The Supper institution

THE

ION.

Key. FREDERIC DENISON, A.M.,

AUTHOR OF "THE SABBATH INSTITUTION," "HISTORICAL NOTES,
"A SHINING LIGHT," ETC.

■*

THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME."

...

# jnlatolpjjia :

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
530 ARC II STBEET.

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SC&

This interesting book is affectionately dedicated,
by the Publication Society, to J. Warren Merrill,
Boston, Mass., by whose liberality it has been stereo-
typed, and thus perpetuated.

MY PARTICULAR FRIEND,

REV. S. MYDEN PHELPS, D.D.,

is ^olum*

FRATERNALLY INSCRIBED,

(3)

PREFACE

The present treatise surveys the Lord's
Supper as a very plain, yet most significant,
sublime and spiritual Institution, given by
our Lord to every church, as a church,
gathered in his name, and ordered according
to his word.

The work claims the merit of surveying
the Supper in a new order, and of presenting
some new views in regard to it. Special
consideration is given to the question of
church independency as involved in certain
views of the Supper; and attention is also
given to the various modern claims of what
may be termed Communionism.

1* (5)

6 PREFACE.

Such as the work is, not deprecating the
candid criticisms it may elicit, for Christian
and scholarly investigation is to be com-
mended, I prayerfully submit it to the
public, in hope that it may promote vital
piety, and the unity and fellowship of the
saints, by bringing us all into a closer union
with our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave the
explicit commandment, in reference to the
Supper, " This do in remembrance of me."

February, 1860.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

ORIGIN OF THE INSTITUTION.

1. Importance of correct Views of the Institution. 2. Pnrei
Views are gradually prevailing. 3. Aim of the present Trea-
tise. 4. The Supper is purely a Christian Institution. 5. The
New Testament our only authority in regard to it. 6. The
Hebrew type of the Supper. 7. Different terms applied to the
Supper — Sacrament, Eucharist, Communion, Mass — Lord's
Supper, the best term. 8. Accounts of the Origin of the In-
stitution given by the Evangelists — Matthew, Mark, Luke.
9. The Institution given to the first Church. 10. Order in which
the Institution was observed. 11. May be called the Christian

" Passover. 12. The Lord's Supper and not man's supper.
13. The Saviour gave it to the Twelve only, and did not invite
others to participate — Why ? 14. It is given to churches, as
churches 11

CHAPTER II.

STRUCTURE OF THE INSTITUTION.

1. Its structure better understood by studying the Jewish Pass-
over. 2. Account of the Passover. 3. Christ the archetype
of the old Sacrifices and of the Paschal Lamb. 4. When the
obligation to observe the Passover ceased. 5. The great sim-
plicity of the Supper Institution. 6. Is it necessary to use

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I CONTENTS.

unleavened bread? 7. What shall be the quality of tbe cup?
8. The frequency of its observance. 9. The supposed obliga-
tion of the ceremony of the washing of feet. 10. The time of
observing the Institution. 11. The posture and manner of ob-
serving it — the unphilosophical remarks of Dr. Dwight — The
essential things in the Institution — Historical position of the
Baptists. 12. The Institution changed by the Church of Rome.

13. By whom in particular the Supper should be administered.

14. Why we need this Institution, and how it is adapted to
our natures 25

CHAPTER III

DESIGN OF THE INSTITUTION.

1. Importance of apprehending its design. 2. Our views as-
sisted by a glance at the purposes of the Passover. 3. The
Supper has a far higher design than had the Passover. 4. The
leading design is, to hold before our eyes the Lamb of God
who taketh away our sins. 5. It presents the doctrines of the
Christian system — Our lost condition — The fact of an atone-
ment— The revelation of God's grace — The greatness of our
sins, and the deep dye of our guilt — The completeness of the
redemption proffered. 6. It is a monumental Institution, a
proof of the life and mission of Christ — One other monument.
7. The custom of perpetuating events by monuments — Wisdom
of this custom. 8. The mercy of Christ in giving to us certain
monuments. 9. Difficulty of forging monumental institutions.
10. Some of the evidences of Christianity. 11. It is a prophecy
or promise and pledge. 12. It is an effective means of grace.
13. The law by which it acts upon us. 14. The great fact to
be remembered. 15. It was not designed to express our fel-
lowship for one another. 16. It is a conservator of gospel
truth. 17. A conservator of life in the churches 44

CHAPTER IV.

LIMITS OF THE INSTITUTION.

1. Importance of this division of the subject. 2. Tbe Passover
furnishes an analogy. 3. The Supper committed to churches,

CONTENTS. 9

as churches — Testimony of the New Testament — The Twelve
the first corporate body or church — The Gentile churches.

4. Remarks of Neander — The organic character of the first
churches — General principles of church organization and
church independency — Happy tendency of their principles.

5. Ought the Supper to be carried out of the church assembly
to private individuals? 6. Duty of all the members of a
church to observe the Institution. 7. Certain conclusions.
8. The Supper not to be appropriated to purposes of Christian
fellowship. 9. Neander's exposition of the Supper. 10. The
sense of 1 Cor. x. 16, 17 — Comments of Olshausen. 11. Our
reply to such as charge us with " close communion." 12. Re-
futation of the plea for giving the Supper to the unbaptized.
13. God has set mankind in families. 14. In a similar manner
he hath set his children in churches. 15. Importance of cor-
rect views of churches 65

CHAPTER V.

ABUSES OP THE INSTITUTION.

. Abuses of the Christian scheme anticipated — On what
grounds. 2. The first gross abuse of the Supper at Corinth —
The Agapje. 3. The second great abuse of the Institution —
Words of Irenreus — Words of Neander. 4. Further abuses
arising with the coi-ruptions of the Papal power. 5. Final
assumptions of the Romish Church — A few churches remained
comparatively pure. 6. Ecclesiastical Establishments after
the Reformation — Abuses of the Supper in these. 7. Abuses
incident to the union of Church and State — Abuses still exist-
ing in Europe — Abuses in England. 8. Abuses that existed
in our own country in its earlier history. 9. The Supper as a
means of converting grace — Opinions of Stoddard and Wil-
liams. 10. Position of modern Pedobaptist churches. 11. The
doctrine of communionism among the Pedobaptists. 12. The
Baptists censured by the communionists. 13. Position of the
Baptists. 14. An accusation answered. 15. Our appeal to
law. 16. The high aim that must be conceded to the Baptists.
17. Plea in regard to unbaptized persons. 18. How far a con-
scientious belief entitles to church privileges. 19. Liberty
of conscience. 20. Apologetic Remark 87

10 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI.

BEXEFIT3 OF THE INSTITUTION.

I. Profit anticipated in this division of our subject. 2. Ends
answered by the various appointments of Christ. 3. The Sup-
per Institution a store-house of spiritual blessings. 4. A
means of grace peculiarly adapted to our natures — The great
educational law recalled. 5. Connection of the Supper with
pure Christian truth, and the development of the Christian
life. 6. The great benefit derived from the Institution. 7. The
presence of Christ the greatest blessing. S. How, specifically,
the Supper tends to secure the presence of Christ. 9. The
happy period when Calvary and the Cross shall be set in each
church. 10. The testimony of experience. 11. We cannot
afford to neglect the Supper. 12. Reluctance in leaving our
theme. 13. Practical Reflections: Let the New Testament be
our statute book — Let us be governed by the law of Christ and
not by numbers — Let us not be afraid to publish our princi-
ples and defend our positions — Let us hold the Supper in its
original rank and place — A suitable form of invitation to be
read by a church — Concluding thoughts Ill

THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

CHAPTER I.

ORIGIN OF THE INSTITUTION.

1. The variety of views that have been held
in reference to the Lord's Supper, both among
Catholics and Protestants, have necessarily led to
practices equally differing, and often deeply in-
jurious to the Christian life. Purity of faith is
indispensable to purity of life in individuals and in
churches. It is of great consequence, therefore,
that we entertain correct views of the Lord's
Supper, since the Institution has always had a
conspicuous place and a commanding influence
in the progress of Christianity. We hesitate
not to say, in short, that a proper understanding
and observance of this Institution is essential to
the health, progress, and power of the churches
of Jesus Christ.

(ii)

12 THE ST7PPER INSTITUTION.

2. Formerly, for a long period preceding the
Great Reformation, the Supper was greatly mis-
conceived both in its parts and relations. Since
the Reformation, these misconceptions have been
greatly diminished, and, we trust, they are con-
tinually growing less. Among Protestants this
is evidently the case. But even among the latter,
in some respects, we think, it is still miscon-
ceived, and therefore abused.

3. Every effort possible should be made to
correct the false views of this Institution that
have been disseminated. In hope of gaining a
clear view of the Institution, we shall endeavor
to look at it on all its sides and in all its
parts.

4. The Supper is a purely Christian Institu-
tion. There is nothing about it derived from
natural religion. Every thing about it relates to
the Christian scheme. It can have no signifi-
cancy apart from the gospel. It can be under-
stood, therefore, only by those who know the
Christian faith, and have experienced its inward
workings. The Supper, in part, epitomizes to
the senses the Christian scheme, and affects
the heart through the senses. It can be rightly
observed and enjoyed only by those who have
felt the Christian faith as a divine life in the
heart ; for the culture of the inner life through

ITS ORIGIN. 13

the medium of the physical senses, the Institu-
tion was given. And, as we shall have occasion
to show, this Institution can be lawfully ob-
served only by Christian churches, as such, since
they are ordained as the depositories of the faith
and order of the Christian scheme. And we hold
that each church is a complete and independent
society of Jesus, or corporation ; to be an em-
bodiment and illustration, a living type and re-
presentative of the Gospel and of all the New
Testament laws.

5. We learn of this Institution only, in the
New Testament. Here we learn its origin, ex-
cept in so far as it is an outgrowth of the Pass-
over ; the manner of its observance ; and the
purposes for which it was instituted. It matters
not to us what others may think of this Institu-
tion, what ideas and associations others may
have thrown around it ; for all our views we
shall go to the original source, the Inspired Re-
cord. It is easy, natural, and almost unavoid-
able, to accept the views prevailing around us
— the views of our fathers and teachers, espe-
cially if these have run through many genera-
tions, and have become part of the religious
literature of our times. But it is safer to drink
from the fountain-head than from the streams
2

14 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

below ; the waters always partake of the quali-
ties of the channels through which they run.

In all religious things the Bible is our perfect
and only standard. Here we have a perfect
word by which we must stand or fall. In regard
to the Christian Dispensation, the New Testa-
ment is our only authority. For all Christian
duties the New Testament is complete and final,
however some theologians, commentators, and
church authorities may venture to add or take
away from it. This, to us, is the Law and the
Testimony to which we appeal confidently, con-
stantly and prayerfully. There exists too great
a tendency, or disposition to adopt the current
opinions about us, without first examining them
ourselves in the light of the Scriptures. This
tendency may be comparatively harmless in many
things, but in religious matters it may often lead
to the most ruinous results. We must give
account unto God ; hence the word of God
should be the only rule of our judgments and
actions.

6. The Lord's Supper had a type in the old
Hebrew economy or Theocracy. We allude to
the Passover, of which we shall have occasion to
speak hereafter. In a limited sense, the Pass-
over prepared the way for the Supper ; for
while it spoke of a particular past redemption

ITS ORIGIN. 15

by the hand of God and was sanctified by blood ;
it, at the same time, like all the Jewish ceremo-
nies, had something in it pointing forward to
Him of whom Moses and the prophets did
write.

7. Before proceeding to give in order the ac-
counts of the origin of the Institution, it may be
suitable to speak of the terms or names by which
the Institution* has been, at different times and
by different authorities, designated and known.

On account of its solemn and public character
it has often been styled " A Sacrament," or
"The Sacrament." Sacrament is a word bor-
rowed from the Latin Sacramentum, denoting
the oath, taken by Roman soldiers, of fidelity to
a military commander and to the laws of the
country. Manifestly this word is not the hap-
piest one possible to denote an Institution which,
alike in its form and spirit, widely differs from the
taking of a military vow. Besides, the word is
expressive of an ordinance simply. Hence it is
much more applicable to baptism than to the
Supper. Many have applied it to the ordinance
of baptism. To this application there is but
little to object, except the military sense of the
term. But it is not a suitable term by which to
indicate the Supper, which is a most tender
Christian Institution.

16 THE a UPPER INSTITUTION.

The Supper is sometimes called " the Euchar-
ist." Eucharist signifies, properly, giving of
thanks. The Supper is so called from the thanks-
givings and sacred hymns which accompany the
service, and make a part of the celebration. In
instituting it, we read that the Saviour gave
thanks before breaking the bread and before dis-
tributing the wine ; and the service closed by the
singing of a hymn. The word ducharist, then,
is more appropriate than the word Sacrament to
describe the service ; but still it is not sufficiently
comprehensive.

The Institution is not unfrequently called
"the Communion." This expression has its ap-
propriateness from the fact, that, in the service,
or by means of the Institution, that is, through
faith in the use of the symbols, the disciples are
expected to commune with Christ, of whom the
symbols speak. The object of the Institution is
to appeal to the mind and heart through the
senses, presenting Christ crucified before our
eyes, and aiding us in communing with liim.
But some have also attached to the Supper the
idea of a communion with our fellow-Christians.
This idea, as we shall hereafter show, does not
belong to the Institution, and ought always to
be thoroughly excluded from it. Hence, it is
very improper to speak, as many do, about

ITS ORIGIN. 17

"communing with the church," and "communing
with the denomination," and " communing with
one another." Now none of these kinds of com-
munion can properly be attached to the Lord's
Supper : they have other and more appropriate
modes of expression ; they necessarily pervert
and corrupt the Supper. In a certain so-called
evangelical periodical, the following language
was recently found : " The Catholic Communion
of the Protestant world at the Lord's Supper."
So, the word Communion is liable to abuse and
misapprehension when used to denote the Lord's
Supper.

In the Roman Catholic Church the observ-
ance of the Supper is styled the Celebration of
Mass. It is believed that the bread and wine,
after various prayers and ceremonies, are tran-
substantiated or changed into the very body and
blood of Christ. Mass is offered as an expiatory
sacrifice for the living and the dead. In most
Romish churches, the celebration of mass consti-
tutes the principal part of the worship. That
this service is a sad compound of error, credulity,
superstition, and ruinous delusion, need not here
be shown.

Among enlightened Protestants the Institu-
tion is commonly designated as the Lord's Sup-
per. It is so called because it was instituted by
2*

18 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

our Lord, and instituted for the single purpose
of commemorating his sufferings and death for
his people. This, evidently, is the most suitable
and truthful name for the Institution. The
Supper speaks simply of Him who is our Pass-
over, the Lamb of God for sinners slain. And
the name, Lord's Supper, ought to prevent us
from taking liberties with the Institution, and
corrupting it by carnal and convivial elements
as did the Corinthian Church, and from miscon-
ceiving and misapplying it to superstitious and
miraculous ends, as among Papists, and also
from perverting it to the expression of Christian
esteem and fellowship among ourselves, as is the
case with not a few Protestants. It is the Lord's
Supper, and not our feast. In observing it, we
are to commune only with Christ.

Of the various terms employed, then, the one
that is most expressive and least liable to misap-
prehension and perversion, is the Lord's Supper.
With not a little propriety it might be called the
Christian Passover.

8. Accounts of the origin or founding of the
Institution, are already given by the Evangelists,
Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

" And the disciples did as Jesus had ap-
pointed them ; and they made ready the Pass-
over. Now, when the even was come, he sat

ITS ORTCITN. 19

down with the twelve." " And as they were
eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake,
and gave to the disciples, and said : Take, eat ;
this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave
thanks, and gave to them, saying : Drink ye all
of it ; for this is my blood of the new testa-
ment, which is shed for many for the remission
of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink
henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that
day when I drink it new with you in my Father's
kingdom. And when they had sung an hymn,
they went out into the Mount of Olives." Matt.
xxvi. 19, 20 ; 26-30.

"And they made ready the passover. And in
the evening he cometh with the twelve." "And
as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed,
and brake, and gave to them, and said : Take,
eat ; this is my body. And he took the cup, and
when he had given thanks, he gave to them ; and
they all drank of it. And he said unto them,
This is my blood of the new testament, which is
shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I will
drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that
day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.
And when they had sung an hymn they went out
into the mount of Olives." Mark xiv. 16, IT,
22-26.

