Part 11

My dear brethren, there is One far nobler who died for you and me. With a disinterestedness unparalleled in the annals of war, he took our place in a fiercer conflict than was ever waged for freedom or for empire. Fighting our battle, he fell; but falling, conquered all our foes. Triumphant he rose from the dead, and ascended on high, leading our captivity captive. At the right hand of the throne of God, in our nature redeemed and glorified, "he ever liveth to make intercession for us." All that we have or hope of good we owe to his dying love. But in an upper chamber at Jerusalem, with a few chosen witnesses present, just before he went forth to the final engagement, he instituted for us a perpetual memorial of his unexampled charity. Taking bread, he blessed, and brake, and gave to his disciples, saying: "Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me." Then, taking the cup, he gave to them, saying: "Drink ye all of this; for this is my blood of the new covenant, shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins; do this in remembrance of me." This finished, he chanted part of the Great Hallel with the beloved twelve, as if the victory were already won; then gave them his valedictory address, and went out to die. And some twenty-four years later, the great Apostle Paul, in a letter to the Christians of Corinth, having narrated the facts just as they are recorded by the evangelists, adds these solemn words for the benefit of his brethren in all subsequent ages: "As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come."

Here, then, is the precious Calvary token bequeathed by the dear Saviour to his redeemed Church. While we contemplate it, hear we not a voice from the excellent glory bidding us take off the shoes from our feet? Approaching the altar to gaze upon the great sacrificial memorial, the ground we tread is holier than that on which Moses stood before the bush that burned in Horeb. There is more of God seen here than in all the fires of Sinai. There he made known his law; here he reveals his love. There we read his will; here we behold his heart. No other ordinance, even of the new and everlasting covenant, contains so much of majesty, so much of mystery, so much of sanctity, and at the same time so much of mercy, as the eucharistic feast; in which the Messiah stands forth to our faith at once the sacrifice and the sacrificer, in the same sacred solemnity instituting an everlasting memorial and a perpetual priesthood.

To us, more than eighteen centuries after the fact, if we have any right feeling and clear perception, the solemn transaction in the upper room,

"On that sad memorable night,"

must wear an aspect far more interesting than it wore at the moment even to the apostles themselves. For we are able to view the matter more deliberately and more dispassionately than they could, and with many additional side-lights to aid our apprehension of the divine truths involved. Certainly no act of the Saviour has laid his Church under greater obligation, none has exhibited in more attractive colors the relations he sustains to his redeemed people. Taking the bread and the cup, does he not remind us of his having taken our flesh and blood? Presenting them with solemn benediction to the Father, does he not intimate to us the offering of his humanity to Heaven as a sacrifice for our sins? Giving them to his disciples with the command to eat and drink, does he not assure us that he is ours with all the infinite benefits of his incarnation and atonement forever? Ordering the apostles and their apostolical successors as his priests to do what they have just seen him do as their Lord, does he not furnish us a perpetual commemoration of his redeeming love, and a perpetual demonstration of his quickening power, till his return in glorious majesty from heaven to rule the world he ransomed with his blood?

Under both the Hebrew and the heathen rituals, the meat-offering and the drink-offering were inseparable from every piacular sacrifice; and without the conjunctive offering of bread and wine, it is difficult to see how either Hebrew or heathen could have regarded the death of Christ as an expiation for sin. As the death of a martyr, indeed, they might well enough have taken it; but as a sacrifice for human transgression, how could they have received it, unaccompanied by the Holy Supper? Were the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ in the physical sense maintained by the Church of Rome, their perpetual presentation by personal intercession before the Father's throne would be superfluous and even impossible, while the voluntary death of our dear Lord upon the cross would be unnecessary and suicidal. Were they the body and blood of Christ in the merely emblematical sense maintained by the ultra-Protestant sects, they would constitute for us no sufficient assurance of his ever-living mediation in heaven, nor to God any effectual remembrancer of his suffering in the flesh for the expiation of our guilt. Therefore those denominations who deny the propitiatory character of his passion have little care or scruple about the due observance of this most sacred festival--

"Rich banquet of his flesh and blood."

"This do," said the divine Author of the institution, "in remembrance of me"--strictly, "for my memorial;" not merely remembering me--reminding yourselves and others of me; but memorializing God the Father--reminding him of the self-presentation of his well-beloved Son as an offering and a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor for our salvation. In doing this, we do not repeat the once offered and forever accepted propitiation for our guilt--a thing which, indeed, we cannot do, and which no word of Holy Scripture warrants us in attempting; but we present a spiritual memorial of that propitiation, setting forth in the sight of God the perfect work and infinite merit of our personal Redeemer; we present the consecrated bread and wine, and with them we present ourselves and the whole catholic Church, to him who delivered up his own Son for us all, and accepted that Son's unknown sorrows and sufferings as a sufficient satisfaction for all human sin. This is the essence of the eucharistic oblation, the anti-typical peace-offering, the great sacrifice of the faithful. How unworthy are we of so sublime a service! and how should we cleanse ourselves to appear with such a gift at the portals of the heavenly sanctuary!

