The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon or carried about, but that we should duly use them;" and again, “The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ought to be administered to all Christian men." And in the Communion Service the clergyman says to the whole congregation, in case he sees the people negligent to come, "I exhort you, as ye love your own salvation, that ye will be partakers of this Holy Communion;" and again, "It is your duty to receive the Communion."

Further, it is important for us to know, as we do, that no time has been, since the death of Christ, in which the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper has not been administered in the Church by rightly ordained ministers, or in which any member of the Church has denied its necessity (nor indeed at this time is it denied, but many do not act as they speak). It is in every respect of like importance with the other Sacrament of Baptism. Baptism makes us true members of the Church of Christ, and gives us a claim to all the benefits of His Death, if we do not, by our own continued sins, reject them: the Lord's Supper, if we use it rightly, preserves us in the state in which Baptism had placed us. It is not meant that if we use it we are not to use our own strength, with prayer, to avoid sin; but that will not be enough to give us any right to hope for salvation, unless we use this, the appointed means by which the grace of God is given to us, which helps our natural

weakness.

We know very well, that however many duties we may perform, if we neglect only one wilfully, all the others avail us nothing. We must never be content, unless we do everything which is commanded us; "who

soever shall keep the whole law, and offend," that is, wilfully offend, "in one point, is guilty of all."* And this must be especially true with regard to so very important a duty as the observance of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It is therefore a safe conclusion for us to be guided by in our conduct, that no Christian, who habitually and knowingly neglects this holy office, has any right to hope for salvation after his death, any more than he could expect to get anything in this life without using all the ordinary means appointed for obtaining it.

Not, indeed, that the mercy of God has any limits which we can fix; He may save any one in any manner which seems good to Him. Nor is it meant to assert, that those who have been brought up in ignorance of this great duty, are in the same state as those who have always known it. But the question now is, What is God's will? what are His commands? and what is a person to do, who knows what these are? If we obey these in faith, we may humbly hope for the reward which he has promised to obedience; but who will be so rash, as wilfully to disobey God, and then presume on His mercy? He only increases his guilt, and diminishes his chance of mercy, by his presumption. And again, therefore, it may be said, that as far as we have any right to pronounce-as the general rule, the rule for each of us to think of for himself, without condemning others of whom he knows nothing—an ignorant heathen must be nearly as likely to be saved as a professed Christian who knows of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and of his duty to partake of it, and wilfully chooses to neglect it.

*James ii. 10.

This being so, it remains to be considered why so many people allow themselves to live in disobedience to this command of God. The reason with some persons seems to be, that they imagine the Holy Communion is intended only for extremely good people-for those who have reached a very high point of holiness. Now, this is a mistake. In the first place, no one has any right to say or think that he has reached a very high point of holiness it is presumption. If this notion, then, were true, no one ever ought to take this Holy Sacrament. In the next place, such holiness as a man may hope to reach upon earth, is to be attained, among other means, by partaking of this Sacrament. Therefore, if he does not do so, he will never reach that point which he knows he must not be content without reaching. But the truth is this the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is intended not for particularly good persons, but for all baptised Christians, who "repent them truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead a new life; have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death; and are in charity with all men." These are the words of the Catechism, and they are certain from the Bible.

What I would point out, then, is this:-It is certainly true, that if a man is not in the state described in these words, he is not fit to come to the Holy Communion. But his not coming does not mend his condition. He is in a hopeless state. For no one doubts that, for a man to be in a state of salvation, he must have a true and lively faith in Christ, that is, he must believe the Gospel, and trust to the Atonement of our Blessed Lord alone for the pardon of his sins; he must

truly repent of his sins, must have love towards God and man, and must not wilfully continue in the least sin. If he is not in this state, and if he were so to die, he would have no right to hope for salvation. His only course, therefore, is to leave, or honestly try to leave, his sinful state, and to try, with God's help, to lead a new life in that respect. And, as soon as he does this, though he may still sometimes fall back, and his mind may be sometimes darkened with doubt, he is fit to come to the Holy Sacrament; and, if there is truth in God, he will gradually improve. But he has no right to hope to improve if he fails in this duty.

Other people seem to fancy that this Sacrament is not intended for ignorant or poor people, but only for the learned or the great. This also is a mere delusion, as any one can see by looking into the Bible, at any of the texts which were read. It is intended for all Christians; and, as for understanding it, it was said before that no one, great or small, can fully do that, nor is it in any degree requisite. It may often happen that they who understand it least, receive it with most profit. Let a man only believe that Christ commanded this Sacrament to be observed, and directed His Apostles and the ministers of His Church to administer it to all believers, and that God will in some mysterious way convey His grace to him by means of it, if he with prayer exerts his own strength to live according to God's will, and, as far as understanding is concerned, he is quite fit to receive it.

Nor is it an extraordinary, special sort of observance, to be reserved for great occasions only; but it is to be our spiritual sustenance, and to be reckoned among our

regular duties. It will not be supposed, after what I have said, that I mean that people are fit for the Holy Communion who live in the ways that are too common among men. No degree of care about our spiritual state upon coming to the Lord's Supper can be too great. But I mean, that the same care is necessary for our Christian life and duties. Men are not fit to live, and call themselves Christ's servants-not fit to come to church, and not fit to die-unless they do their best to be in that state which I have described out of the Catechism; and the same state which makes them fit to live and die, makes them fit for the Holy Communion.

But perhaps the chief reason which keeps people away from the Holy Communion is, that they are alarmed by the words in the Communion Service, which tell us, that if we receive the Holy Sacrament unworthily, "we are guilty of the body and blood of Christ, not discerning the Lord's body: we eat and drink our own damnation; we kindle God's wrath against us; we provoke him to plague us with divers diseases and sundry kinds of death." These words, which are taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians,* are very fearful, no doubt; they are much mistaken by many people, as I shall presently show: but still they are fearful words. But what then? There are many fearful things told us in the Bible, which we can only avoid by obeying God's commands to the utmost of our power. We cannot get out of the way of them, by not trying to obey; there is only one thing to be done, that is, to obey thoroughly, at all events to the best of our ability. So in the matter of this Holy

* 1 Cor. xi. 27, 29, 30.