"And they made ready the passover. And

20 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

when the hour was come, he sat down, and the
twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them :
With desire I have desired to eat this passover
with you before I suffer ; for I say unto you I
will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled
in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup,
and gave thanks, and said : Take this, and divide
it among yourselves ; for I say unto you I will
not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the king-
dom of God shall come.

"And he took bread, and gave thanks, and
brake, and gave unto them, saying: This is my
body which is given for you : this do in remem-
brance of me. Likewise also the cup after sup-
per, saying : This cup is the new testament in my
blood, which is shed for you." Luke xxii. 13-20.

In the mouth of two or three witnesses all
things are established. How clear and explicit
the testimony. How exactly the witnesses agree.
The whole scene is perfectly delineated.

9. The Saviour and the twelve, who had left all
and followed him, living together and meeting
their common expenses out of a common purse,
were, in the Jewish sense of the term, a family,
and hence were authorized and required, as Jews,
to observe the Passover. They were also a
church or ecclesia, " a company called out by au-
thority." They were the first Church of Christ,

ITS ORIGIN. 21

the germ of the larger body soon to be called and
fully organized. As a Jewish family they ob-
served the Passover. But as they were now about
to take their stand and rank as a Christian Church
before the world, the Saviour gives to them as
the first Christian corporation, or church, the
Supper Institution, as a memorial of himself, their
Founder, Head and Life, and a pledge of his
final coming to take his people to his heavenly
home.

10. Having finished the Paschal Supper, he
took of the elements that remained and instituted
the new Christian Passover. He selects only
bread and wine. He first gives thanks. He
then breaks the bread, and explaining its symbolic
appropriation, distributes it among them, saying :
Take, eat ; this is my body which is given for
you. After the same manner he takes the cup,
saying: This cup is the new testament in my
blood which is shed for you. At each step the
Saviour is careful to explain the object of the In-
stitution ; as if he foresaw that it would be mis-
understood and perverted. He charged the
Apostles in most explicit terms to keep the Insti-
tution in its purity, saying : " This do in remem-
brance of me."

11. As the Passover was God's special institu-
tion, given to every family of the Jewish nation to

22 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

remind them of the divine interposition by which
they were rescued from the bondage of Egypt,
so the Christian Passover, or Lord's Supper, is
Christ's special Institution given to every one of
his churches, to remind all the members of their
great deliverance from the bondage of Satan, and
to keep before their eyes the person, and especially
the sufferings, of their Deliverer.

12. This is indeed the Lord's Supper and not
man's supper. It is not a mere feast to be used
for any human gratifications. It should always
be held as Christ instituted it, and for the pur-
poses expressly named by him. And it will be
noticed that Jesus says not one word about our
communing with one another, or one word about
making the Institution a test of our fellowship
with other disciples. No ; Jesus gave to the In-
stitution a higher, nobler, more sacred, definite,
and glorious purpose.

13. It will be noticed that the Saviour gave
the Institution into the hands of the Apostles,
his first church, or ecclesia, a company called
out by his authority. He did not give it into the
hands of the promiscuous multitude of believers ;
nor into the hands of the one hundred and twen-
ty; nor into the hands of the seventy; for these
were not as yet organized as a church ; they stood
not forth publicly as a Christian organization,

ITS ORIGIN. 23

though they had been baptized. All except the
twelve were simply as the materials out of which
the first church was yet to be fully constructed.
The apostles were the germ, the nucleus, the first
incipient church ; hence to them alone the Sup-
per Institution was committed. The others were
soon connected with them.

Nor did the Saviour invite even his own moth-
er, or his own kinsmen, to sit with the Apostles
when he instituted the Supper. He gave, we re-
peat, the Institution to the church that then was.
So the Institution belongs, we think, exclusively
to churches, as the Passover belonged exclusively
to Jewish families.

14. It was given not alone to the first church
that was formed, but to every church that was
afterwards organized. Paul says to the Corin-
thian Church, " For I have received of the Lord
that which I also delivered unto you, That the
Lord Jesus, the night in which he was betrayed,
took bread, and when he had given thanks, he
brake, and said : Take, eat ; this is my body
which is broken for you ; this do in remembrance
of me. After the same manner also he took the
cup, when he had supped, saying ; this cup is
the new testament in my blood : this do ye, as oft
as ye drink, in remembrance of me. For as oft
as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do

24 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

show forth the Lord's death till he come." 1 Cor.
xi. 23-26.

So the Apostles, according to the command of
Christ, delivered this Institution, as well as the
ordinance of baptism and all the doctrines of the
new kingdom, to the churches that were formed
in different places through their instrumentality.
The Supper was given to each church for the ben-
efit of all the members, as a means of keeping the
truth in their minds ; as a sensible representation
of the cardinal truths of the Christian system ; as
an appeal to their faith, through the medium of
the senses, that their faith might often be stirred
up, and so their hearts be refreshed and invigor-
ated. Meanwhile it animated them with the assur-
ance that the Lord would come to take his peo-
ple to his heavenly kingdom.

Thus the Institution originated. Thus it has
been delivered to us. It is a priceless Institution.
In it we seem to see our Lord ; to discover his
love for us, and his sufferings in our behalf. By
it we are animated to endure trials as seeing him
who will speedily come to take us to himself. And
by it we hold up the Lamb of God before the
eyes of a perishing world. So in honor of
Christ let it always be observed.

CHAPTER II.

STRUCTURE OF THE INSTITUTION.

1. The better to appreciate the structure of
the Supper Institution we may look back for a
moment upon the Hebrew Institution — the Pass-
over— out of which it may be said the Christian
Passover sprang ; though in excellency the out-
growth far surpasses the root. The Jewish
Passover was sublime in meaning ; but the Chris-
tian Passover has a meaning immeasurably higher.
Still, the Old Institution was in a measure the
type of the New. Both speak of a deliverance
by the election, power and grace of God.

Jesus was not only the archetype of all the
old sacrificial offerings, dating back to the days
of Abel ; but especially of the Hebrew symbols,
sacrifices, patterns and institutions. Every thing
bore a part in mirroring forth Jesus in his per-
son, in his offices, in his work, and in his admin-
istration. The Passover, so peculiar in its origin
and structure, was wonderfully calculated to
3 (25)

26 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

speak of redemption by the interposition of God.
And while it was a memorial of a past glorious
interposition, it was, as well, a type of a forth-
coming and yet more glorious intervention.

2. Let us glance at the structure of the Pass-
over. We find the record in Ex. xii. " Speak
ye unto the congregation of Israel, saying, In
the tenth of this month (Abib — the first month)
they shall take to them every man a lamb, ac-
cording to the house of their fathers, a lamb for
a house : and if the household be too little for
the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his
house take it, according to the number of souls ;
every man according to his eating shall make
you count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be
without blemish, a male of the first year ; ye
shall take it out from the sheep, or from the
goats : and ye shall keep it up until the four-
teenth day of the same month ; and the whole
assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill
it in the evening. And they shall take of the
blood and strike it on the two side-posts and on
the upper door-post of the houses, wherein they
shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that
night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread ;
and with bitter herbs they shall eat it." "And
the blood shall be to you for a token upon the
houses where you are ; and when I see the blood,

ITS STRUCTURE. 27

I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be
upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land
of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for
a memorial ; and ye shall keep it a feast to the
Lord throughout your generation ; ye shall keep
it a feast by an ordinance for ever." "It is a
night to be much observed unto the Lord for
bringing them out from the land of Egypt : this
is that night of the Lord to be observed of all
the children of Israel in their generations."
"This is the ordinance of the Passover." "A
foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat there-
of. In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt
not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of
the house ; neither shall ye brake a bone thereof.
All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.
And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee,
and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let all
his males be circumcised, and then let him come
near and keep it ; and he shall be as one that is
born in the land ; for no uncircumcised person
shall eat thereof. One law shall be to him that
is home-born, and unto the stranger that sojourn-
eth among you."

3. Such in substance was the frame and form
of the Passover, given to the Hebrews to per-
petually remind them of their salvation from
Egypt by the hand of God, and their consequent

28 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

obligation to be his peculiar people, and to walk
in all his commandments. This Institution has
been carefully kept by the Jews to this day. The
Saviour continued to observe it till he brought
in a better — the Christian Passover. When he
was about to be given up as a sacrifice for us,
and his blood was to be poured out as the price
of redemption, he first observed the old Institu-
tion, as being yet valid until the higher redemp-
tion should be achieved, and then transferred or
changed the old Institution to new, and higher,
and more spiritual and luminous ground : he
transformed and transfigured it into the simpli-
city, light, and glory of the new Dispensation.
The Christian Passover commemorates the death
of Christ, and memorializes his atoning work,
signifying that those that are his are passed over
by the angel of justice on account of the appro-
priation of his blood in their behalf. In the
Supper, an Institution all simple in structure yet
all sublime in significancy, we have the consum-
mation and fulfillment of the sacrifices rendered
by Abel and Enoch, and Noah and Abraham,
and all Israel. All the Jewish offerings and the
Paschal Lamb pointed to Him who hung on Cal-
vary, and whose blood cleanseth from all sin.

4. The obligation of believers, the true seed
of Abraham, to observe the Passover, ceased,

ITS STRUCTURE. 29

when the Lamb of God offered himself once for
all, having now instituted the Supper to take the
place of the old type. And now all the Jewish
ceremonies ceased to be binding : the object they
contemplated had come. The Theocracy gave
place to the Dispensation of the Spirit, with more
simple and significant modes of worship. The
symbols yielded to the substance ; the types to
the archetype ; the dim faith to the inner life.
The stars cease to give light when the sun is
risen. Henceforth all the circumcised in heart,
being enlightened by new measures of the Spirit,
and being admitted by the new ordinance of
baptism into the house of God, which is his
Church, are to observe the Supper instead of the
Passover.

5. To make the Supper Institution as simple
as possible, while it should yet embrace symbols
sufficient to recall the great ideas needed for the
refreshment and invigoration of true faith, the
Lord omitted the use of flesh and blood and
bitter herbs, and chose only bread and the fruit
of the vine ; the bread to be broken as a symbol
of his broken body ; the wine to be poured out
as a symbol of his shed blood ; and both to be
shared by all the members of the new families —
the churches — as a symbol of their vital union
with Christ their living Head. Thus, with these
3*

30 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

simple elements — the elements by which the body-
is nourished and strengthened — every church, in
whatever country, or age, or condition, might
hold before their own eyes, and to the gaze of
the perishing around them, memorials of Christ
crucified as the hope of every soul.

6. We may now come to consider what things
are essential in the valid observance of this In-
stitution. And we first inquire whether it is
necessary to always use unleavened bread. Un-
leavened bread was used by the Saviour, since no
other kind was to be found in a Jewish house at
the celebration of the Passover. But nothing
is commanded on this point. And we are not
informed whether the first churches, planted by
the Apostles, used leavened or unleavened bread.
Were my own choice consulted, I should always
prefer bread that had no leaven in it, as, by the
power of association, it would assist my mind in
recalling more vividly the first observance of the
Institution. The Roman Catholic Church has
always used unleavened bread, which, being small
and thin, is termed the wafer. But the wafer is
not broken and distributed to the laity of that
church ; it is simply dipped into the cup and
then barely applied to the lips. Now Protest-
ants have usually preferred leavened bread, be-
cause it is more convenient, and perhaps, withal,

ITS STRUCTURE. 31

from a fear of imitating some of the superstitions
of the Papacy. Still, as nothing has been com-
manded on this point, and the example of the
first churches is silent, and as it is usually
more convenient, we ought not to assert that the
use of unleavened bread is essential to the valid
observance of the Institution. On board of a
ship it would be convenient to use unleavened
bread, and perhaps under some other circum-
stances. I suppose the proper rule is, to use
such bread as we usually make in our families.
Any other rule might lead to superstitious no-
tions in regard to the qualities of the element,
and so obscure the higher meaning and the
spirituality of the Supper. All that is necessary
is, that we use bread, and that we break it with
devout thanksgiving, and distribute it among
ourselves — always recognizing it simply as a
symbol of the Lord's body broken for us.

7. In respect to the cup, the Saviour has left no
command in regard to the kind or quality of wine
to be used. Here again we are left to do the best
we can in our circumstances. Certainly it would be
advisable to use, if possible, such wine as is not
intoxicating. The wine used on Jewish tables,
and used by the Saviour in the Passover, was not
intoxicating. Manifestly the judicious and proper
rule is to use, in each country, the wine that is

32 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

common. We regard it as essential, however,
that the cup should contain " the fruit of the
vine." This was used, doubtless, not simply be-
cause it was found on the Passover table, but
also because it is most expressive of blood, and
because it was pressed out by violence, as was the
blood of the Saviour.

8. The frequency with which the Institution
should be observed is nowhere specified by our
Lord, or by his Apostles. Here again we are
left to consult our circumstances and necessities.

It may be observed annually, semi-annually,
quarterly, monthly, or weekly, as a church may
think proper. The Saviour only commanded
that it should be kept, and always kept strictly
in remembrance of him. He was less anxious
about times and outward circumstances than
about the object of the Institution, and the spirit
in which it should be observed. That it should
be observed frequently, has been inferred from
the usage of the first churches, and from the
words of Paul. " For as often as ye eat this
bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's
death till he come." 1 Cor. xi. 26. It is sup-
posed that the apostolic churches established the
Supper weekly, in support of which opinion re-
ference is made to Acts xx. T. " And upon the
first day of the week, when the disciples came to'

ITS STRUCTURE.

gether to break bread, Paul preached unto them."
But whether this was the practice of the church
at Troas or not, since the Agapae are doubt-
less here alluded to, it might not have been the
usage of all the churches. In short, the Xew
Testament contains no rule in regard to the fre-
quency with which the Institution should be
celebrated. Some Protestant Churches, in Scot-
land, in England, and in this country, observe it
on every Lord's Day. In some countries the
Romish Church has, for ages, celebrated mass
every Sunday. In the Presbyterian Church in
this country, the Supper is celebrated either twice
or four times a year. Some churches keep it
once in two months. But the majority of Pro-
testants, I think, observe it monthly. Every
church, of course, is at liberty to choose its own
time, as may best promote its right observance,
and conduce to the spiritual improvement of the
body.

9. A few bodies of Christians, at different
times in the history of the church, have asso-
ciated with the Supper, as if it were an integral
part of the Institution, the custom of washing
each other's feet. This is done in imitation of
that tender and expressive act of our Lord, when,
after Supper, he laid aside his garments and took
a towel and girded himself — after the manner of

34 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

the humblest servant — and poured water into a
basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, and
to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was
girded.

They suppose that the Saviour intended to
establish a positive rule when he said : " If I,
then, your Lord and Master, have washed your
feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet.
For I have given you an example, that ye should
do as I have done to you." But the Saviour, we
conclude, intended to establish a principle and
not an outward act, a moral rule in respect to
our duties toward each other, and not a particu-
lar mode or ceremony of washing each other's
feet. Besides, we lind no such custom prevailing
in the apostolic churches in connection with the
Supper. In the act mentioned, our Lord not
only manifested his great love for his people,
and his wonderful condescension, he also in-
tended to convey to them the important idea that
all their purification was from him, that he alone
could make them walk in purity and safety.
Peter so understood the Saviour's explanation
of the act, and hence, after objecting, yielded,
saying : " Lord, not my feet only, but my hands
and my head." This ceremony was no part of
the Supper, for that, we read, " was ended." Still
if any are conscientiously moved to observe such

ITS STRUCTURE. 35

a ceremony, either in connection with the Sapper,
or at another time, we would not make them of-
fenders for such a cause. It is far better, how-
ever, wholly to omit unnecessary things, lest they
obscure the truth and the necessary forms.

10. Ought the Supper to be celebrated in the
evening ? The Paschal Lamb was eaten in the
evening ; hence it was evening when our Lord
instituted the Supper. But there is neither posi-
tive law nor example found in the New Testa-
ment as to the time of day for its observance.
This, like the question of its frequency, is left to
the judgment and convenience of the churches.
It must be admitted that the evening would fur-
nish associations not belonging to the hours of
light, and hence those churches that choose to
solemnize the Institution in the evening are not
to be reproved. Always, our best convenience,
and especially the profit of the church, are to be
consulted.

