TO PROTESTANT MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17531, 24 January 1919, Page 7

TO PROTESTANT MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

[Published by Arrangement.]

4f . Sermon preached by Eev. Wμ. Beatty, M.A., T.C.D., Vicar of St Mark's, Remoera. "And as they -were eating Jests took the bread, and bleesod and brake, and gave it to the diaciplee, and said, Take, eat; this is My body. , "—St. Matthew xxvi, 26. Last Sunday wo found that there was a close and inevitable connection between man's conception of the nature, meaning, an<A purpose of the Lord's Supper, and their views of tho GospeL We saw that the cleariy defined position of the Church of England is that the Bible is the .purest and fullest source of knowledge as to Christian faith %nd practice, the final authority on all for salvation We are, . therefoki, to learn the natare of this Sacrament from the Bible, and not from the notions and traditions and inventions of men. And snrely it is plain that we can best gain this knowledge from a thoughtful and reverent consideration of tho Sacrament by our Lord Himself, as recorded by three Evangelists and by St. PauL Now, tho first thing that strikes us is that the time when the lord's Supper as first instituted and administered was st the Jewish passover. The passover was an ordinance appointed by God Himself; it was a memorial commemoration and reminder of the deliverance of the Jewish , people from Egypt. It rested on and pointed to an act of redemption and salvation whioh had been at a. definite time accomplished and completed once for all; which could not be repeated, and did not need to be repeated. But it also bore witness to the Irving eternal God as the ever-present Lord . and -Saviour of His people, in whom they could trust, on whom they could call from one generation .to another, at all times, and under all circttm stances. Even the Jewish rite, then, was very much more than a bare remembrance of an event long past. 'And this commemo- , ration was a feast, originally of unleavened bread and the flesh of a lamb, to which m later tones a cup of wine had been added. The Jew was thus reminded that tho commonest blessings of dally life had been scoured to him end to his nation by a great act of deliverance, and, at the same time were the gracious shifts of the living and ever-present Lord. Again, the feast was a family celebration, joined in by each household, even though the place where it "was to be kept was Jerusalenx—the seat of God's temple, the centre of the national life. Now, surely it is of the gi«atest significance that onr Lord instituted His Sacrament st the timo when Hβ and His disciples, as one family, were partaking of the passover meal Surely He intended thus to indicate that His Supper was to be under the New Covenant what the paesoveT was voder the Old; that all the meaning and worth of the national rite was to bo preserved, expanded, elevated, glorified ia the universal rite; that the Lord's Supper fulfilled the witnese and the promise of- the passover, while the passover helped to interpret the meaning and purpose of the Lord's Supper Therefore, in our Easter Communion Service we are taught by the Church to give thanks to God for the glorious resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the very (the true, real) Paschal Lamb, which, w&s offered for us, and hath taken away the sin of the world. Now, the passover, as I have said, was a family celebration of a national deliverance. When possible, the feast was to be kept at Jerusalem, but the directions given aa to the mode of keeping it associated it most closely with the domestic and daily life of the people. And, manifestly, our Lord's intention regarding His Sacrament was the same. As they were eating, He took bread,, and blessed, and brake, and gave to the disciples. This solemn' institution took place at an ordinary table, hi an ordinary room of an ordinary house. The Master of the feast wore Hi? ordinary clothes, and used as elements ordinary bread and ordinary wine. Now, I suppose that no professing Christian would have the hardihood to deny that the first celebration of the Holy Communion, with our Lord Himself se celebrant, was what is called in the technical language of Ecclesiastics "rejgtdar and valid." And yet, with the exception of tho elements and the arts and words of breaking and blessing, all those accessories ■were wanting which tradition has insisted on as necessary to ensure a right and due administration of this Holy ordinance. There was no altar, there was no presentation of a sacrifice, there wee no priestly vestments, there was no incense, there were no ceremonial lights, there were no scrupulous washings of plates and cups, there were no genuflections and prostrations. The disoiples had not confessed and been absolvedj they -were not fasting;. they •wore actually eating; tie hour WiS not early morning or even forenoon, but evening. Now, the departure froni scriptural and apostolic simplicity as to this Sacrament has been the origin of innumerable evils. The divorce of the Lord's Supper from dairy life, and even from ordinary Christian worship, has turned the Christian ministry from an order existing for the moral and spiritual welfare of each family and nation and of all mankind into an exclusive caste, clothed with miraculous powers -which its members exercise at w i • i.™ t. "world, and in another, and which they use for the aggrandisement of the Church, for' the enslaving of men's reason and conscience, for the acquisition of wealth and political influence. There is always danger from clerical dogmatism and assumption. But the danger is increased a thousandfold when the clergy claim to work a stupendous miracle every time they consecrate the elements, to offer at the altar a sacrifice for the sins of .the living and the to bestow spiritual grace by mechanical functions, ,to release men from the punishment of their evil doing. Those who allow theso frightful claims must fear J" 6 clergy, whom they see more than the Uod whom they cannot see; must have greater awe of tho man who can by hia word bring Christ down from His throne in heaven and enclose Him in a piece of bread, than of Christ Himself; must tremble more at the word of the man who bestows the Holy Spirit that at the inspired Word of God or the divine admonitions of the. conscience. Again, this false isolation, and exaltation, of the Holy Communion saps men's reverence for other Christian worship, both publio and private. Other means of grace are slighted, that this one may Etand out in eolitary eminenoe. The Order for Moraine Prayor, with its, due elements of thanksgiving, praise, prayer, and instruction ; with its psalms, its lessons; its canticles, its intercessions, is often gabbled over hastily, unintelligibly, undevoutly, in singular contrast to the elaborate and ostentatious ceremony with which the Communion service is performed. And people ore often taught or encouraged to think that, provided they receive (or oven attend) the Comm-nmon at any early hour on Sunoay, thej- are under no obligation to bo prosenl at other services, and are free to spend the rest of the day as they pleaso. Again, the tmdu«n and disproportionate prominence given to thie Sacrament tends to set up a false and unwholesome distinction between those who partake of ifc and thoso who do not Commdnieante' guilds are established, which constitute a Church ■within a Church. Members of such voluntary and unauthorised associations aro led to suppose that they stand in a closer and more sacred relation to each other than to their fellow-Christians and neighbours Religious teachers speak of what they oall *£? "Communicant Me" as if h were something different from and superior to the godly and Christian life to which an are c £}ed> Jjd after which all are bound to strive, rhe witness of Baptism to our abiding union with Christ, to our continual obligation to be His soldiers and- servants is practically denied or ignored. Confirmation is set before candidates less as beinna solemn eclcnowledgment of their respons?bihty to believe the truth and to do the lE* 'J* lt 2. her ?£ y , they may receive the strength of the Holy Spirit and an in. them, flea as being a formal qualification for becoming Communicants. All thi<= is entirely foreign to the nature, meaning end purposes of a rrto instituted at the pass! ° V -?u % J "»* *» deliberately associated with the domestic and national life of those who partook of it Now,, this view of the Sacrament, as connected with our ordinary hfo and worshiD, does not lower its divine worth and' dignity, does not lessen its awe and solemnity; it enhances the wonder and worth of this Holy rite. For it recognises jn this divinely simple ordinance, the most powerful and convincing witness to tho hallowing and glorifying of our earthly Hf e , which was accomplished and proclaimed by tho incarnation, lifn. death, and ascension of the Son of God. Because the bread and wine testify of a completed redomption, they forbid us to count anv man that God has made, any task that God has appointed, any gift that God lias bestowed, eommin or unclean. And so tho Communion,-unlike tho Loatnon mysteries