In the presence of the chosen twelve presenting to the Father the meat-offering and drink-offering of the true Paschal Lamb, the appointed High-Priest of our profession solemnly attested to heaven and earth the sacrificial character of his ensuing sufferings, and pledged himself to the speedy accomplishment of the great sin-offering once for all. Enjoining upon his apostles the perpetual continuance of the same ministration by an unfailing succession of consecrated men, he provided the Church with a proof and the world with a token of the everlasting endurance and efficacy of that sacrifice, once offered, often commemorated, and eternally acceptable to God. Instituting a memorial for all subsequent ages of the completeness and perpetuity of his personal sacrifice, he instituted also the means of appropriating its benefits; and the Christian meat-offering and drink-offering being so intimately associated with the Christian sacrifice, the partaker in faith of the one is partaker in fact of the other, truly eating the flesh and drinking the blood of God's incarnate Son. Hear the Saviour's memorable words in the Capernaum synagogue: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you; whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day; for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed; he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him."

Hard sayings were these to some who heard them, and hard they still are to all self-blinded unbelievers; but, as St. Augustine says, they are hard only to the hardened, and incredible only to the incredulous. To us who believe, though mysterious, they are very precious. We apprehend their spiritual meaning, and rejoice in the privilege which they open to our faith. Eating and drinking at the Lord's table, we become partakers of his life, his holiness, and his immortality. Here we participate with the Eternal Father in his joy over the accomplished work of his Beloved Son, and with that Beloved Son himself in his joy over the redeemed Church--his treasure and his bride; while heaven and earth unite in the glad festival of faith--the hidden manna and the new wine of the kingdom. And if the living Christ be thus in you, dear brethren! what outward enemy is too strong for you--what duty too arduous--what ordeal too severe? Away with your doubts and fears, O ye faint-hearted disciples! Can you not trust him who, in the power of an endless life, has established his throne in your hearts? With Christ, all things are yours, and no agency of earth or hell can rob you of your regal inheritance!

Contingent upon the sacrifice of the cross, and from that sacrifice deriving all its meaning and its merit, the eucharistic sacrament itself becomes relatively sacrificial. As beforehand there was a continual sacrificial anticipation of Immanuel's atoning death, so after the event is there a continual sacramental commemoration of the accomplished purpose and prophecy. Both the Jewish passover which foreshadowed the future fact, and the Christian eucharist which to-day commemorates the fact historical, are sacrificial on the same principle and by the same rule--their relation to the cross of Calvary which gives them all their virtue and their value. The agony is over, and Christ dieth no more; the atonement once made without the walls of Jerusalem is still presented by our divine High-Priest before the mercy-seat within the vail. To all who believe, it is efficacious forever, needing no annual or even millennial repetition. But in the eucharistic sacrament, with prayers and thanksgivings, we lift up the reeking cross before the Eternal Father, and plead the sufferings of his Well-Beloved for our salvation. We say to God: "Behold this broken bread; it is the mangled flesh of thy Christ! Behold this purple cup; it is the blood which he shed for our sins! Behold at thy right hand our slaughtered Paschal Lamb, and for his sake have mercy upon us and save us!"

Thus we say the holy eucharist is relatively sacrificial--sacrificial from its inseparable connection with the Redeemer's sacrifice. But even in this sense--the only one admissible to a true faith--the holy eucharist could not be sacrificial, were not its ministers in a corresponding sense sacerdotal. As the sacrament becomes relatively sacrificial by representing the Saviour's sacrifice, so its ministers become relatively sacerdotal by representing his person and functions. Commencing in the paschal chamber an ever-during sacrifice by ministering in person its accompanying meat-offering and drink-offering, he commenced there also the order of an ever-during priesthood by empowering his apostolic ministry to perpetuate that meat-offering and drink-offering forever. And, conferring sacerdotal functions upon the apostolic ministry, he conferred them upon that ministry alone. If he did not intend to limit to the twelve and their consecrated followers the power of consecrating and dispensing the sacramental bread and wine, why were not the whole five hundred brethren, or all the vast concourse of followers from Galilee, admitted to the original celebration? The selection of the few proves the exclusion of the many, and restricts the perpetual prerogative to the ministry of apostolical succession.