11. The question of posture in the reception
of the elements may require a thought, since the
practice in this matter is somewhat variant.
Ought we to recline ? or sit ? or stand ? or
kneel ? The Jews reclined at the table ; hence
Jesus and the Apostles reclined, doubtless, at the
Passover and at the Supper. A suitable rule, we
suppose, is, to follow the custom of the country

36 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

in which we live ; an uncommon attitude would
be liable to distract our own mind and to convey
to the minds of others the idea that forms and
positions wrere essentials of the Institution.

In this connection, I cannot refrain from no-
ticing the unhappy and unphilosophical remarks
of Dr. D wight, since they have often been re-
peated and endorsed by others. He says :
" Those who contend so strenuously for immer-
sion as essential to the ordinance of baptism,
from the meaning of the word baptizo, and the
few hints which they think they find in the lan-
guage of the Scriptures, are bound, on their own
principle, to spread a table in the evening, to sit
in a reclining posture, and thus to celebrate this
sacrament on the evening preceding every Lord's
Day. All this ought also to be done in a large
upper-room, contained in a private dwelling."*
Now the time, place, exact posture, and fre-
quency of celebrating the Institution, are not the
Institution, or the essential parts of the Institu-
tion, because not embodied in the command ; they
are only accompanying circumstances. Whereas,
baptism is an essential thing, because it is em-
bodied in the Lord's command. Immersion is
the central idea and act of the ordinance, as the

* Theology, vol. 4, p. 356.

ITS STRUCTURE. 37

word baptizo declares, and as the not "a few
hints," but the constant and distinct allusions
found "in the language of the Scriptures," also
bear witness. Immersion is not a mode, but the
mode of baptism : it is in the mode that the or-
dinance consists. Christ's statute is fulfilled only
by baptism and not by sprinkling or pouring.
And in regard to this ordinance we might re-
mark, that the matters of time, place, and exact
posture are not the essentials, because not em-
braced in the command, but merely the accidents
or circumstances connected with the ordinance,
and hence may be different in different cases.

We are not at liberty to change any of the
essential parts of the Supper Institution, or to
appropriate it in any other way than the New
Testament directs. There must be the bread
and the cup. There must be thanksgiving and
praise. There must be a remembrance of Christ
and a recognition, by faith, of what he has done
for us. The Institution must be kept by churches
and churches only.

And here, as a matter of plain history, it is
but right to add, that the Baptists, beyond every
denomination of Christians, have guarded the
structure, the essential form, the spirit, the limits,
and the application of the Lord's Supper, as
well as the ordinance of baptism, from miscon-
4

38 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

ception and abuse, holding singly and persist-
ently to the laws and examples of the New Tes-
tament; for which course, unfortunately, they
have often been charged with closeness, narrow-
ness, and bigotry.

12. The Church of Rome, consistent with her
claim to the Keys of the Kingdom and of plen-
ary power alike to legislate and abrogate in
sacred things, has both changed the ordinance
of baptism in its ordinary form and in its appli-
cation, and changed the essential structure and
appropriation of the Lord's Supper. As she
freely confesses, and for reasons assigned, she
changed baptism into sprinkling, and then ad-
ministered her sprinkling even to infants. By
the same authority, she withheld the cup from
the laity, only allowing their lips to be touched
with the wet wafer, having erected the monstrous
dogma of transubstantiation, or the real presence
of the body and blood of Christ in the conse-
crated elements. And to complete her error and
guilt, she claims, in the celebration of mass, the
power of offering the transubstantiated elements
as a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the
dead. The conduct and condition of the Church
of Rome may at least remind us of the necessity
of adhering closely to the precepts and pre-
cedents of the New Testament.

ITS STRUCTURE. 39

13. The question may here be asked, By whose
hands particularly shall the Supper be adminis-
tered ? We reply, by the hands of the church
observing it, through the regular and proper offi-
cers of the church. The Institution was given not
to the Apostles as mere apostles, not to ministers,
not to deacons, but to churches as churches.
Churches are the only corporations or legally or-
ganized bodies known in the New Testament, and
appointed by Christ. All ordinances and insti-
tutions must, from the nature of the case, be given
to corporations or legally organized bodies. The
Supper Institution therefore is given to each Xew
Testament church. A.nd as the official acts of a
body should be performed by the regular officers
of the body, the Supper should be administered
by the pastor of the church, assisted, as may be
necessary, by the deacons. The right and power
of administration is always in the church, inher-
ing in the body by the authority of Christ. Of-
ficers act for the church, as the servants of the
body. And under peculiar circumstances, a
church may invite the officers of another church to
assist them in performing the public or official
acts of the church. But in no case should a
church surrender its independency or any of its
corporate rights. Their faithfulness to Christ,
and their responsibility for the order of the gos-

40 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

pel, should stimulate them in defending the purity
and powers of the house of God.

14. But a greater question arises ; why do we,
under the dispensation of the Spirit, need such an
institution at all ; and how is it adapted to do
us spiritual good ? To this we reply : Accord-
ing to a fixed law of our nature we receive most
of our impressions, even of spiritual things, di-
rectly or indirectly through the senses. Indeed
this may be termed the great educational law of
human nature. We are well aware that all our
first ideas of things are obtained through the
channels of our senses. And if we carefully con-
sider the matter, we shall find that however far
we may have advanced in any department of
knowledge, being now able to proceed some
lengths and ascend some heights, by the power of
internal and original suggestion and abstract
thought, yet we are always greatly helped by
sensible objects. We always, to say the least,
need our senses as auxiliaries and prompters.
The deepest and most abiding impressions are
made upon our minds through the senses. The
sight of our eyes, and the hearing of our ears,
and the thrills of touch, do deeply affect our
hearts. This great law is constantly experienced,
but is not sufficiently studied and husbanded in
the enjoyments, obligations, and labors of life.

ITS STRUCTURE. 41

We may read of a man's dying a painful and
dreadful death ; but to witness such a death
makes a very different impression. We may hear
of a terrible conflagration; but to see immense
buildings wrapped in red, wrathful flames rolling
up to the sky in wild fury while the huge piles fall
blazing and crashing to the ground, affects us far
more deeply, and leaves upon us ineffaceable im-
pressions. Pictures are always more impressive
than narratives, because they enter, as it were,
into us by the natural inlets of our nature ;
they reach the soul through the shortest and
most natural channels. All educators ought to
remember this fact, and follow this great princi-
ple or law of our nature. Sensible objects and
manifestations are adapted to impress and in-
struct us far more than bare narratives and reci-
tals ; and this is by a fixed law of our organism.
Now it was in accordance with this great law
of our nature, that the Lord Jesus, the author of
our nature and the plan of salvation, appointed
the ordinances of Baptism and the Supper. ' He
knew that it would be best for his people, and
for the world, that there should be a visible boun-
dary to his churches, speaking of what was ne-
cessary on the part of all who should enter his
visible kingdom; and also a visible institution in
each of his churches, speaking of the vital con-
4*

42 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

nection of each of the members with himself.
Here is evinced Christ's wisdom and goodness
and love. Baptism is a beautiful and speaking
ordinance, epitomising to the mind, through the
senses, alike to the person baptized and to those
who witness the baptism, the great doctrines of
salvation, showing the necessity of a new birth, a
death to sin, a resurrection to newness of life, a
vital union with Christ, and the baptism of the
Holy Ghost. The Supper Institution is equally
significant, but of other truths. It is a picture
of Christ crucified. It is the death of the cross
pressed home upon the awakened attention of be-
lievers through the senses of hearing, sight and
touch. What a simple, rich, effectual represen-
tation of Christ crucified is the Supper Institu-
tion when properly observed ! As a means of
grace, accommodated to our natures, no narrative
could compare with it.

The solemn preparation ; the serious assem-
bling ; the prayerful and penitent language em-
ployed in the introduction ; the earnest thanks-
givings uttered ; the breaking of the bread ; the
silent participation ; the second giving of thanks
and imploring the Holy Spirit's presence ; the
pouring of the cup ; the silent participation
while each soul commences with Christ and prays
for perfect cleansing ; and then the common
hymn of praise ; all give to the Institution a

ITS STRUCTURE. 43

meaning, a solemnity, a force, a spiritual power
beyond the scope of language to express. It is
an unrivalled Institution, as confessed by all who,
having the proper qualifications of heart and of
life, have enjoyed it. As in significancy, so in
force, it far surpasses the old Passover. The
parts of the Institution are all perfectly simple, and
so are easily contemplated by the mind. The
manner of observing it is plain, easy and natural,
hence the mind is not diverted or in the least dis-
tracted. The symbols are appropriate, as denoting
that our spiritual life is drawn from Christ and
sustained by him. The breaking of the bread
and the pouring of the wine are lively portraits
of the sacrifice, sufferings and death of Christ.
There is nothing wanting to make the scene
complete, impressive and instructive. We seem
to hear, and see, and feel that Christ our Passover
was slain for us ; and we grasp anew the hope and
promise of seeing him as he is, and sitting down
with him in his heavenly kingdom. And no
Christian, who thoroughly studies this Institu-
tion, will feel that he can afford to neglect
the ordinance of Christ, by which he is admitted
into a visible family of our Lord, so that he can
share, among the duties of a Christian life, the
privilege and joys incident to a proper observance
of this preeminently beautiful, significant and
profitable Institution.

CHAPTER III.

DESIGN OP THE INSTITUTION.

1. The central idea of an Institution is found
in its Design. Unless we comprehend this, it
will be profitless to study its origin or contem-
plate its structure. And, as we shall have occa-
sion to show hereafter, not a few who observe
the Lord's Supper, seem not fully to have ap-
prehended its design. Every form of Christian
service and worship should be attended with its
fitting spirit and in view of its proposed ends.
And happy is that church that duly keeps the
Supper Institution in anticipation of its true
purposes.

2. In seeking after the design of the Supper, our
views may be somewhat assisted by glancing at the
purpose of the Passover which the Supper has sup-
planted. The Paschal Supper was a simple, but
grand, old Institution, designed to memorialize
the salvation of the Hebrew families on that ter-
rible night when the destroying angel swept his

(44)

ITS DESIGN. 45

dark, cold wings over the doomed land of Egypt.
Well might all the children of Abraham that
came out of the land of their prison-house, re-
member the night of their departure ; that
solemn night when, "at midnight the Lord smote
all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the
first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto
the first-born of the captive that was in the dun-
geon, and all the first-born of the cattle ;" when
" there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was
not a house where there was not one dead ;"
when the children of Israel "took their dough
before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs
being bound up in their clothes upon their shoul-
ders," and they went " out of the land in haste."
The Hebrew families were spared in the deadly
visitation, because the blood of the Paschal
Lamb was found on their door-posts.

We can easily imagine how, in after years, these
families, as they prepared and ate the Passover,
called to mind the scenes of their wonderful de-
liverance, and the great grace of the Lord their
God. The Paschal Lamb, the unleavened bread,
the bitter herbs, the blood, the attitude of travel-
ers, all were "tokens" of those wonderful scenes
in which their salvation began. In their thoughts
and conversation, while keeping the Institution,
they lived over again their former experiences,

4G THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

and so felt fresh gushings of gratitude and praise
to the God of their salvation. We can see at
onee that no words, no reading of records, no
commemorative songs, no stately history, no re-
cital, could have so preserved and impressed the
memory of that wonderful deliverance upon the
minds and hearts of the Hebrews through all their
history, as did the observance of the Passover.

And, as if to make its effect more direct, dis-
tinct, and national, the Lord gave the Institution
to every single family of the nation, with the spe-
cific command that each family should observe it
by itself. Thus every Hebrew man, and woman,
and child even, was made, as it were, to see and
feel and taste that the Lord their God was a Sa-
viour.

3. But the Passover is far surpassed in simpli-
city, significance and moral effect by the Chris-
tian Supper. The Supper memorializes a spirit-
ual deliverance, a moral rescue far greater than
any temporal emancipation, and is withal a
solemn pledge of the second coming of our De-
liverer to take us to the heavenly Canaan. It
speaks of a mightier and more enduring inter-
vention than that by which Israel was released
from his prison-house, and redeemed from the
land of oppression ; it speaks of a salvation
from the bondage of sin and the grasp of Satan,

ITS DESIGN. 47

a salvation from eternal death and an inheritance
with the Son of God in his Father's kingdom
above.

4. The leading design of the Supper Institu-
tion is to present to our minds the Lamb of God
'who taketh away our sins. This is the central,
vital truth of the Christian System, and indeed
of the whole body of revelation. The Supper
re-enunciates the substance of the gospel ; that
God so loved the world that he gave his only be-
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him
might not perish, but have everlasting life ; that
the Son of God, who thought it not robbery to
be equal with the Father, made himself of no re-
putation, and took upon him the form of a serv-
ant, and was made in the likeness of men ; and
being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross, that we, through his obe-
dience and sufferings, might be saved. The
breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the
crimson cup, show us the body and blood, the
life and death, the obedience and sacrifices of the
Son of God. By the symbols, we are enabled
and even compelled to recall, as we could not by
reading or reflection upon a record, the tragedy
of Calvary, the Drama of the Cross — the theme
of angels, and the central truth of earth's history.

48 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

No words, no songs, no paintings, could accom-
plish, in the mind, and on the heart, the results
that are effected by witnessing and sharing the
Supper. We have looked upon paintings and en-
gravings of the Supper scene ; some have these
suspended on the walls of their dwellings : some
have the scene painted on the walls of churches ;
but these representations of the pencil, though
they may aid in making the record felt and re-
membered, fail to impress us as deeply and as
personally as a participation in the Supper,
where the living voice, the tangible elements, and
the whole order of the Institution, under the
command of Christ — all are gently, strongly
pressed home upon the soul through the senses.

5. Not of facts only, but of doctrines as well,
does this precious Institution of the gospel
speak. In speaking of the Cross, it of necessity
speaks of the great doctrines of the Christian
system that cluster on the Cross like jewels on a
crown.

Here we seem to hear it reasserted that all
men are lost ; that all are under condemnation ;
that works and prayers and sacrifices are in
themselves of no avail; that salvation is impos-
sible except through another, and that one the
victim offered on Calvary.

Here we seem to see in vivid portraiture the

ITS DESIGN. 40

doctrine of atonement ; that the sins of men
must be expiated by sufferings, by the sacrifice
of a life infinitely valuable, by the shedding of
blood so efficacious that it can cleanse from all sin.

Here we discover anew, and contemplate with
thanksgiving, the great doctrine that by grace we
are saved through faith ; that unless God in his
love had formed a purpose of mercy toward us,
and had laid help on One mighty to save, we all
had perished under the hand of justice.

In contemplating the great fact that the death
of the Son of God was necessary in procuring
our salvation, we discover the greatness of sin
and the deep dye of our guilt. Nothing less
than a sacrifice of infinite value could meet our
case and cancel our sin. Had it been possible to
save man by a less sacrifice, the only begotten of
the Father would not have been delivered up for
us : had it been possible, the cup of sufferings
and death would not have been pressed to the
lips of God's Son.

Moreover, the dignity and worth of the victim ;
the thoroughness of his manifold sufferings ; and
the fact that his propitiation was accepted by the
Father, as evinced by his being raised from the
dead, shows us the certainty, as well as the great-
ness, of our deliverance. He that spared not his
own Son, but freely gave him to death for us,

50 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

will lie not also with him freely give us all things ?
And if we are saved by his death, much more
shall we now be saved by his life, for he ever
liveth to make intercession for us ; and he has
given us the Supper as a pledge of his constant
love and care, and his purpose to take us to him-
self. As our lives are hid with Christ in God,
the destroying angel will pass over us in the last
great day.

Thus in the Supper Institution the cardinal
truths of the Christian system are written out as
with a visible and ever-recording hand. These
truths are made almost to utter themselves au-
dibly. And every true believer is made to hear
and feel them. The Supper is an instructive,
engaging, speaking, preaching Institution. And
it preaches more plainly, more truthfully, more
eloquently, more touchingly, more persuasively,
than any lips could preach ; for all human lips
have some stains and some unhappy associations.

6. But further. The Supper is monumen-
tal; it was designed, withal, I think, to stand
among the proofs of the life and mission of
Christ. It is a witness to the gospel history
as well as to the gospel doctrines. It is a his-
torical witness, very much as was the Passover
to the Jews, and as is the Fourth of July to the
inhabitants of our country. And it perpetuates

ITS DESIGN. 51

a greater event than the emancipation of the
Israelites, and a greater act than the declaration
of a nation's independence ; it marks the capi-
tal event of the world's history, and the final act
that brought deliverance to a suffering and help-
less race. Some monument, then, of the event
and act, is highly appropriate ; a monument so
simple that it may be carried to the end of the
earth, and so significant that the lowest and
humblest may contemplate it and read the great
things that it perpetuates. And to extend it as
far as possible, with all its attendant blessings,
the Saviour put it into the hands of every true
company of disciples, however small, who in love
to their Lord should sacredly keep it.

