the Lord's Supper? 
 
 Answer 1. " Christians do not appear to me to be 
 better people than many others who are not communi- 
 cants." 
 
 The answer, in a more extended form, includes such 
 remarks as these : ' I am acquainted with many who 
 are equal to any professing Christians, but they do not 
 consider it necessary to join a church. I see people 
 remain at the Lord's table who do things which I 
 would scorn to do ; some of them I know to be wholly 
 unfit to partake of that sacred ordinance.' 
 
 We will allow that every communicant has a supe- 
 rior in moral character out of the church ; nay, that all 
 who commune, are unfit to partake. 
 
 Christ died for you, nevertheless ; to you he speaks 
 from his table : " This do in remembrance of me." For 
 Paul received a special revelation from Christ with re- 
 
 17 * (197) 
 
198 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 gard to the Supper, (see 1 Cor. xi. 23-26,) and tells us 
 that this ordinance is appointed by Christ to be observed 
 " until he come." So that let others be unworthy, 
 you, if you believe in the Christian religion, must ad- 
 mit that the duty is incumbent on you, as an act of 
 gratitude to the Lord Jesus your Saviour, to comply 
 with his requirement and show forth his death. 
 
 With such a correct, and even' high moral standard 
 as you manifestly profess, it is peculiarly obligatory on 
 you, especially with the light afforded you with respect 
 to exemplary conduct, to be a professing Christian. 
 These people whom you reflect upon, perhaps are not 
 so well instructed as you are, or so highly furnished 
 with a nice discernment of right and wrong. How 
 useful a Christian you would be with your high stand- 
 ard and sense of propriety, should you be a follower of 
 Christ. 
 
 But are you aware that, if it be right for you to turn 
 your back upon a whole church, for the sins of a few, 
 it would be right for all to forsake the Lord's Supper, 
 on the ground that some, or many, communicants are 
 not as they should be ? 
 
 You profess to esteem some who are not communi- 
 cants, and who decline to be, as highly as professing 
 Christians. By the solemn hour of death, tell me. Are 
 there not professing Christians whose place, on a dying 
 bed, you would rather take, than that of any friend of 
 yours out of the church of Christ ? 
 
EXPOSTULATION. 199 
 
 Would you not go to his judgment-seat from his 
 table with a special feeling of safety and peace ? 
 
 Suppose that your parent should make a dying 
 request that, on the first Saturday evening of every 
 month, or the last Saturday evening of every second 
 month, you and the other children should together read 
 a letter of his or hers, or look upon an appointed keep- 
 sake ? If you were a kind and dutiful child, it would 
 make no difference with you whether one and another 
 proved unworthy or neglectful as a child. You would 
 use the memorial with the greater zeal, and mourn that 
 any one could so forget himself and his deceased 
 parent as to neglect it. If you ever prayed, that me- 
 morial would be the means of making you pray most 
 earnestly for the recreant member of the family. 
 
 " Every one of us shall give account of himself to 
 God." Christ said of the straight gate and narrow 
 way, — "and few there be that find it." Many shall 
 say, ' Lord, Lord,' to whom he will say, I never knew 
 you. Let it be that the larger portion of every church 
 w^ill be of this description ; you have a soul to save, a 
 God to serve, a Saviour to love ; for Christ died for 
 you. 
 
 Answer 2. " I do not think it necessary to salvation, 
 that one should join the church." 
 
 It is necessary, in order to be saved, to have feelings 
 toward Christ which will make you desire to be at his 
 table. 
 
200 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 If you believe in Christ, you will be grateful to him, 
 and you will wish to show it, by complying with his 
 most reasonable and affecting requirement. If you 
 have no desire to be at the table of Christ, you have no 
 such feelings toward him as are necessary in order to 
 be saved. 
 
 Answer 3. " If I make a profession of religion, I 
 make promises which I can never keep." 
 
