It is not in the use so much as in the believing use of means of grace that Christian people are wanting. And yet how great and encouraging are the promises to them that believe! "All things are possible to him that believeth." What more could be said or promised by way of encouragement to believe, and of the momentous results of lively faith than is said and pledged in these words: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life"? Can we not well understand why "believing" should be so insisted on in the reception of the Lord's Supper? For of what is that Holy Sacrament the standing, enduring memorial? Is it not of a Saviour's love, and of a love He would have us know and feel and trust? And He is to us there as if He were on earth; in no carnal, corporeal, or superstitious sense, but only after a heavenly manner, spiritually present. In that Holy Sacrament the object of faith is Christ. It is, let us say it with all reverence, the form in which He offers Himself to us, not present locally, and in a place, but as the occasion when He suffers us to draw nigh, as penitents drew nigh to Him in the days of His flesh. He says to us, as it were, "reach hither thy finger." And yet it is not the sensible touch of the hand, for thus we cannot touch Him, it is the unfelt touch of faith. It was not the hand which drew forth the healing virtue that went out of Him, but faith, of which the hand was but the instrument. It was not the garment which had power to stanch the twelve years' issue, but He Who wore the garment. So we touch still; and so virtue streams forth still from the now glorified Saviour, stanching the wounds sin has made, and healing all our infirmities. You evidence your faith most truly just as you most feel your sinfulness and trust His gracious word. "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance !" Again, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Imagine, for a moment, that Jesus were once more in our midst as He was of old! Picture to your mind's eye the loving Son of man, Whose very mien and countenance must have attracted the spell-bound multitude! Ah! who amongst you, with even the measure of faith you now have in Him, investing His very name with a halo of sentiment, and even now drawn to Him by feelings you can ill define, would not be of the very first to press into His presence, to ask of Him that He would forgive you; to pray of Him to put forth His hand to heal, or speak the word of power to raise ? How many a timid, fearful Christian would say now; as of old, "If I may but touch His clothes I shall be whole." Say this now. Many of must be sick at heart through thought of sin. you must know the burden of sin unforgiven. you are afraid to die because your sins are not forgiven you. Many of you know the heart-ache where God's peace is not. What more can we say to than "only believe?" Faint, feeble, weak, imperfect as your faith is, still draw nigh. "He will not bruise the broken reed, nor quench the smoking flax." It is not difficult to believe He loves a saint, the trial of faith is that He loves you you Many of Many of you the repentant sinner. Amidst doubts, misgivings, fears, self-chidings, bring your sin-sick soul into His unseen Presence; not doubting His word; not doubting His willingness; not doubting His power to save. Plead His promises. Say, "Lord I believe, help Thou mine unbelief." Take with you words. Take with you, as kneel in His Presence, some promise of His own. Ask the Holy Spirit to enable you more fully, more confidingly to believe, and then you need not fear that you are approaching unworthily. You will feel you are only doing as He bids you do, and that peace which passeth all understanding will be your own, as you are given of the Holy Ghost yet deeper realisation of the truth of this comfortable word :-"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face Here faith can touch and handle things unseen- "Here would I feed upon the bread of God, Here drink with Thee the royal wine of heaven; "Mine is the sin, but Thine the righteousness; Thy blood, Thy righteousness, O Lord, my God. "Too soon we rise: the symbols disappear; The feast, though rich the love, is passed and gone; The bread and wine remove, but Thou art hereNearer than ever-still my shield and sun. "Feast after feast thus comes and passes by, Yet passing, points to the glad feast above, Giving sweet foretastes of the festal joy, The Lamb's great bridal feast of bliss and love." IV. THANKSGIVING. This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. i. 15). The third of the "COMFORTABLE WORDS." (Prayer Book Version.) IN my two former Addresses, delivered to Communicants at the early celebration during a "Mission," I have, with the consecutive teaching of a Mission, enlarged upon the two first conditions of worthy Communion in their evangelical order, viz.: Repentance and Faith. I have endeavoured to explain the nature of that "godly sorrow" for sin which is a "repentance not repented of," and of that Faith which is necessarily preceded by Repentance. I have endeavoured to show that we cannot believe savingly until we have repented truly, and that where Repentance is true, i.e., arising from true, spirit-taught views of sin, there follows that Faith by which we savingly appropriate a salvation discovered to the soul given to see its need of a Saviour, and by which we are enabled and emboldened to say, "My Lord and my God." Humbling conviction of sin, producing a humbling conviction of personal demerit, is, therefore, the first condition of worthy communion. A sense of unworthiness of the Saviour's love, is the very feeling |