The same office, in part, belongs to the ordi-
nance of baptism. This ordinance was instituted
as the peculiar initiatory rite of admission into
the family privileges, rights and duties of Christ's
new and visible kingdom. It was a new rite,
chosen expressly for its significancy, and as the
door or act by which the convert or new-born
person enters a church of Christ. It is therefore,
in part, a monumental ordinance, certifying the
origin, the nature, the regenerating power and
life-imparting spirit of the gospel. And Jesus
himself, though not needing this ordinance for
himself, but in fulfillment and ratification of the

52 THE SUPPEB INSTITUTION.

order of his kingdom, of the path of duty, as an
example to all who should believe on Him, and
propose to follow Him, was meekly baptized by
John in Jordan's waves.

But the Supper Institution is a more striking
and more constant monument of the setting up of
the new dispensation. No one, who is in a reason-
able frame of mind, can witness either the ordi-
nance of Baptism or the Supper Institution, ob-
served according to the requirements of the New
Testament, without recalling the scenes that trans-
pired on the banks of the Jordan and in the up-
per room and on Calvary. Baptism and the
Supper are monuments all luminous with gospel
history and radiant with suggestions of gospel
truth.

t. The world-wide custom of preserving the
memory of great personages and perpetuating
great events by monuments, institutions and pe-
riodical celebrations, is, within certain limits, a
wise practice, conformed to the demands of our
nature and conducive to private and public good.
We love to celebrate events in which we have a
personal interest. By outward ceremonies, as
well as by words, we love to recall to our minds
all that pertains to some great event which in-
volved our welfare and the interests of mankind.
And when we owe our dearest privileges and en-

ITS DESIGN. 53

joyments and hopes to the labors and sacrifices of
an individual — as to a Washington — we delight
to delineate his form and features on canvas ; we
give his name in charge to the marble and to the
sweet lyre ; we perpetuate his sacrifices and his
virtues by the historic page and the monumental
pile. Thus doing, we express our gratitude ; we
honor what is noble in our natures ; we benefit
ourselves by cherishing and endeavoring to emu-
late what is praiseworthy ; and we also stimulate
others to love and practice good deeds.

8. In conformity with these impulses of our
nature, — this great constitutional law of humani-
ty, not wholly obliterated or perverted by man's
fall, — the Author and Finisher of eternal salvation
has wisely and mercifully furnished us, not only
with an inspired record of the plan of salvation,
but also with the deeply significant, truth-convey-
ing, truth-speaking ordinance of Baptism and the
Supper Institution, in which we all, who have
tasted of his grace, may personally participate
for our own good and the world's benefit. In
loving, grateful obedience to our Lord, we accept
these monuments and hold them up before the
world.

9. As a proof of any given event, the celebra-
tion of a certain day, or the existence and ha-
bitual observance of a monumental institution, is

5*

54 THE SI ITER INSTITUTION.

an evidence much stronger than mere documen-
tary proof. It is an easier tiling to forge docu-
ments than to forge institutions. Books and pa-
pers have often been palmed off upon an unsus-
pecting and credulous community; whole countries
even have for a time been thus deceived. But it
is quite a different task to set up customs, and
celebrations, and monuments, and institutions,
and make the people believe that these have ex-
isted from the period of the event falsely named ;
no country was ever thus deceived. Memorial
usages must have a substantive foundation, a real
historical origin. Think, for a moment, how dif-
ficult it would be to persuade the inhabitants of
any country, except our own, that they them-
selves and all their ancestors had celebrated the
Fourth of July as a day when a great republican
revolution was inaugurated among them.

10. Quite as easy would it have been, at any
time, to have palmed off upon the Christian world
the idea that all the churches then existing and
all that had preceded them had been in the habit
of observing the Supper Institution when such
had never been the fact. The Supper, then, is a
monumental proof of the origin and truth of the
gospel. And when to this consideration we add
the numerous other irrefragable proofs of the gen-
uineness and authenticity of the New Testament

ITS DESIGN. 55

Scriptures, we see something of the solid his-
torical basis of our holy religion. Ami when we,
still further, add the internal evidences of the di-
vine character of the New Testament, and the
evidences of Christian experience — each convert
being a witness of a divine life imparted to him
above the power of nature to impart — and, to all,
superadd the early miracles wrought by Christ
and the Apostles, and the long line of martyrs in
the churches, with the numerous writings of
Christian men in every department of knowledge
by which the history of Christianity is imbedded
and embalmed in the world's history, we shall
discover that the proofs of Christianity are a
mighty, magnificent, royal, impregnable fortress.

11. Again: As the Supper Institution is a
standing monument of the fact that Christ came
into the world to seek and save the lost, and gave
his life a ransom for sin-bound souls, so likewise
is it a sure prophecy and pledge that he will
return again to close up the dispensation which
he established, and take his ransomed people to
his Father's house on high.

Paul says, "As oft as ye eat this bread and
drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death
till he come." For the instruction, encourage-
ment, and strengthening of his disciples, the
Saviour intended that the Institution should both

56 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

point backward to the great Day of Atonement —
when the earth trembled, the rocks were rent, the
sun was vailed and the graves gave up a portion
of their dead, because the Son of God hung on his
cross, a sacrifice for a guilty, perishing race, — and
then point forward to the next greatest day of
earth's history, when this same Wonderful Per-
sonage, no more a servant and a sufferer, but a
Mighty King, shall come in the clouds of heaven,
with all his holy angels with him, to take his
trusting followers to his heavenly glory. In fur-
ther proof of this prophetic office of the Institution,
we have the words of the Saviour himself: "I
will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine
until that day when I drink it new with you
in my Father's Kingdom.''1 How full of mean-
ing then ! A memorial of salvation furnished ;
a pledge of redemption to be completed: look-
ing back to Christ on the cross ; looking for-
ward to Christ coming in the clouds of heaven,
and afterward distributing joys to the redeemed
in heaven. How full of truth ! Abounding in the
sweetest, tenderest, most subduing memories ;
overflowing with promises and encouragements
the most pure, elevating, sublime and sanctifying !
"What a heavenly entertainment !

12. The Supper was designed, as we have seen,
to be a direct and powerful means of grace, when

ITS DESIGN. 57

nnderstandingly observed. Such it has always
been felt to be where simple, earnest, intelligent
piety has flourished and unfolded itself. It is a
means adapted to all the members of a church,
whether high or low, old or young ; for the sym-
bols are so simple and expressive, that a picture,
with all its liveliness and power of easy sugges-
tions, is addressed even to the lowest capacity.
Not as in listening to preaching and in reading,
where intellectual culture is often demanded ;
here the senses aid the mind and supply in part
the lack of power in conducting intellectual pro-
cesses, and the Holy Spirit breathing upon and
in the soul, interprets the symbols, impressing the
heart in a way that enables us to feel, if we can-
not utter, the sentiments :

" How sweet and awful is the place,
With Christ within the doors;
While everlasting Love displays
The choicest of her stores."

13. If, as an elegant, philosophical writer has
observed — and who can doubt the truth of the
observation — " We are insensibly transformed into
the image which is continually in our eye — we
are readily and almost necessarily assimilated in
character to the objects of our habitual con-
templation ;" if this be true — if this be a law of

58 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

our nature, bow wisely, aud we must add, how
mercifully has the Saviour husbanded this law for
our highest moral good, by presenting his own
blessed self — our Lord — our Pattern — our right-
eousness— our Life — before us as an object of
habitual contemplation. The law and method
of growing in grace and in the knowledge of
holy and divine things, of growing up into the
image of God, is found in " looking unto Jesus;"
in following Jesus ; in studying his character, his
life, and his sufferings. Thus, under the Spirit's
power, we are changed from glory to glory ; we
are transformed in character into his perfect im-
age. It is in this connection that we discover
one of the high and holy designs of the Supper
Institution. 0, the depth of the riches of the
wisdom and mercy of Christ in the provisions of
his Gospel !

14. Lastly — we should ever bear in mind that
the Supper was appointed as a means of com-
muning with Christ. It was given to each
church for the purpose of assisting every mem-
ber in remembering, contemplating, and, by faith,
holding spiritual converse, or communion, with
Him who is the way, the truth, and the life.
The Supper, in all its parts, speaks of Christ,
and of Christ only ; no other object is intro-
duced ; no other subject is even associated with

ITS DESIGN. 59

it. And the Saviour expressly commanded —
"This do in remembrance of me."

15. The Supper Institution was not designed
to express our fellowship for one another. Such,
therefore, as use it, or rather pervert it, in order
to express their relations and feelings toward
each other, however proper and praiseworthy
their feelings may be in themselves, make an un-
authorized and quite improper use of the Insti-
tution. Manifestly there is nothing found in the
narrative of the origin — nothing in the plan of
the structure — nothing in the mentioned or im-
plied design — nothing in the parts taken sepa-
rately— nothing in the order of the whole of the
Institution, to convey the idea that, by means of
it we are to commune with one another. And
it is certainly wrong to pervert this priceless In-
stitution from its original and single and sublime
purpose of holding up Christ before us for our
contemplation, to the lower purpose of signifying
and expressing our relations and attachments to
each other. My Christian brother has not died
for me, nor poured out his life for my salvation.
Nor have I given my life a ransom for others.
There is nothing in the Supper Institution that
speaks of what I have done, that I should there
be an object of special contemplation by others.
Those emblems speak not of what you have done

60 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

for me, that I should use them as a token of my
fellowship and communion with you. Have we
been crucified that we should take those emblems
to speak of what we have suffered and what we
deserve from others. We may love one another ;
we may have fellowship for each other ; we may
have true spiritual communion with each other ;
we may express our regard for each other by words,
by deeds, by uniting in praise and prayer and in
Christian labors; all this is proper and necessary.
But we may not pervert the Lord's Supper into
our supper, and make it a criterion of creature
gratifications and creature communion. The
Supper speaks altogether of what our Lord and
Saviour has done to save our souls from death.
The Saviour has set this Institution in each
church, that all his true followers might have him
before them as the Founder, Head and Life of
the church, and habitually cherish him as the ob-
ject of their contemplations. In observing the
Supper, nothing should intervene between Christ
and our souls. No man, for the sake of exalting
the church to which he belongs, for the sake of
depreciating any other church, for the sake of
magnifying religious offices, or for any other plea
whatever, even the smooth plea of charity, ought
to urge me to do what the Saviour has not com-
manded in keeping the Supper, and what indeed

ITS DESIGN. 61

the Saviour has evidently excluded in saying :
"This do in remembrance of me." We must
not rob Christ for the sake of pleasing one an-
other. Our Lord has provided abundant occa-
sions, and opportunities, and means, for express-
ing and freely cultivating our tenderest regards
for our fellow-Christians, without marring and
perverting the Supper Institution. Some think
that Judas shared the Supper with the eleven.
Certainly he participated in the Passover. In
this participation there surely was no intended
pledge of spiritual fellowship. The Saviour did
not appoint the Supper as a mode of expressing
his approbation and fellowship for those who
loved him. He did not invite the seventy, or the
hundred and twenty, or even his dear mo-
ther, to thus evince their communion with their
fellow-disciples. No ; he had quite another pur-
pose in view, as we have before stated. He
gave the Institution to his churches to be a
church institution, memorial and promissory of
himself.

16. The Supper Institution, when properly
observed in the churches of Christ, is a powerful
conservator of Gospel truth. An excellent writer
has remarked upon the Sabbath : " This truth,
from the history of the world, will bear to be re-
corded in letters of gold, that the true religion
6

G2 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

will exist among men only when they strictly ob-
serve the Sabbath." We might add, that true
Christianity, spiritual and saving religion, will
exist best in those churches where the Supper
Institution is clearly apprehended in its great de-
sigu of holding up the Lord Jesus Christ, and is
devoutly observed as the means of communing
with Him and not with one another. We de-
fend, then, the structure, the design, and the
spiritual character of the Supper in view of the
honor of Christ and the purity of his churches.
The holy Institution is all beautifully set with
truths and doctrines, with facts and promises,
with mementos and pledges, by the hands of the
Redeemer. And let nothing else be intruded to
conceal or obscure what the divine hand has set
in order and made sufficient for his people. It
was when men had succeeded in changing the form
and application of the initiatory ordinance of
God's house, and in perverting the Supper Insti-
tution, that they were enabled to corrupt the life
of the churches. Having bribed the sentinel at
the door, and having poisoned the well of water
within, they subverted the household and trans-
formed the church of the living God into a
temple filled with traffickers and the idols of
their superstitions. When the walls of the city

ITS DESIGN. 63

are thrown down, the enemy can come in at
pleasure.

17. Churches, like individuals, have a body
and a life ; a frame and a spirit : the body
must be in health that the soul may be at
ease ; the frame must be perfect that the spirit
may act freely. Indeed, of Christianity in the
world, it may be said, it is a life, dwelling
in, and working through, a body of doctrines
and a frame of outward duties ; every doctrine
is an expression of the divine indwelling life ;
every duty and outward observance or act
of obedience, is an exercise for the develop-
ment, the culture, and also the dissemination
of the hidden, heavenly life. Baptism is of
no avail except to the person who has been
born again. The doctrines of grace, to the un-
renewed man, are more unsuited than the armor
of Saul on the limbs of David ; if put upon
an unprepared man, they prevent proper action.
The Supper Institution is proper only for a
church, and is properly observed only when it
is celebrated with a view of refreshing all the
members of the church by bringing Christ into
their habitual contemplation, with the view
of holding alike the ministry and the member-
ship, with all their varying gifts, around Christ
as the centre and the heart of the body. And

G4

THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

as every church should represent Christ to
tlic world, the Supper is a needed church Insti-
tution, being a visible representation of the
world's Redeemer, and an epitomized presenta-
tion of the cardinal doctrines of the redemptive
scheme.

CHAPTER IV.

LIMITS OP THE INSTITUTION.

1. Having treated of the origin, the structure,
and the design of the Supper Institution, we
come now to consider its limits. This is not an
unimportant division of our subject. Every In-
stitution must necessarily have some limits ; its
application must be bounded. If it be stretched
beyond its proper and appointed boundaries it
loses its character and use, and will sooner or
later lose even its structure, and consequently
fail, in proportion to its misappropriation, to ac-
complish its designed results. That it has been
stretched beyond its lawful limits, we shall here-
after have occasion to show.

2. The Passover, which the Lord's Supper
historically succeeds, may, at least, furnish an
analogy in the limits assigned to that once im-
portant Institution. The Paschal Supper was
committed to families, as families, and the
Hebrews were strictly forbidden to observe it in
any other capacity. They were commanded to

6* (65)

THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

take "a lamb for a house ;" and it was added :
" in one house shall it be eaten ; thou shalt not
cany forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the
house." The design of this order is evident. The
institution, with all its impressive lessons, was thus
brought home to every house and to every per-
son. Had it been observed by the Israelites in
a national capacity, or by the several tribes in
their tribal relations, it would plainly have been
less definite in its lessons, and far less impressive
in its moral character. When the Lord saved
his people from oppression and death in Egypt,
he chose, for his own glory and the good of his
people, to place a memorial and pledge of his
mercy and protection, in every house, that thus
every Jew might distinctly feel that the Lord
was his God and that He cared for his house and
for the members of his family. The plan of the
divine interposition and the institution that me-
morialized ' it, were alike marked with that wis-
dom and mercy which belong to the ways of God.
He that set the inhabitants of the earth in fami-
lies, gave to his ancient covenant people at least
one family institution, that in the primal, and
nearest and dearest relations of life they might
have one significant memento and pledge of
divine favor and protection. So every house
contained an altar of grace.