 No such promise is ever required or made. The 
 engagement is never unconditional in making a profes- 
 sion of religion ; but it is coupled with an expression 
 of dependence on God ; and we promise that, with his 
 aid, we will endeavor to walk in all godliness and 
 honesty. Every one fails to reach even his own stand- 
 ard ; in many things we offend, in all we come short, 
 and daily need repentance and atoning blood. 
 
 But in other things, we never hesitate to promise 
 where our feelings are deeply interested; we do not 
 then take counsel of our fears, and refuse to do the 
 best we can because of expected failure to be perfect. 
 
 When we make a profession, we do not say. Behold, 
 I am perfect, but, Behold, I am vile. I am a lost, per- 
 ishing sinner, unless Christ shall save me. My heart is 
 depraved, I am prone to sin ; but I repent ; I look to 
 Christ for pardon ; I wish to live a religious life ; with- 
 out the aid of the Holy Spirit, I can do nothing. I 
 profess to have had a change of heart ; to love holiness, 
 to hate sin ; my life is to be a conflict between good 
 
EXPOSTULATION. 201 
 
 and evil ; but I wish to live for him who died for me, 
 to deny myself, and take up the cross and follow him. 
 
 Answer 4. " I am not worthy." 
 
 Should you ever profess to be worthy, it would, prob- 
 ably, be best for you to wait longer. 
 
 If you feel yourself to be a sinner, this is an essen- 
 tial qualification. If you have no expectation of being 
 saved but through the sacrifice of Christ, that is an- 
 other. If you commit your soul to him, if you ever 
 have any thing like covenant transactions with him in 
 prayer, you have believed in Christ. 
 
 Should a dear friend come to you in distress on ac- 
 count of sin, or if you were at the dying bed of one who 
 should ask. What must I do to be saved, do you think, 
 do you hope, that you would be able to direct that soul 
 to Christ ? The common difficulties and objections of 
 such persons, would you, probably, be able to meet, out 
 of your own experience ? If you could, why not take 
 the comfort of that faith and hope with which you 
 would thus seek to inspire him ? 
 
 Answer 5. " My companion, or intimate friend, is 
 not inclined to make a profession of religion, and if I 
 do it, I shall make a separation between us." 
 
 Your companion and you, dear friend, have each a 
 a soul to save, or lose. You wish to lead a quiet, com- 
 fortable life together, undisturbed by such a difference 
 of feelings and conduct as a profession of religion by 
 one of you, without the other, would occasion. This 
 
202 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 life is a handbreadth. It is a probationary state for 
 eternity ; now, what if your companion should re- 
 proach you hereafter, and say. You knew the truth, and 
 your duty ; had you been decided, I should have fol- 
 lowed you ; or if not, you would, at least, have saved your 
 soul, and perhaps the souls of the children. You made 
 me happy, in many things, but you were false, you were 
 cruel, to my eternal interests. 
 
 To do our duty in this thing is the surest way to en- 
 courage others. Unless there be a good prospect that 
 a companion, or friend, will, erelong, make a profession 
 of religion, and thus both have the pleasure of doing it 
 together, it is wrong as well as hazardous, and also in- 
 jurious to the spiritual interests of the friend, to delay. 
 We must also remember who has said, " He that lov- 
 eth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of 
 me." 
 
 Few things are more disastrous than to trifle with, 
 or neglect, our Christian hope. By failing to do our 
 duty at a proper time, we are liable to be confused as 
 to the evidences of personal religion, we begin to doubt 
 and fear, and thus many spend years in darkness and 
 sorrow. 
 
 These remarks are not made with a view to urge 
 any to take so important a step as the one in question, 
 prematurely. But there is an extreme which is oppo- 
 site to precipitancy. Christ says, " Follow me." Each 
 one should seek direction, and while no man can take 
 
EXPOSTULATION. 203 
 
 from us, nor share, the responsibility of such a step, we 
 may receive great assistance by stating our difficulties 
 and obtaining advice. 
 
 But the time is short. " Whosoever shall confess 
 me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess 
 before the angels of God." To confess Christ is not, 
 indeed, one disconnected act; our life must confess 
 Christ ; that confession of him, however, must have a 
 beginning, and it is evinced in proposing to join our- 
 selves to the visible church. When we stand before 
 him and render up our account, is our reason for not 
 coming to his table such, that we shall be able to pre- 
 sent it to him, with any confidence that it will be ac- 
 cepted ? and, in view of it will he probably waive our 
 obligation to have been his follower, and say, " Enter 
 thou into the joy of thy Lord ! " 
 
 Or, do we apprehend that his reply would be, " He 
 that denieth me before men, shall be denied before the 
 angels of God ? " 
 
 That you now seriously lay these things to heart, " I 
 give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth 
 all things, and before Christ Jesus, who, before Pontius 
 Pilate witnessed a good confession." When, for your 
 sake, he went to the judgment-hall, remember that he 
 himself furnished the only ground upon which they 
 could condemn him ; that they sought witnesses, and 
 found none ; that at last two false witnesses appeared, 
 but that " neither so did their witness aOTee together," 
 
204 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 and that then, before the High-Priest, and before Pon- 
 tius Pilate, Jesus made a profession and a confession, 
 on which alone they were able to crucify him. 
 
 He knew this, and there, for your sake, he "witnessed 
 a good confession." 
 
 " Let us go forth, therefore, unto him without the 
 camp, bearing his reproach." 
 
 How does our finding fault with Christians, our plea 
 that we can be saved without coming to the Lord's 
 table, that we shall not live up to our engagement, that 
 our friends will not like it, or that we are not worthy, 
 and all the various excuses which we plead against a 
 Christian profession, appear, when we compare them 
 with what he did for us ? Who that has a heart which 
 is ever touched by gratitude and love, can contemplate 
 his Saviour, suffering and dying for him, and not at 
 once give himself away to him, resolved, if he must 
 perish, to perish endeavoring to serve this Saviour and 
 Friend ! 
 
 Answer 6. "When all other objections have been 
 answered, it is common to hear it said, " I must be far 
 better than I am before I take so solemn a step. Some- 
 times I persuade myself that I am a Christian ; but 
 this is transient, for soon I feel strangely indifferent to 
 spiritual duties. I do not always enjoy prayer as I 
 ought. I frequently take up some interesting book 
 when, perhaps, I should take the Bible. I have not an 
 entire control of my temper, as I should have were I a 
 
EXPOSTULATION. 205 
 
 Christian. I am not good enough to be a member of 
 the chm'ch." 
 
 It is remarkable that, while with regard to our con- 
 duct we look wholly to the righteousness of Christ, yet 
 as it regards our feelings we look for perfection, or to 
 the law of God, to be justified and accepted. So that 
 we present the singular spectacle of trusting in Christ 
 alone to justify us, as to our conduct, but seek to have 
 our emotions, our religious experience, entirely right, to 
 make them acceptable with God. 
 
 But if by feeling as we ought, we may obtain a 
 ground of justification, we may also do without Christ 
 in every other respect. 
 
 We cannot be justified through conformity to the 
 law of God, neither in our conduct, nor in our feelings ; 
 " for the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in 
 of a better hope did, by the which we draw nigh unto 
 God." Even the faith which saves us has no merit, 
 any more than the stretching forth of the beggar's hand 
 entitles him to the alms which he receives. 
 
 " But still," it is replied, " our feelings are evidences 
 of our being born of the Spirit." 
 
 Our capability of certain feelings is essential evi- 
 dence ; their strength, their uniformity, vary in different 
 cases. Have you at any time loved God ? Have you 
 committed your soul to Christ for pardon and salva- 
 tion ? Have you loved holiness for its own sake, and 
 been sorry for sin as committed against God ? Do not 
 
 18 
 
206 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 reply, " Not so much as I ought." Have you ever been 
 capable of one or more of these things ? If an infant 
 has breathed, it has lived ; if you have at any time 
 been capable of one spiritual affection, you have been 
 born of the Spirit. 
 