ITS LIMITS. 6T

3. Now, very much as the Passover was com-
mitted to Jewish families, the Supper Institution
is committed to Christian churches, the only ap-
pointed organizations under the New Dispensa-
tion. It seems plain that the Supper was given
to churches, as churches. To whom else, we may
inquire, could it be given ? Must not every ordi-
nance and every institution be put into the hands
of some specified bodyor organization? Who
ever heard of an ordinance that was to be exe-
cuted by no one in particular ; that was given to
no class of persons to be administered ? What
king or legislator ever acted in this manner ?
And who ever heard of an institution that be-
longed to everybody in general, and nobody in
particular ? Every institution is put into the
hands of some corporation duly organized and
fully recognized by the legislating power. But
there is no corporation named by Christ except
churches. The New Testament knows no organi-
zations but " companies of believers called out
by authority" of Christ, that is churches. Hence
to churches was committed the faith and order
of the gospel — the keeping of the oracles of
God, the defeuse of the faith, the ministry of the
word, the ordaining of Christian officers, the ad-
ministration of baptism, the keeping of the

68 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

Supper, and the spread of the gospel through
the world.

The Saviour instituted the Supper with the
twelve, and committed it, as we have seen, to their
hands. Now they were the first church, the first ec-
clesia — "company called out by authority ; " — they
were the first who had left all and followed him.
The other disciples " were added" to these, and
so added to a regular church, coming under re-
gulations and accepting specified duties. So the
Supper was not given to believers promiscuously,
but to an organized or banded company of be-
lievers under the authority of Christ.

True, there were many baptized believers in
and around Jerusalem at this time. But, in this
formative period of the church, much material
had to be prepared and made all ready for the
house before the house was erected. Afterward
the pieces were added to the building as fast as
they were made ready. The Apostles constituted
the frame of the house and were so raised ; then,
or soon after, the believers around them were
"added unto them." And only those that were
" added," that is, only members of the ecclesza, or
company, were admitted to share in the Supper
Institution.

And so, everywhere, at least, so far as we can
learn from the New Testament, among the first

ITS LIMITS. 69

churches this rule was followed, of holding the
Supper Institution as a church institution, and
admitting only church members to participate in
its celebration. The Apostles and the members
of other churches, when with any of the churches,
united with these churches in observing the In-
stitution, but not with the notion of communing
with men, but of communing with Christ, for
the Institution had not yet lost its spiritual sig-
nificance ; and yet the churches held the Insti-
tution in their own keeping, as committed to
their hands. They held the Supper as belong-
ing not to churches collectively, and not to min-
isters separately or collectively; but always to
churches, separately and singly, as the families
or societies of Jesus.

4. Xeander, in his ''Planting and Training
of the Christian Church," though he seems not
to have fully grasped the idea of the corporate
character and independency of the first churches,
has some remarks that bear pertinently on the
subject in hand. He says : " The form of the
Christian community, and of the public Christian
worship, the archetype of all the later Christian
Culfus, arose at first, without any preconceived
plan, from the peculiar nature of the higher life
that belonged to all true Christians. There was,
however, this difference, that the first Christian

70 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

community formed as it were one family ; the
power of the newly-awakened feeling of Chris-
tian fellowship, the feeling of the common grace
of redemption, outweighed all other personal and
public feelings ; and all other relations were sub-
ordinated to this one great relation."* All felt
bound by their common relation to Christ, so
that Christ was their Head and Heart. He also
remarks : " Whoever acknowledged Jesus as the
Messiah, received him consequently as the infal-
lible divine prophet, and implicitly submitted to
his instructions as communicated by his personal
ministry, and afterward by his inspired organs,
the Apostles. Hence baptism, at this period, in
its peculiar Christian meaning, referred to this
one article of faith, which constituted the essence
of Christianity, as baptism into Jesus, into the
name of Jesus ; it was the holy rite which sealed
the connection with Jesus as the Messiah, "f He
adds : " The celebration of the Holy Supper con-
tinued to be connected with the common meal, in
which all as members of one family joined, as
in the primitive Jewish church, and agreeably to
its first institution. "J

And in his " Church History," he says of the
celebration of the Supper, "ne one could be

* " Planting and Training of the Christian Church," p. 28.
f Ibid. p. 27. % Ibid. p. 103.

ITS LIMITS. 71

present who was not a member of the Christian
church, and incorporated into it by the rite of
baptism." * * * " These celebratioDs,
from their very nature, were designed only for the
members of the church."*

The intimation of Neander, that the first
churches lacked organic character, is in part
true, and in part, we are compelled to think, not
wholly true. The New Testament was not yet
written and compiled. All things were done by
order of the Apostles, to whom Christ, " through
the Holy Ghost, had given commandment," and
who were, therefore, instructed in "the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God." They pro-
mulgated the truths and established the laws
that they had received. The planting of the
first churches, both among Jews and Gentiles,
where there was so much that was uncongenial
and even diametrically opposite to Christianity,
required an easy but yet a definite process. The
first development of these churches, like churches
now planted among the heathen, under the quick-
ening influences of the Holy Spirit, must have
been free, like the growth of a family, but yet
truly organic, and according to pre-established
laws.

* " Planting and Training of the Christian Church," vol. 1,
p. 327.

72 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

And even the New Testament, we find to be less
a book of statutes, specifying all the particulars,
the minutiae of church organization and church
duties, than of general principles which, under
the interpretation of the Spirit, who is in every
convert, are made abundantly to supply the lack
of details. When men's hearts are right and
their motives rise out of a pure spirit, as is sup-
posed in the case of every regenerate soul, they
need but few statutes and technical rules : they
need but examples and hints, if these only come
from the will of Christ : they do indeed need a
few rules, for human nature is not a fountain, in
itself, of law and light. And where this right
disposition of heart is wanting, as in the case of
the- unregenerate, no statutes and rules would
supply the defect. In the Christian scheme the
Holy Spirit disposes Christians to accept all
truth and to do right, and the New Testament,,
unlike the statute books of men, contains only a
few statutes of a leading character and makes up
the rest of the sum of duties by examples and
hints, leaving, of necessity, some things to shape
themselves according to new circumstances. As
the entire government of God over us is adapted
to moral agents in a state of probation, long
drawn, particularizing and exhaustive statutes,
like many human codes, would be inappropriate

ITS LIMITS. T3

and would conflict with the necessary laws of our
freedom and our responsible development. Too
much government would crush, rather than pro-
mote, our moral growth.

Every church is organized according to the
given laws of Christ and the precedents found in
the New Testament. And every church is com-
plete in itself, like a family, and is perfectly
independent, having no corporate or organic
connection with any other church, or any other
organization. Under the laws and examples of
the Xew Testament, a church is competent to
transact all business and direct all its efforts.
All its officers are to be freely chosen ; and these
may be few or many, as the magnitude of the
church and its duties may require. They are
chosen to serve the church and to preach Christ
to the world. In the service needed in the
church, the public teacher, pastor, or bishop,
will, of course, administer the rites of the church,
will administer the ordinance of baptism, and, as
the chosen head of the spiritual family, preside
at the Supper. Every church is complete in it-
self. In the absence of its ordained officers, the
body may still act, either by inviting an officer
of another church to act for them, or by deputing
one of their own number. So there can be a
church without a bishop, as there can be a state
7

74 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

without a king. And both Baptism and the
Supper are in the hands of churches. In short,
every church is competent and is empowered to
present the gospel, in all its parts, functions, and
powers, to the world, as much so as though no
other church existed on the face of the earth.
Yet each church should act toward every other
church, planted on the same divine grounds, ac-
cording to the great irreversible moral law :
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Then
each church, in its completeness and independ-
ency, will know no jars or ill-will with other
churches, but will be filled with responsibility,
and surrounded with perfect freedom to exercise
all its gifts and power, in honor of Christ and
for the world's evangelization. Would that such
a state of things everywhere existed in the
churches of Christ ! Then would peace be re-
stored, light would break forth, and earth's mil-
lennial day be ushered in.

5. Another question of limit arises. Ought
the Supper ever to be carried out of the church
assembly to accommodate any of the members of
the church ? Not only in ages past of the his-
tory of Christianity, but even now, in many
churches, we meet with a practice of carrying the
Supper, in whole or in part, to private dwellings
to be dispensed to the sick and infirm. This

ITS LIMITS. ?5

was not so in the earliest times. After carefully
examining this question, especially after consider-
ing the results of this practice in the views which
it begets of the Institution itself, we are disposed
to express an opinion against the practice. The
idea that the Supper must be received by those
who cannot come into the church assembly, and
the consent of the church to carry the Institution
to them, naturally favors, if it does not directly
engender, the dangerous notion of sacramental
efficacy. Now, if from sickness or extreme infir-
mity, one is not able to submit to the ordinance
of baptism, he is exempted from its obligations ;
the condition of an individual is no sufficient
apology for changing an ordinance, giving it an-
other form and hence another force. " It is re-
quired of a man according to that which he
hath, and not according to that which he hath
not." The same remark may be applied to at-
tendance on public divine worship : when indi-
viduals cannot attend they are not required to be
present ; grace shall be given to them to supply
their lack. So also in regard to the Supper ; if
any cannot come into the church assembly, the
Lord will bless them at their homes, if they
truly desire his presence ; and he will, by the
Spirit, comfort and nourish their hearts. There
is nothing saving in Baptism or in partaking of

76 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

the Lord's Supper. They are only means of
grace to the regenerate, appointed for such as
are able to share them. If the Supper has been
committed to the church to be celebrated in the
church assembly, let it be so kept. The indi-
vidual is not the church, any more than a single
Jew was a Hebrew family.

6. But it is the duty of all the members of a
church, who are able to attend the public
worship of the church, to be present with
the church in the observance of the Supper
Institution. As no redeemed soul is excused
from putting on Christ before the world by bap-
tism, where circumstances will allow, since a re-
fusal to obey a specific command is evidence of
the want of an obedient heart, and the refusal
strikes at the organization of churches, and is,
so far, a subversive blow to the Kingdom of God
among men ; so a refusal to a'ssemble with Chris-
tians, especially with the church to which we
belong, and to join them, in obedience to Christ,
in celebrating the Supper Institution, evinces a
want of Christian temper or Christian knowledge.
The Saviour has issued no superfluous commands.
When he said : " This do in remembrance of
me," he addressed every member of every church
that has the ability to obey him.

7. Our conclusions thus far are these : the

ITS LIMITS. 11

Supper Institution does not not belong to syn-
ods, or councils, or presbyteries, or associations,
or consociations, or conventions, or priests, or
ministers, or private individuals, but to churches
as churches. Hence it has often been carried be-
yond its legitimate limits. It has been appropri-
ated also to purposes which its Founder never
contemplated.

8. This brings into view again a misapplica-
tion and serious perversion of the Institution
touched upon when speaking of its design ; name-
ly, its appropriation to purposes of Christian fel-
lowship and what has been called Christian com-
munion, that is, the communion of Christians
with each other in the use of the Supper. Now
it is evident from the history of its origin, from
the study of its structure, from its design as ex-
plained by the Saviour and understood by the
Apostles, as also from the separate services
named and the symbols employed, that the Insti-
tution is limited to the one purpose of holding
communion with Christ. Its plain limits, there-
fore, utterly exclude the idea of our attempting to
commune with one another by this means. By
attaching this idea to the Supper, we greatly im-
pair the uniqueness, and lower the dignity, and
obscure the high and holy purpose of the Insti-
1*

THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

tution. And certainly we have no right to add
to it or take from it.

9. What says Neander of the ideas belonging
to and limiting the Institution in the early
churches ? " Hence Christ said, when he distri-
buted wine and bread among his disciples, that
this bread and this wine were to be to them —
and consequently to all the faithful of all times —
his body and his blood : the body which he
offered for the forgiveness of their sins, for their
salvation, for the establishment of the new theo-
cratic relation ; and as these outward symbols re-
presented to them his body and his blood, so
would he himself be hereafter spiritually present
with them, just as truly as he was now visibly
among them ; and as they now sensibly partook
of these corporeal means of sustenance, which
represented to them his body and his blood, so
should they receive him, the Saviour, present in
divine power, wholly within them for the nourish-
ment of their souls ; they should spiritually eat
his flesh and drink his blood, (John vi.) should
make his flesh and blood their own, and cause their
whole nature to be more and more penetrated
by that divine principle of life which they were
to receive through their communion with him."*

•&1

* Church History, vol. 1, p. 324.

ITS LIMITS. 79

These remarks of the great historian may be
regarded as a beautiful exposition of the words
of Christ to his disciples, "This do in remem-
brance of me :" meanwhile they delineate the
views of the Supper held in the first churches.
All ideas, consequently, of creature communion
or the expression of Christian regards, by means
of the Supper, are out of place, and even posi-
tively injurious to the unity and holy design of
the Institution.

10. The unauthorized appropriation of the
Supper of which we have been speaking, has
sought a justification in the current use and com-
mon acceptation of the word communion. But
here the evil hides behind its own works ; endea-
vors to justify itself, like the old spirit of the
Pharisees, by a false gloss which it has succeeded
in putting upon the words of Scripture. Hence
we object to the use of the term Communion for
designating the Supper; many have attached,
and still hold, a wrong idea with the term. It is
safer to designate the Institution as the Lord's
Supper. The word "communion," as applied to
the Supper, occurs but once in our version of the
New Testament : " 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 ? For we,

80 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

being many, are one bread, and one body; for
we are all partakers of that one bread." 1 Cor.
x. 16, IT. True, this word, in the original, is
the same as that found in Acts ii. 42 ; 1 John i.
3, and in other passages (koinonia), which is
there translated " fellowship" — its proper mean-
ing. This would have been, perhaps, a better
translation in the passage quoted ; and Paul's
argument (verses 16-21,) would be more clear
with such a translation ; indeed, in verse 20, the
same word occurs again, where our translators
have rendered it "fellowship." But does Paul's
argument favor the particular idea of fellowship
or communion against which we have protested ?
His argument is thus succinctly and truly stated
by Olshausen : " As, confessedly, the partaking
of the holy Supper, is a means of fellowship
with Christ; and that of the Jewish sacrificial
feast of fellowship with the altar, and with him
to whom the altar is dedicated, that is, God ; so
do the heathen sacrifices form a fellowship with
devils." There is indeed a fellowship, a peculiar
and glorious fellowship in the body, the church,
but it is derived from the communion or fellowship
of each member with Christ, the Head and Life.
Of this fellowship, mentioned in verse 11, Ols-
hausen thus pertinently speaks: "As all who
constitute the church eat of one and the same

ITS LIMITS. 81

bread, so this common participation converts
their plurality into a higher unity, a 'body of
Christ,' in a comprehensive sense, so that the
church itself may be called Christ (xii. 12)." The
participation, therefore, or the fellowship, we
see, is with Christ; and with one another in
no other sense than through Christ; not directly
with one another. This last fellowship is not
an object directly sought, or even had particu-
larly in mind, but is one of the reflex influences
of the direct and sought fellowship with Christ.
We will only add the remark of Christian Knapp
on this passage. " It denotes the profession
which Christians make, by partaking in common,
of their interest in Christ, of the saving efficacy
of his death for them, and their own actual en-
joyment of its consequences."*

11. Since then this institution is not a Fellow-
ship Supper, or Communion Feast, for the ex-
pression of our charity and affection for one an-
other, but the Lord's Supper, in which we are to
remember and hold spiritual communion or fel-
lowship with Him, we might reply to those who
style our views and taunt our practice as " close
communion," in the language of Paul to the Co-
rinthians, who had, by connecting the Supper

* Theology : Book ii., Part ii., Art. xiv., Chap. ii.

82 THE SUFFER INSTITUTION.

with their Agapae or Love Feasts, changed the
holy Institution in great part into a convivial
celebration : " What ! have you not houses to
eat and to drink in ? Or, despise ye the church
of God and shame them that have not ?" Have
ye not other places and other modes of express-
ing your fraternal regards ? Must the church of
God and the body of Christ be lowered down
to the purposes of mere human fellowship ?
Must we transform the emblems of Christ's
body and blood into mere tokens of our esteem
for one another ? " What shall I say to you ?
Shall I praise you in this ? I praise you not.
When you come together, therefore, into one
place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper;" but
to eat and drink to one another, to eat your own
fellowship supper.

12. Again ; some plead for extending the privi-
leges of the Supper Institution to those who have
never united with a church, have never put on
Christ before men according to the solemn initia-
tory ordinance appointed by the Redeemer. They
tell us, " This is the Lord's Table, and hence all
his children should be permitted to partake of
it." Such have forgotten that the Lord did not,
when instituting the Supper, invite all his chil-
dren to partake of it. The Lord spreads his
table in his house. Then let his children enter

ITS LIMITS. 83

the bouse and identify themselves with the family.
As no uncircumcised person could eat of the
Passover, so no unbaptized person may come to
the Institution which Jesus has established for
the nourishment of his churches. Because it is
the Lord's Table, we keep it in the place and for
the purposes commanded by the Lord. Were it
our table, we might invite all our neighbors and
fellow-citizens to share it with us.