 For such as you, Christ has appointed his Church, 
 with its ordinances. The good Shepherd has folds, and 
 provision in them and in his pastures adjacent. You 
 must not wait for a vigorous growth in the wilderness 
 before you enter the sheepfold. 
 
 " But what if I should lose my present evidence, poor 
 as it is, of being a Christian, after joining the Church ? 
 How deplorable it must be to find one's self in an un- 
 regenerate state after joining the Church I " 
 
 Even if this should prove to be the case with you 
 notwithstanding you endeavored to act sincerely, you 
 must not despair. Yon did not act presumptuously. 
 The way to be saved will be the same as now ; instead 
 of renouncing your Christian profession, you will need 
 to do only that which the gospel now requires. 
 
 It will not be strange if, after joining the church, your 
 evidence of being a Christian will seem to you less 
 than before. The candle which was but just lighted 
 and set in your heart, disclosed at first but a little of 
 your moral deformity ; but when its flame is stronger 
 and brighter, you may begin to be dismayed at further 
 disclosures. Not that you will be worse than before, 
 but you will see yourself more distinctly, the more you 
 
EXPOSTULATION. 207 
 
 know of God, and so you will increasingly abhor your- 
 self. This will be a hopeful sign. If your desire and 
 endeavor still is to be a Christian, know, that right 
 desires are among the best evidences of piety. Not 
 one of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount 
 applies to religious confidence and joy ; they all pertain 
 to states of mind nearly related to humility and contri- 
 tion. Look away from yourself; cease to estimate 
 your frames of mind as to their value, for in themselves 
 they are, at best, like all our righteousnesses ; but there 
 is a perfect righteousness provided for us in Christ, and 
 our exercises of mind are useful chiefly as they testify 
 that we seek to be found in him, not having our own 
 righteousness. 
 
 Before another communion Sabbath arrives, be per- 
 suaded to go to your pastor, or to some Christian 
 friend, and disclose your feelings ; take counsel, follow 
 good advice. Agree now that you will do this. Say, 
 " 1 will go in the strength of the Lord God ; I will 
 make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only." 
 
 In our intercourse with God we must not be dilatory. 
 In business, and even in complimentary affairs, it is not 
 excused. 
 
 Read and ponder the truth contained in the closing 
 part of these words, from Bunyan's description of the 
 Wicket Gate : — 
 
 " So in process of time Christian got up to the gate. 
 
208 THE COMMUNION SABBATH. 
 
 Now over the gate there was written, ' Knock, and it 
 shall be opened unto you.' 
 
 " He knocked, therefore, more than once or twice, 
 saying : — 
 
 May I now enter here ? Will he within 
 Open to sorry me, though I have been 
 An undeserving rebel ? Then shall I 
 Not fail to sing his lasting praise on high.' 
 
 " At last there came a grave person to the gate, 
 named Good-will, who asked who was there ? and 
 whence he came ? and what he would have ? 
 
 " Christian. Here is a poor burdened sinner. I come 
 from the city of Destruction, but am going to Mount 
 Zion, that I may be delivered from the wrath to 
 come. I would therefore. Sir, since I am informed that 
 by this gate is the way thither, know if you are willing 
 to let me in? 
 
 " ' I am willing, with all my heart,' said he ; and with 
 that he opened the gate. 
 
 " So when Christian was stepping in, the other gave 
 him a pull. Then said Christian, ' What means that? ' 
 The other told him, ' A little distance from this gate, 
 there is erected a strong castle, of which Beelzebub is 
 the captain ; from thence, both he and they that are 
 with him shoot arrows at those that come up to this 
 gate, if haply they may die before they can enter in.' '^ 
 
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