13. By his wisdom and authority has not God
set us as families in the earth ? Is not every family
perfect and independent, as a body, according to
a law of Heaven ? However much we may regard
each other as members of the great human brother-
hood— and no one will deny that we ought to
love and cherish each other by many fraternal
acts — ought we therefore to disregard the inde-
pendency and the corporate integrity of families ?
And are there not certain rights, privileges,
and duties that God has set in families, and
confined in families alone ? Because we are
families, must it be supposed that we are aliens
and enemies to one another, or that we are
uncharitable, narrow and bigoted ? This great
law of God, by which we are set in complete
and independent families, each enjoying and
holding certain rights and privileges as sacred
and untransferable, and all holding the same — is

84 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

it not the very and only order by which purity,
concord, and prosperity are promoted? No-
thing is more evident. Communism and the
theory of Free Love, which have boasted so
much good in words, and achieved so much
shame in practice, may not supplant the old
divine order of families. The open communion
doctrine applied to families has not borne such
fruits as commend the practice to general adop-
tion. If we would preserve the best interests of
society and the world, we must preserve the
family relations intact, and order them all accord-
ing to the laws of God.

14. In a way quite analogous to this, and
with no less wisdom, mercy, and authority, has
God ordered things in his spiritual kingdom
among men. Christians are to be set in
churches. Each church is complete in itself
and invested with inalienable rights, privileges,
and duties. As no one could enter a Jewish
family and partake of the Passover except he
had been circumcised, so no one can lawfully
enter a church and partake of the Lord's Sup-
per except he be baptized. While, as in fami-
lies, there should be no surrender of rights,
and no interchange of prerogatives, there should
be, and, where the proper spirit prevails, there
will be, exhibitions of courtesy and love, and

ITS LIMITS. 85

the ready discharge of numerous fraternal offices.
The maintenance of our rights is never inconsist-
ent with the exercise of the tenderest brotherly
regard. Each church may be called a bride of
Christ ; and with this relation in view, we may
say the fellowship is to be shared alone ;
others may not intrude themselves into God's
house, as invested with rights and privileges.
No unbaptized person can be a member of
the church ; only members of the church are
to enjoy the privilege of the Supper Insti-
tution.

15. Correct views of churches, their struc-
ture, their powers, their prerogatives, their
limits, their independency, and their duties, are
of vital consequence to all who would share
the blessings of the gospel and be laborers
together with Christ, in spreading his king-
dom among men. Such views would imme-
diately remove many unhappy misconceptions
and misunderstandings among the people of
God of every name. Then would be appre-
hended the proper limits of the Supper Institu-
tion, as also its proper design and its intended
benefits. In maintaining the completeness and
the rights of churches, Christian charity, and
the duties of Christian reciprocity and courtesy,
would receive no injury but would thereby be
8

86

THE SUPPER INSTITUTION'.

greatly extended and strengthened. And then
over the Lord's Table, in each chnrch, we might
hope to see the inscription in large and golden
letters, as if written by the hand of the Saviour,
the words which he gave us in reference to
the holy Institution : "This do in remembrauce
of me."

CHAPTER V.

ABUSES OF THE INSTITUTION.

1. That the Christian scheme, whether taken
as a whole or in its parts, whether viewed in its
doctrines or its development, whether considered
in its rites or its devotional acts, should have
been, by many, misunderstood, perverted and
abused, is what might have been expected, and
was distinctly foretold. This scheme originated
in heaven, and is unlike any thing that was
familiar to men. It necessarily takes on some-
thing of a visible form and order, but is in essence
a spiritual life, a kingdom set up in the hearts of
men. And being not only a spiritual, but a holy
kingdom, it is not, and cannot be, apprehended by
men while in a state of nature. To be under-
stood, it must not only be revealed to men, but
must be revealed in men : man's depraved heart
and blinded mind cannot perceive it. By unre-
newed men, every thing is looked upon in a
worldly light, and is understood according to the

(87)

88 TIIK SUPPER INSTITUTION.

tastes and desires of a carnal nature. Hence
the churches of Christ, which are spiritual or-
ganizations, though they must have a visible
form, have been contemplated as only certain
new forms of society, for the production of hu-
man happiness, and the advancement of certain
classes of doctrines and principles. Viewed in
this worldly light, forms of belief, or creeds,
have been mistaken for true faith in the soul ;
the outward ceremony of baptism has been ac-
cepted for that purification and new life which
the ordinance only symbolizes ; and the Supper
Institution has been either interpreted as a
service, indicating our fellowship with each
other, or as a supernatural means of imparting
to man that grace of salvation which we feel
that we need. Hence men have ever been dis-
posed to fashion the kingdom of God on earth
after the most approved patterns of earthly
kingdoms, and to construct churches after their
favorite ideals of civil communities. This ten-
dency to corrupt Christianity began at a very
early age, even before the Apostles had ceased
from their labors.

2. The first gross abuse of the Supper Institu-
tion of which we have a record, was in the church
at Corinth, and is mentioned in 1 Cor. xi. 20-34.
This case, as far as can now be ascertained, was

ITS ABUSES. 89

something like the following ; the members of
this church, after a prevailing custom of the times,
by which persons of the same guild or profession
met for professional and social entertainments,
assembled frequently for social intercourse, and
the enlargement and strengthening of their bond
of union. These meetings and entertainments
were termed Agapae, or Love Feasts. At the
close of these entertainments the church was ac-
customed to celebrate the Lord's Supper. This
custom existed generally among the first churches,
and continued, as historians tell us, for a long
period, until abuses of the original design crept
in, and led, first, to the separation of the Supper
from the Feasts, and finally, to the abolition of
the Feasts themselves. Christian Knapp thinks
it was customary for the more wealthy members
of the church to bring the food and drink neces-
sary for these Agapae ; and that from what re-
mained after the Feast, the church celebrated the
Lord's Supper. If such were the custom, we can
readily imagine how, from the natural tendency
of feasts, from the unavoidable vein of vanity and
extravagance incident to their preparation, in
such a rich, luxurious, and intemperate city as
Corinth, certain indulgences and extremes would
soon obtrude themselves, and lead to the state of
things deplored by the Apostle. It appears that
8*

90 THE SUrPElt INSTITUTION.

the convivial element had so far obtruded itself
into the Lord's Supper, as nearly to destroy the
Christian and spiritual character of the Divine
Institution. This abuse should be a warning
against associating with the Supper practices and
ideas that do not belong to it.

In respect to these Agapae, it may be remarked
that they were not commanded by any Christian
authority ; they were of a voluntary character,
and were copied from a social usage of the times.
Of course they were of an innocent character,
while kept within the limits of prudence and
sobriety ; and under proper conduct, might con-
duce to pleasant and beneficial ends. Some think
that reference is made to this kind of entertain-
ments in Acts xi. 46 : " And they continued daily
with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread
from house to house, did eat their meat with
gladness of heart, praising God and having favor
with all the people ;" furthermore, certain ones
"sold their possessions and goods, and parted
them to all, as every man had need." These
Agapae are undoubtedly referred to by Jude, when
he says : " These are spots in your feasts of charity,
when they feast with you." v. 12. A similar
allusion is made by Peter : " Spots they are and
blemishes, sporting themselves with their own

ITS ABUSES. 91

dcceivings, while they feast with you." 2 Eph.
ii. 13.

3. The second great abuse of the Supper
Institution that crept into the churches, was that
by which the elements were supposed to be in-
vested with a supernatural character. The pro-
cess by which this great error secured its foothold
in the churches, was slow. The error was a con-
sequence of an opinion that prevailed every-
where around the churches. From the beginning
of history, men had been familiar with the idea
of sacrifices. Thus the world was prepared to
accept the idea of the sacrifice of Christ. No
religion was estimated as having efficacy that did
not employ sacrifices. But the gospel demanded
no sacrifices of the people ; it pointed all men to
the one great, efficacious, final sacrifice that had
been offered on Calvary. The first Christians
held the Supper simply as commemorative of
this sacrifice. Now it was objected to Chris-
tians, especially by the heathen, that they had no
sacrifices in their worship : to which it was replied
that they had an Institution which to them an-
swered the same purpose, as it brought before
their minds the one eflectuaP sacrifice that had
been offered for all men. But by degrees, as the
spiritual life grew feeble, and the desire to con-
ciliate the enemies of the cross sprung up, some

92 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

Christians "became accustomed to regard the
Supper, not merely as a festival in memory of
the sacrifice of Christ, but as an actual repetition
of this sacrifice." The words of Christ, instead
of being accepted in their deep, and deeply im-
portant spiritual meaning, were accepted in a
literal sense ! "Except ye eat my flesh and drink
my blood, ye have no life in you." These words
were applied to the Supper Institution, and the
Supper was brought over to the worldly and
heathen stand-point of a sacrificial Institution.
Henceforth, the grossest errors found a ready en-
trance into the bosom of the church.

Says Irenaeus ! " The idea of a sacrifice in the
Supper of the Lord, was at first barely symbolical ;
and originally this idea did not even have refer-
ence to the sacrifice of Christ. The only thing
originally had in view, was the spiritual thank-
offering of the Christians, of which the presenta-
tion of the bread and wine, the first fruits of
nature's gifts, served as a symbol ! while no doubt
the consciousness of the new relation to God, in
which the redeemed were placed by the sufferings
of Christ, lay at the base of the whole transac-
tion."

"Afterward," says Neander, "the reference
to the death of Christ was made more prominent,
yet so that it still continued to be no more than

ITS ABUSES. 93

the idea of a commemorative, symbolical repre-
sentation of this sacrifice. But, as one error be-
gets another, it was quite natural that the false
notion of a particular priesthood in the Christian
church, corresponding to that in the Old Testa-
ment, should give birth to the erroneous notion
of a sacrificial worship, which should stand in the
same relation of correspondence to that of the
Old Testament ; and so it came about that the
whole idea of sacrifice in the Lord's Supper,
which in the first instance was simply symbolical,
took a direction altogether wide of its true im-
port and bearing, toward the magical." It is
necessary to add, that these views first appeared
through Cyprian, in the church in North Africa.
Hence Neander continues : " As the church in
North Africa was the first to bring prominently
into notice the necessity of infant baptism, so, in
connection with this, they introduced also the
communion of infants ; for as they neglected to
distinguish with sufficient clearness between the
sign and the divine thing which it signified, and
as they understood all that is said in the sixth
chapter of John's Gospel, concerning the eating
the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ to refer
to the outward participation of the Lord's Supper,
they concluded that this, from the very first, was
absolutely necessary to salvation." And, as "the

94 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

false element once existing in the germ, it soon
unfolds and spreads, unless repressed by a
mightier . reaction of the sense of truth," and as
no such reaction of general prevalence occurred,
the false element pervaded the major part of the
Christian world, and drew into its fellowship a
multitude of kindred destroying elements.

4. In the progress of this spiritual declension,
"the celebration of the Lord's Supper became
the seal of all religious consecration ; it was
thus used at the conclusion of a marriage, and at
the solemnities in commemoration of the dead."
To what debasing extremes the Romish Church,
following this false and superstitious bent, has
carried the Lord's Supper, making it wholly
something else, in reciting masses for the dead,
we need not now stop to rehearse. In propor-
tion as the true inner life in the churches became
feeble, there was a tendency toward the doctrines
and practices of heathenism ; true doctrines were
overborne by errors ; the ordinances of the gos-
pel were supplanted by Pagan rites ; and the
body, deserted of the Holy Spirit, was brought
into captivity to hierarchal assumptions, and
ruled by popes. As a legitimate consequence,
outward ceremonial acts were exalted and relied
upon as efficacious to salvation.

5. With the rise and dominancy of the Papal

ITS ABUSES. 95

Power, carrying out its great central idea that it
held the keys of the kingdom of God on earth,
there arose, by necessity, the notion that the re-
ligious life to be imparted to the world dwelt in
the hierarchal church as in a mother ; that the
saved were to be the offspring of the Church.
Iustead of the true gospel doctrine that each re-
deemed soul draws his life directly from Christ
through the inward working of the Holy Spirit
in the use of divine truth, the carnal and destruc-
tive notion obtained that men were to receive
salvation from the Church by baptism, by vows,
by confession, by the Lord's Supper, and by trib-
ute. To make sure her supremacy, to vindicate
her Catholic claim, and to draw all men to her
bosom, the Papal church assumed the power of
imparting life by the sacraments ; she taught
baptismal regeneration, and asserted that masses
availed even for the dead. To be saved, then,
men must be baptized into her bosom, and par-
take of those elements which in her hands were
transubstantiated iuto the very body and blood
of Christ. And as Church and State were
united, or more properly the State was included
in the Church, to be a member of the one was to
be a member of the other. So all power was
consolidated in the Church. Thus was completed

96 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

the corruption, the tyranny and blasphemy of the
Papal Power.

In this sad condition, with here and there, in
secluded spots, a few candlesticks burning with the
original fire, things remained through the Dark
Ages. Finally, through the sovereign mercy of
God, the fires of the Reformation were kindled
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But
even in that great spiritual and intellectual up-
heaval, many of the abuses that had crushed the
Supper Institution, still adhered to the partially
emancipated portions of Christendom. The Re-
formed Churches were not utterly renovated ;
the old leaven was not thoroughly purged out.
Hence some of the Protestant Churches of the
present day have more or less of the old, false
notions and abuses of the Papal Church.

6. The National Churches and great ecclesias-
tical establishments now existing, have inherited
many of their views and practices from the
Romish Church. The great test of membership
with the Lutheran Church is " communion with
that Church" or participancy in the Lord's Sup-
per. So is it with the Greek Church. So is it
with the Abyssinian Church. The same is true
of the Church of England. In these churches it
is required to be sprinkled in infancy — but the
Greek Church has always maintained immersion

ITS ABUSES. 97

for baptism — to assent in mature years to the
Articles of Faith and the Laws of Church
Government, and then to "commune with the
Church." Experimental religion may indeed co-
exist with these requisitions, but it is not insisted
upon as a qualification for church membership ;
indeed, spiritual religion seems to be very imper-
fectly understood in these establishments.

As baptism was first raised by the Papal
Power to the rank of a saving or regenerating
ordinance, and then changed in form, to adapt it
to the cases of sick persons and infants, so in
like manner the Lord's Supper was exalted to a
sacrificial rank, and then changed in its mode of
administration to meet the cases of clinics and
little children. Modern establishments, calling
themselves Protestant, have indeed thrown off
some of the grosser corruptions of Rome, but
they still cling to many things that do not be-
long to the New Testament churches. They
hold the Supper Institution with many Romish
dogmas and perversions.

7. The long-existing, unlawful connection of
Church and State has exerted a mighty power
in procuring and perpetuating some of the abuses
of the Supper Institution. By this means the
holy spiritual Church Institution was transformed
into a religio-political act and requisition ; and
9

98 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

as such it has come down to our times. Every
member of the State must be a member of the
Church. And as the State found it inconvenient,
if not impracticable, to fix upon other tests by
which to determine who were members of the
Church, it adopted the rule of regarding as
members such, and only such, as "communed
with the Church."

And to-day, in most parts of Europe, no man
can hold a civil office who does not, as they term
it, commune with the National Church. "In
Sweden," says Dr. Baird, "a man cannot give
his testimony in a court of justice who has not
taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper within
the year immediately preceding." Until a few
years since no person could hold an office in
England, or be a member of Parliament, or even
graduate at a university, unless he communed
with the Episcopal Church at least once a year.
To detail the evils of such a state of things to
Church and State, to public and to private mor-
als, is unnecessary.

8. In the early history of this country, and
until within less than a hundred years, in Massa-
chusetts, in Connecticut, and in some other of the
Colonies, only members of the Churches could be
electors or hold civil offices ; and the fact of

ITS ABUSES. 99

church membership was determined by the fact
of their communing with the Churches.

9. And yet another, and if possible, a more
unhappy abuse of the Supper obtained among
the colonists. Gradually the opinion obtained,
which among the first colonists had been re-
garded as a Romish heresy, that the Supper was
a means of conversion or spiritual renovation.
Finally, the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, grandfather
of Jonathan Edwards, boldly asserted that a
man sometimes "may, and ought to, come to the
Lord's Supper, who knows himself to be in a
natural state," and that the Supper "is instituted
to be a means of regeneration." This doctrine
was first an offspring, and then a defense of the
old Half-way Covenant which, was the offspring
of infant-sprinkling. And this Half-way Cove-
nant was the source of a multitude of errors and
corruptions in New England. The Rev. Solo-
mon Williams, one of its defenders, who at-
tempted to break a lance with Jonathan Ed-
wards, but had his weapons turned back upon
himself, asserted that there were two ends con-
templated by Christ in appointing the Supper ;
viz., "That such as have grace already, should
be under proper advantages to gain more ; and
that those who have none, should be under
proper advantages to obtain grace." These

100 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

views were crowding spiritual life out of the
churches, and excluding experimental religion
from our land, when the Lord interposed, and
pouring out his Spirit in a most wonderful man-
ner, rescued our fathers from their errors, and
inaugurated a new era for his people in this
country. This interposition we look back upon
with devout gratitude, and call it The Great Re-
vival, or Awakening.

10. The Presbyterian and Congregational
Churches in this country are now nearly, or
quite, purged of the old Stoddardian leaven ;
though a natural opening remains for the infu-
sion of the old leaven ; viz., infant-sprinkling.
The higher life, the pure spiritual element in
these churches, will, we trust, forbid the re-en-
trance of the old error, till, finally, the door of
the churches, as appointed by Christ, shall be
again set up; viz., the baptism of believers only,
and so the corrupting heresy be effectually ex-
cluded forever.

11. Yet these Churches, together with Epis-
copalians and Methodists, still cling to one old
error, and a sad abuse of the Supper Institution,
regarding it as a method and means of commun-
ing with one another, of exhibiting their fellow-
ship for each other, of proving their fraternal
and Christian regards for individuals and for

ITS ABUSES. 101

churches. So they celebrate the Supper in their
churches, taking special pains to invite and urge
the members of other churches and denomina-
tions to " commune with them," and regarding
themselves as slighted and their Christian char-
acters doubted, if not impeached, if any neglect
their invitation, though the neglect may arise
from conscientious convictions, that the Supper
is strictly a Church Institution and given only
as a means of communing in spirit with Christ,
and not with one another. They also celebrate
the Supper in their general gatherings, their Con-
sociations, Conferences, Diocesan Assemblies,
Missionary Conventions, and Evangelical Alli-
ances, thus practically asserting that the Supper
Institution does not belong to single churches,
but is the common property of professed Chris-
tians, and a means of pledging to one another
their Christian esteem and affection.

12. This use of the Supper, and these ideas
of communing with churches and with individuals,
are no small abuses ; they divert the Institution
from its original design ; they seriously impair
its spiritual character ; they necessarily leave in
the minds of all false impressions of the object,
the limits and personal benefits of its observance.
And when we insist, according to the laws and
examples of the New Testament, that only bap-
9*

102 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

tized believers, united in a church capacity, are
authorized to observe it ; and it is strictly a
Church Institution ; and that the members of a
church, in celebrating it, are not to aim at com-,
munion with each other, but simply communion
with Christ by faith in the use of the symbols ;
we are met with censure, charged with uncharit-
ableness, with closeness, narrowness, sectarianism,
and bigotry. Our close adhesion to the New
Testament, and our purpose of strict loyalty to
Christ, are severely reprobated because they con-
flict with these old Romish dogmas of church
communion. But as we are made enemies for
the truth's sake, we cannot help it. We claim
not perfection or infallibility. But we do claim
that our views and practice have the support of
the New Testament, which is all the perfection
and infallibility necessary. And we love all
Christians of every name, but we love Christ
more. Hence our close and unmoving adhesion
to the Scriptures. This is our single and suffi-
cient defense.

13. Our position is this. We understand that
regeneration by the Holy Spirit is the first thing
to be labored and looked for among men. Re-
generation brings a person into the invisible
Church of Christ. It is the duty of every new-
born soul to be baptized j and it is the duty of

ITS ABUSES. 103

only such. Baptism is a voluntary act and
brings the person into a visible church. Every
visible church is founded on the laws and prece-
dents of the New Testament, being complete in
itself and perfectly independent. The Lord's
Supper is a Church Institution, given to each
church for the spiritual benefit of its members,
to remind them of what Christ has done for
them, and prepare them to receive these spiritual
gifts which Christ dispenses to his members
through the Holy Spirit's operations.

14. An accusation has been brought against
our position. It has been asserted that in our
refusing to commune with Pedobaptists, and in
not inviting them to commune with us, we vir-
tually declare that they are not Christians, or at
least that we have no Christian fellowship for
them. This accusation is quite false, as a con-
sideration of our position has shown; for we
hold the Supper as a Church Institution, and we
exclude from it the purpose of exhibiting our
fellowship for others. Thus we look upon the
Supper very differently from our accusers. It
has also been said that our position virtually de-
clares that Pedobaptist churches are no churches
at all. To this we simply reply, we have
never asserted that Pedobaptist churches are no
churches at all ; the accusation is an infer-

104 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

ence drawn by the Pedobaptists themselves ;
with how much propriety, they must judge.
With how many errors real Christian character
may co-exist we know not ; or with how many
false views and practices a Christian church may
exist we know not : in these things we do not
presume to judge ; only the Lord himself, the
judge of all, can decide these difficult questions.
But we are not allowed by him to practice or to
fellowship known errors. This is our simple and
sufficient defense.

15. We take the laws of Christ, as found in
the New Testament, for our law in all religious
things. We know no other authority. And
while we love all who love Christ, and can mani-
fest our fellowship for them by " the holy kiss,"
by "feasts of charity," by "the hand of fellow-
ship," by "love unfeigned," by mutual prayers,
by united songs, by co-operative labors, and by
many other unmistakable evidences, yet we can-
not build with them in churches unless they fol-
low the laws of Christ. By his laws we en-
deavor to shape all our views and practice, and
we leave all others to do the same for themselves ;
and we leave them also to be judged by Christ,
the only Lord and Judge of the conscience.
We know nothing at all of baptismal regenera-
tion ; that we leave to Romanism and kindred

ITS ABUSES. 105

systems. We know nothing of sprinkling and
pouring for baptism ; that also we leave to the
Papal Power, with which it originated, and to
those who in this respect are willing to follow the
Hierarchy. We are ignorant of any thing super-
natural, an opus operatum, sacramental sacrifice,
in the Lord's Supper, and also of communionism
as held by modern Pedobaptists ; these ideas we
leave to such as have faith in them. How they
are to be reconciled with the laws of God we do
not know.

16. It must be conceded to the Baptists — for
our history is plain and full on this point — and
no well-informed man can for a moment enter-
tain a doubt here — that we have uniformly, con-
stantly, and strenuously contended for pure,
spiritual churches after the New Testament
model. Without intermission, and to the utmost
of our power, we have labored to build and pre-
serve evangelical churches. Undismayed in view
of fires, and prisons, and stripes, and fines, we
have maintained the doctrines and principles
given by Christ and the Apostles. No denomi-
nation of Christians has suffered, in defense of
the faith once delivered to the saints, so much as
we. We have endured from the days of Christ
until now — though sometimes few in numbers,
but never weak in faith — whatever a wicked

106 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

world and false churches have been able to cast
upon us of scorn, disabilities, misrepresentations
and abuses. And still we survive, stronger than
ever, to toil on, and to sacrifice in the same,
cause of truth and righteousness. Now, to plant
and maintain simple New Testament churches is
no unimportant work. In the existence and ac-
tivity of such churches, is involved the purity of
the gospel and the final hope of the world.
Christianity can put on its true spirit, and
strength, and go forth to the conquest of the
world, only by means of such churches as are
made up of truly converted members, who have
voluntarily and gladly taken upon them, in the
solemn ordinance of baptism, the vows of Christ,
and hold themselves as the purchased property
of the Redeemer, to live by his laws and to labor
for his glory. Spiritual, independent, self-denying,
aggressive, uncompromising churches, filled with
unfaltering zeal for the laws of Christ and a pas-
sion for the salvation of souls, is God's chosen
agency for the world's renovation. To realize such
churches has ever been the aim of the Baptists ; it
is due to ourselves that we should make this honor-
able claim ; its justice, the history of our struggles
and sufferings will abundantly demonstrate. Like
the fathers that have gone before us, we are willing
to wait the verdict of time. Some of our great

ITS ABUSES. 107

principles have already risen to general acknowl-
edgment. Others are coming into the ascendant.
We have only to stand fast and be faithful. Our
views of the Lord's Supper are now being severe-
ly tried. Against these, the Pedobaptists would
seem to have joined the forces once bent in vain
against other of our peculiarities that have now
triumphed. If true and firm in this hour of
trial, our victory will be complete, and the world
will finally have occasion to bless us as the ser-
vants of Christ, who held the truth and order
of the gospel for the world's highest good.

17. With what show of justice are we censured
for not admitting to the Lord's Supper unbap-
tized persons, when it has been an admitted rule
of all Christians, in all ages, that baptism must
precede the privileges of the Supper '{ Dr. Wall
tells us, "No church ever gave communion to
any persons before they were baptized." Bishop
White refused to administer the elements to an
evangelical Quaker. " Indeed, all ordinances be-
long, not to the invisible church, as such, but are
committed to the visible churches of Christ."
The attempted censure, then, really amounts to
this — that we are unwilling to call sprinkling and
pouring baptism, even when administered to un-
conscious babes. If this be censurable, we will
bear the censure.

108 TIIE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

18. Another misconception deserves notice.
It is said, that, since our Pedobaptist brethren,
really believe that they have been baptized, they
are therefore to be treated as though they had
been. This is making the belief of men the rule
of life, instead of the law of God : and it is
making the belief of each man the rule by which
all other men should be governed. We need
only mention this plea to discover its impracti-
cability and absurdity. The Quaker believes he
has been truly baptized. The Catholic believes
he is one of God's elect. The Universalist be-
lieves that he has been redeemed by Christ,
Paul, while persecuting the church, believed that
he was doing God's service.

19. Let every man be fully persuaded in his
own mind. Let every man walk by his own
faith, and not by the faith of another. And let
every church walk by its own faith, accountable
to Christ only. Liberty of conscience is a
golden, priceless principle. It is tyranny and
wickedness in • individuals, in churches, and in
States, to impose upon men religious rules which
their consciences repudiate, and which the law
of God does not inculcate. In regard to church
membership and the Supper Institution, we hold,
in short, that the persons who have been merely
sprinkled in infancy are unbaptized, because the

ITS ABUSES. 109

act of baptism is immersion, and the act is
meant to be a profession of repentance, and faith
in Christ. As the person sprinkled in infancy
has neither been immersed, nor made, even
through the reception of the sprinkled water,
any profession whatever of discipleship, he is
wholly unbaptized. And being wholly unbap-
tized he is unqualified to enter a church, and
therefore unqualified to share the privileges of
a church, and to participate in the Lord's Sup-
per, which is a Church Institution.

20. We have treated, perhaps, at sufficient
length, of the abuses of the Supper Institution.
"We have been obliged to speak at some length,
of the structure, powers, and rights of churches.
More might have been said upon this important
subject, but we have presented only what seemed
necessary to defend the character and position of
the Lord's Supper. It seemed necessary to pre-
sent all that we have said to meet the subtle, yet
shallow and false pleas of modern communionism,
which we regard as a very serious perversion and
abuse of the Supper Institution. In conclusion
we simply say, for the honor of Christ, for the
parity of churches, for the conservation of evan-
gelical truth, and for the culture of spiritual re-
ligion and eminent, efficient piety, in the members
of every church, let the Supper Institution be
10

110

THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

understood as Christ has explained it, and be
kept in the churches in the manner and for the
purposes mentioned in the New Testamemt.
And while we carefully, zealously maintain it in
its visible form and outward position, let us not
forget its high and holy spiritual character and
sanctifying design.

CHAPTER VI.

BENEFITS OP THE INSTITUTION.

1. We come now to contemplate the special
benefits resulting to us and to the world from the
proper observance of the Lord's Supper. And
we hope this may be found the most interesting
and profitable division of our subject. Certainly,
the subject is calculated to bring us nigh to
Christ, and to refresh our hearts by personal
communion with him.

2. It may be regarded as a great general fact,
or principle — and it is one of the first consequence
to us — that every precept and every appointment
of Christ is calculated to draw us near to him,
and to bind our souls in closer fellowship with
him. And while they directly secure these holy,
sanctifying ends, they tend indirectly to the
world's enlightenment and salvation. For, by
our fellowship and vital connection with Christ,
he is brought into the world and revealed to men.
Christ is glorified in us, and is set forth among

(111)

112 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

men, when we imbibe his spirit, his feelings, his
purposes, his great love for the perishing.
Whatever then brings us close to Christ, brings,
by necessity, the greatest spiritual blessings to
us, and the greatest mercies to all around us.
The requirements of Christ, we may say, are the
ordained channels through which salvation and
all great spiritual blessings come down to the
children of men.

3. As a channel for conveying to our souls,
truth and grace, light and love, the Lord's Supper
stands unrivalled and complete. It is simple in
its structure but full of tender, touching, lofty, and
subduing truths. It is a memorial of the greatest
event that ever transpired on earth — the crucifix-
ion of the Son of God. It is confirmatory of the
most precious fact which relates to man — that
Christ dwells in his saints in every age, and works
with them as instruments for the evangelization
of the world. It is prophetic of the most solemn
and august event lying in the future — the second
coming of Christ to judge the world, to pronounce
eternal doom upon the wicked, and to take his
adopted children to dwell with him forever in the
heavenly country. In short, the Supper speaks
of Christ, for sinners slain ; of Christ, the bread
of heaven ; of Christ, the believer's life ; of Christ,
the coming Judge of all the earth. Many and

ITS BENEFITS. 113

precious, then, must be the benefits resulting from
a correct understanding, and a legitimate use, of
the holy Institution.

4. The Saviour appointed the Supper Institu-
tion as a direct means of retaining and cultivating
the divine life implanted in the soul by the Holy
Spirit. In consideration of the laws of our nature,
we hardly exaggerate when we. say, the Supper
is indispensable as a means of preserving spiritual
religion in the churches, and therefore in the
world : for it will be found to be true, as a gen-
eral thing, that the gospel has flourished in its
purity, and achieved its highest spiritual results,
brought forth its most excellent fruits, where
correct views of this Institution have most freely
obtained, where men have observed it as a means
of spiritual intercourse with Christ. It would
seem that bare doctrines and narrations — mere
verbal representations of the scheme of redemp-
tion— were insufficient for a race of sinners, so
far fallen under the dominion of sense as to
need a gospel that should appeal, in some part
at least, to their senses, and reach their souls
through the avenues of the body. So the Lord
in all ages has employed, more or less, sensible
objects as symbols and agents to convey to the
minds of men spiritual objects and spiritual bless-
ings. Thus the laws and promises of God were,
10*

114 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

by sacrifices, by sabbath solemnities, by the Pass-
over, by the multiplied visible interpositions of
God, and the manifold outward rites ordained of
old, printed upon the minds of patriarchs and
the children of Israel, as no bare verbal commu-
nications could ever have impressed them. And
under the gospel dispensation, multitudes have
been struck with deep and lasting convic-
tions from barely witnessing the ordinance of
baptism ; and thousands have felt their hearts
burn with holy fire, as if it had been caught from
heaven, while contemplating and receiviug the
emblems used in the Lord's Supper. Here we
may again recall the great educational law — one
as true in regard to religion as in reference to
ordinary education — a law too often overlooked,
if indeed generally known — that truth first
reaches the mind through the medium of the
senses. In short, all education begins with the
senses, and, at all stages, is much aided by the
senses, in the use of diagrams, pictures, outlines,
and visible representations. So, the material
creation is the vehicle for the immaterial, the
physical, for the spiritual. So then, the Supper
Institution, with its ■ emblems, is a needed and
effective means of grace, a medium or channel
through which truth and spiritual blessings are

ITS BENEFITS. 115

communicated to the souls of all proper parti-
cipants.

5. The Supper Institution may also be com-
pared to a framework, which visibly holds before
us the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, those
which, being kept distinctly and freshly in our
minds, preserve the scheme of redemption in its
integrity and its power. Christianity is, indeed,
a new and divine life in the souls of men ; but
this life is fed by truth, and unfolded by the
Spirit of God dwelling within and appplying or
appropriating divine truth. And the Supper
continually holds before our eyes the truths most
needed. As the electric current must have its
transmitting wires, so the divine life from Christ,
the source, must have its proper and adapted
framework through which to reach our sense-
encompassed souls. A commentator- has truly
said : " The gospel is a Divine act, which con-
tinues to operate through all ages of the world,
and that not in the first place outwardly, but in-
wardly, in the depths of the soul, and for eternal
purposes." But the Divine act is operative
through the word of God and through the duties
required of men, that is, through the doctrines
and rites of the gospel, and not apart from
these : it is effective inwardly through the chan-
nel of things outward. The union of doctrines

116 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

and external rites is for the sake of the divinely
implanted life within ; they are like the body in
which the life dwells, and through which it ex-
hibits itself, in part to the world. It is import-
ant that the body be perfect and healthy. There
may be life in a deformed body ; even some limbs
may be amputated without the loss of life ; but
in all cases the life is impaired and denied
perfect action ; and with the loss of some parts
of the body follows life itself. The Reformation
under Luther was incomplete, and, in main,
lapsed back, in the land of its origin, into a dead
ecclesiasticism, because the reformer did not re-
store Baptism and the Supper Institution to their
original order and purity ; so there was no sound
body to sustain the inner life. Pedobaptism and
communionism are manifest obstacles to the cul-
ture of spiritual religion ; they belong rather to
a system of ecclesiasticism, and a religion of out-
ward forms and friendships ; they belong not
properly to the Spirit of Christ, as they have no
authority from his word. It is true, we find genu-
ine piety co-existing with the practice of sprink-
ling infants for baptism, and the appropriation
of the Lord's Supper to the purposes of Chris-
tian friendship and fellowship; but this only
shows the abounding goodness of our God, since
even our errors and malpractices cannot utterly

ITS BENEFITS. 117

defeat the operations of his grace. And, with
how great ecclesiastical idiosyncracies and con-
scientious errors and inconsistences true piety-
may co-exist, no man is able to say. But this
does not justify known errors.

6. The Supper Institution, by inviting and
urging, in the most simple, easy, and persuasive
manner, the participant to contemplate Christ in
his person, in his life on earth, and his sufferings,
brings to the soul the highest possible blessings.
There is nothing that so vitalizes, animates, cheers
and strengthens the Christian soul, and so sub-
serves the Christian life, warming and unfolding
it to holy proportions and aims, as clear views of
the Redeemer. In a deep, spiritual sense, Christ
is the bread of heaven by which the redeemed
soul is nourished and developed. Except we,
by faith, eat his flesh and drink his blood, there
is no life in us. The Supper presents to our
minds his flesh and his blood. True it is, per-
sons receive from his hands eternal life, and some
are enabled to live in some measure above the
world, who have never put him on by baptism,
and have never partaken of the Supper ; indeed
every soul must be born again before accepting
of baptism, whereby they enter a visible Church,
and so, come to the Supper ; but the life within,
given from above, is best nurtured in the church

118 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

of Christ, and by the means appointed for its
invigoration and development. Believers that
remain outside of the house of God are always
weak and sickly; like sheep outside the fold,
they are full of fears, being exposed to the
attacks of the beasts of prey. The redeemed
soul should keep near to Christ, should follow
him, walking in his foot-prints, and ever holding
spiritual converse with him. And did not the
Redeemer say, " If ye keep my commandments
ye shall abide in my love." The path of obe-
dience is strewn with blessings. The command-
ment to keep the Supper in remembrance of him
is a means of abiding in his love.

7. Now, what is the greatest blessing that a
Christian can enjoy ? Is it not intimate, intelli-
gent, constant communion with Christ ? And
what is the highest blessing that a church can
enjoy? Is it not to have Christ dwelling in its
midst ? What is the greatest conceivable benefit
that could come to the churches throughout the
world ? Would it not be to have him who
holdeth the seven stars hi his right hand, ever
walking among the golden candlesticks ? Chris-
tianity becomes a dead religion, it sinks into
formalism and ecclesiasticism when the presence
of Christ is withdrawn. The Supper was or-
dained as a means of maintaining his divine

ITS BENEFITS. 119

presence among his followers, since thereby spe-
cially we have fellowship and communion with
him. This is what is now and always needed ;
needed above all things ; needed by every Chris-
tian ; needed by every church ; needed over all
Christendom. We all need personal intercourse
with the adorable Redeemer. Were we habitu-
ally to contemplate his wonderful person, uniting
the divine and the human ; to ponder his lowly,
benevolent, self-denying, holy life ; to study his
heavenly teachings ; to trace his foot-prints
through all his redeeming mission ; to gaze often
upon his perfect character and example ; to sur-
vey continually his struggles and his sufferings
in our behalf; to follow him to the temple, to
the garden, to Bethany, to Genesareth, to Olivet,
to Jerusalem, to Gethsemane, and to Calvary;
could we so far catch his spirit and imbibe his ex-
ample as to reproduce, in any good measure, his
influence — then would the golden age of Chris-
tianity be brought in ; then would the apostolic
days and deeds be again realized ; then would
the kingdom of God come, and both angels and
men might sing again, " Peace on earth, and good-
will to men." The proper observance of the
Supper is calculated to thus bring Christ into
the churches, and to hold him there as the object
of habitual contemplation, and thus to secure

120 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

readily and permanently the benefits and bless-
ings to which we have alluded.

8. Whatever tends to transfer or transmit
Christ's life, his thoughts, his feelings, his pur-
poses, his love, his grace, his compassion for sin-
ners, and his zeal for the Father's glory, to his
professed people, must result in benefits innumer-
able and blessings unspeakable. The Supper
Institution, when properly understood, when kept
in its proper place, and in its proper manner,
uncorrupted with Romish superstitions and un-
perverted by Protestant communionism ; when
kept simply and sincerely by each church in re-
membrance of Christ — tends directly and power-
fully, by a law of our nature, husbanded through
the divine appointment, to transfer Christ's char-
acter by transmitting his life to his people.

9. We long for the bright and blessed day to
come, when all believers shall come to that po-
sition in belief and practice, which will enable
them to see the Institution standing on the high
and holy ground where the Saviour placed it —
to see it radiant with rays of truth from the
throne of Christ, and full of gracious memories
and intimations like a divine, historic, and pro-
phetic oracle. If we will make all things ready
for the great benefit — all things in our hearts, in
our lives, in our churches — and will stand with

ITS BENEFITS. 121

our loins girt about with truth, and the sandals
of a ready obedience upon our feet, truly, pray-
ing " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" —
then we may expect that Christ will walk among
the churches, and reveal his glories and his re-
deeming power. But he will bring with him
Calvary and the Cross, since these we need
in order to honor him duly, and to be properly
qualified to preach the gospel to the perishing.
By means of His Supper Institution he has set
Calvary and the Cross in each of his churches.
A blessed appointment, abounding alike in wis-
dom and mercy.

10. In confirmation of our views, we might
appeal to the experiences of multitudes. Nor is
the argument from experience an unimportant
one. It is natural to infer, that right views and
practices will find an approval from within, since
the Lawgiver in Zion is the author of our natures,
the ever-present Lord of our consciences, and
has adjusted his requisitions to our natures and
necessities. He has ordained churches to pro-
mote the nurture and development of the higher
life in his children, and to secure the propaga-
tion of the gospel among men. Where churches
have been planted after his laws, these results have
been happily realized ; thus experience attests to
the character of churches rightly constructed.
11

122 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

Again, it is said of baptism, that it is the answer
of a good conscience toward God ; that is, when
a believer accepts this ordinance in the right man-
ner, with the spirit, he experiences the approval
of God and receives a peculiar blessing. And, .
in this connection, it is worthy of mention, that,
while multitudes have been dissatisfied with
sprinkling for baptism, no one was ever dissatis-
fied with immersion, when administered properly
on profession of repentance and faith. True obe-
dience to the behests of Christ is always fol-
lowed by conscious blessing. So, of the Lord's
Supper ; when it has been properly observed —
observed within the limits, in the manner, and
for the purposes specified by the Lord — peculiar
blessings have been realized. Evangelical churches
have had an experience not found in the Catholic
Church, nor in formal ecclesiastical establish-
ments. And churches that hold the Supper as
an Institution belonging to them as churches of
the Lord, and keep it strictly in remembrance of
Christ, realize richer and sweeter spiritual bene-
fits than such as cumber and confuse the Institu-
tion with their own communionism. We appeal
confidently to the experience of thousands who
have observed the Supper as he has commanded,
in remembrance of Christ. Has not your faith
been increased, your love been kindled, your zeal

ITS BENEFITS. 12,

been inflamed ? Have you not had new views of
the condescension, the compassion, the abound-
ing grace of the Son of God ? Have you not
had new discoveries of the nature and desert of
sin ? Have you not had more abasing views of
yourselves, while at the same time, the person
and the work of the Redeemer shone more lumin-
ously before your penitent yet rejoicing souls ?
Yes, how often, as if utterly forgetting all around
us, as if transported to Calvary, as if in presence
of the Cross ; and as if in sight, too, of the me-
diatorial throne, our hearts have been dissolved
in penitence, in love, in wonder, and in praise.
And as we have gazed on the Cross, all melted
and enraptured with the view — no longer won-
dering that all nature sympathized in that scene
when the Son of God, on whom rested the des-
tiny of our race, poured out his life — have we
not seemed to hear the stirring appeal to our
obedience coming from the lips of the dying
Saviour —

" This I did for thee—
"What hast thou done for me?"

What pen can delineate the benefits, the blessings,
that flow to us through a proper spiritual ob-
servance of the Supper Institution ! " The cup of
blessing which we bless, is it not the communion

124 THE SUrPER INSTITUTION.

of the blood of Christ ? The bread which we
break, is it not the communion of the body of
Christ ?"

11. No well-informed Christian can afford to
neglect the observance of this holy, symbolical,
heart-quickening Institution. It is a divinely
appointed means for communing with the Author
and Finisher of our salvation. It is a chosen re-
membrance of Jesus as he once was, and a sacred
pledge of his reappearance with glory. Let,
then, the sacred Institution stand in its simplicity,
and moral sublimity, in the centre of every church ;
and let every enrolled follower of Jesus approach
it worthily, discerning the Lord's body. And as
the face of Moses shone with heavenly lustre as
he came down from the mount where he com-
muned with God, and as a celestial brightness
encompassed those that were with Jesus on the
Mount of Transfiguration, so may a radiance
divine, through the Spirit's power, be caught
from Jesus in this holy Institution, so that our
hearts may burn within us, and our faces shine
with moral beauty, and our lives be radiant with
the spirit and power of Christ.

12. We can hardly pause in speaking upon
this important subject. Like the disciples on
the Mount of Transfiguration, we are ready to
make tabernacles and dwell here. Nothing is

ITS BENEFITS. 125

more delightful than to be in the presence of
Christ, when he is revealing his glories. Still,
we must turn away, and go down again into the
field of toil. But let us carry with us a new
spirit, and new hopes, and a stronger faith. When
our work is done, we shall be taken to the mount
above ; and be ourselves not barely transfigured,
but transformed into the likeness of Him whom
we now adore and serve. There we shall enjoy
the everlasting Passover. Our preseDt contem-
plations may close with a few practical reflections,
calculated to direct us in the path of duty and
of service till our brief period of stewardship shall
be ended.

13. We now proceed to offer a few closing re-
marks.

The statute book for Christians and Christian
churches, is the New Testament. The Old
Testament is invaluable, containing as it does,
the history of the divine dispensation, prior to
the coming of Messiah, together with prophecies,
biographical sketches, sacred psalms, and all the
rites and statutes which God ordained from time
to time. They will never lose their charm, and
their power to instruct us ; but they do not con-
stitute the statute book of the new dispensation.
The new Will and Testament of the Redeemer, is
our specific guide ; by this, all things are made
11*

126 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

new : this we accept in its letter and its spirit,
and by it we are thoroughly furnished in faith
and forms for Christian life, and church building.
We have no law which cannot be found here.
And in vain may popes, or priests, or councils,
or synods, or conferences, or associations, ask us
to add to, or take from this complete and divine
standard. We are unmoved by arguments from
human authority. We yield not to the traditions
of pious fathers, nor to the long-continued cus-
toms of great ecclesiastical bodies. Our single
and constant appeal is to " the law and to the
testimony."

If in our understanding of the Supper Institu-
tion, we are at present in the minority among
professed Christians, let not this consideration
of itself have any weight upon our views and
practices. We once stood alone in our views
of "soul liberty." We once stood alone in our
practice of church independency. Nor is the
kingdom of God dependent upon views and de-
cisions of majorities, but upon the truth held
consistently, perseveringly, and in love. Let us
be anxious only to have the mind of Christ. It
is sufficient evidence of the weakness and unsound-
ness of the positions of those who object to our
views, that they endeavor to support them by
arguments drawn from human sympathies, eccle-

ITS BENEFITS. 127

siastical usages, and the doctrines of expediency,
and not from the lips of the Saviour. If our
principles can be shown to be antagonistic to the
letter and spirit of the New Testament, we are
ready at once to renounce them. The question
with us is one of loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us never be afraid to preach and publish
our views. Truth cannot suffer by being exposed
to scrutiny and criticism : gold will endure the
fire ; and let the dross be burned up. Doubtless
we are in fault that we do not preach and write
more upon the Supper Institution, that those who
differ from us may be less excusable for misrepre-
senting our principles and practice. We are
confident that our opponents, when made fully
acquainted with our views, could not fail to see
that they are consistent in themselves and have
the clear support of the New Testament.

But whatever may be the conclusions and
practices of others, let us adhere to the divine
standard, and always keep the Supper Institution,
both in form and spirit, exactly as our Lord left
it to us. If others feel that they must employ
the sacred Institution as a test of brotherly affec-
tion, using the consecrated emblems as tokens of
their regard for each other ; let us not be swerved
by their practice, but hold the Institution in its
original rank, and for its original purposes, as

128 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

sacred to Christ alone. By it let us commune
with our Lord, and attempt no other communion.
Thus keeping it, no serious errors or difficulties
can arise ; but from every false view and unscrip-
tural appropriation of it, sooner or later, danger-
ous errors are sure to spring forth, as all the
pages of ecclesiastical history will testify. As
soon as we depart from the simple scriptural
ground we occupy, we open the doors of our
churches to every form of doctrine and practice
that may take on the name of Christian. If our
opponents were fully to carry out the views they
advocate, they would welcome to the Supper
Institution, Romanists, Unitarians, Campbellites,
not a few Universalists, and all who should claim
that they were Christians. Let us, then, still
continue to guard the churches of Christ against
corruptions, by guarding the door of the church,
and by guarding especially the Supper Institution,
against which special and vigorous attacks are
now being made.

Every church must announce the celebration
of the Supper, and employ such a form of invita-
tion to those present, as may seem best. Perhaps
it would be unwise to propose any form to be
universally adopted. Were I to devise a form to
be read by a church before observing the Institu-
tion, it would be something like the following :

ITS BENEFITS. 129

We understand the New Testament to teach :

First: That the Supper Institution belongs to
churches as such, and not to believers promiscu-
ously, or to churches collectively :

Second: That in the use of the symbols, in the
order appoiuted by Christ, we are to commune
by faith with Christ, and not with one another :

Therefore : While we protest against the use
of such phrases as " Christian fellowship," " close
communion, and " open communion," as used by
many in reference to this Institution ;

We invite, to sit with us in observing the
Supper, all members in good standing of churches
coinciding with us in views and practice, who are
providentially with us ; and such we invite, not
to commune with us, but to join with us while
we endeavor to obey Christ in remembering and
communing with Him.

Finally, what we all most need as Christians,
and as churches is :

First: The disposition, the mind, the spirit
of the Lord Jesus Christ ; since this alone will
open the mind and heart to the reception of truth,
and incline our feet forward in the paths of obe-
dience :

Second: A determination to study thoroughly,
and follow faithfully, the precepts and examples

130 THE SUPPER INSTITUTION.

of the New Testament, in whatever direction, and
to whatever sacrifices they may lead us :

Third : Patience to wait for the progress and
triumphs of the Kingdom of Christ among men,
a willingness to do and suffer without rewards
here, hoping, through the sure promises of our
Lord, for bliss and glory eternal in the Kingdom
of God above.

And now, if any are unable to see the things
of which we have spoken, as we see them, and
hence feel called to differ with us, we may say to
them in the language of Hezekiah's prayer for
the "many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar
and Zebulon :" "The good Lord pardon every
one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the
Lord God of his fathers, though he be not
cleansed according to the purification of the
sanctuary."

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