The sacerdotal oblation being essential, the sacerdotal celebration is equally essential. The priest must consecrate; the priest must administer; or there is no divinely authorized memorial of the one everlasting sacrifice. No such memorial, where is the recognized bond, connecting the body on earth to its glorified Head in heaven? No such bond, what becomes of the Church, and what assurance has she of an eternal inheritance? That bond secure, the Church is invincible and immortal; the city of God stands upon a rock which no shock of colliding worlds can shake; all her happy people, instinct with the life of their Lord, walking in white robes her streets of gold. And the apostolic series of sacerdotal ministers continuing to the end of time, the conjoined memorial of consecrated bread and wine shall still bind the successive generations of the faithful to the sacrificial cross, till he who for our great and endless comfort instituted the holy mystery nearly two thousand years ago shall return with all his flaming cohorts from the skies to take us to himself forever. "As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come."

[1] Preached at Porto Bello, Edinburgh, Scot., 1866. For much of the thought contained in this discourse the author is indebted to the Christology of the Old Testament , by the honored rector of his childhood, the Rev. Joseph Stephenson, A.M., late of Lympsham, Somersetshire, Eng.

XV.

HEROISM TRIUMPHANT.[1]

Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place.--2 Cor. ii. 14.

The grandest of all human pageants was a Roman triumph. This honor was conferred only upon the emperor or the general who had conquered a province, or achieved some signal victory. The conqueror was arrayed in rich purple robes, embroidered with flowers and figures of gold. His buskins were adorned with pearls and costly gems, and a wreath of laurel or a crown of gold was set upon his head. In one hand he held a laurel branch, the emblem of victory; and in the other his truncheon, the symbol of authority and power. He was borne in a magnificent chariot, drawn generally by white horses, but sometimes by other animals. Pompey had elephants; Mark Antony, lions; Heliogabalus, tigers; Marcus Aurelius, reindeer. Musicians led the procession, playing triumphal marches; and heralds, proclaiming the achievements of the victorious hero. These were followed by young men, leading the victims, with gilded horns and garlanded heads, intended for sacrifice. Next came the wagons, loaded with the spoils and trophies of the conquered foe; succeeded by the captured horses, camels, elephants, and gayly decorated carriages; and after these, the captive kings, queens, princes, and generals, loaded with chains. Then was seen the triumphal chariot, outdoing all other magnificence; before which boys swung censers and maidens strewed flowers; while the people, as it passed, prostrated themselves and shouted, "_Io triumphe!_" Immediately behind marched the sentries; and the procession was closed by the priests and their attendants, with the various sacrificial utensils, and a white ox destined for the chief victim. Entering the city by the Porta Capaena, passing through the triumphal arch, and proceeding along the Via Sacra, the splendid _cortége_ moved on toward the Capitol; at the foot of which the captives divided, some led to the Mammertine and Tullian dungeons on the right, while the others went straight forward to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus; the former doomed to death, the latter made tributaries if not even allies of imperial Rome. Meanwhile, the temples all being open, every altar smoked with sacrificial fires, and clouds of incense filled the city and sweetened all the air.

With such spectacles the Corinthians were not unacquainted. About two hundred years before St. Paul wrote this epistle, Lucius Mummius, the Roman consul, had conquered all Achaia; had destroyed Corinth, Chalcus and Thebes; and, by order of the senate, had been honored with a splendid triumph and the surname of Achaicus. Over the same people the apostle now has a triumph, but it is a triumph of very different character--a triumph in Christ by the power of the gospel, the glory of which he ascribes to God alone. As in a Roman triumph the smoke of altars and the odor of incense filled the city with a pleasant perfume, so the name and the doctrine of Christ preached by him and his colleagues pervaded Corinth and all the surrounding country--wherever those holy men had labored--with odors as of Eden; and the apostles appeared as triumphing in Christ over idols, demons, devils--over ignorance, prejudice, scepticism, superstition, false philosophy, and all the powers of darkness; yet appropriating no praise to themselves, but attributing all to the wisdom and the mercy of God. Indeed, it is God's triumph, not theirs. He has first triumphed over them, and is now making them the partners of his triumph. Better expressing the sense of the Greek original, Trench and Alford read, "leadeth us in triumph;" and other eminent critics give us substantially the same rendering; while Conybeare and Howson, in their admirable work on the "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," thus translate the language of the text: "But thanks be to God, who leads me on from place to place in the train of his triumph, to celebrate his victory over the enemies of Christ; and by me sends forth the knowledge of himself, a stream of fragrant incense, throughout the world." A pretty free translation, it is true; but embodying, no doubt, the precise meaning of the writer. "St. Paul regarded himself," says Fausett, "as a signal trophy of God's victorious power in Christ; his Almighty Conqueror leading him about through all the cities of the Greek and Roman world, as an illustrious example of his power at once to subdue and to save." The foe of Christ was now the servant of Christ. Grace divine had subdued and disarmed him. The rebel, the persecutor, the conspirator with hell, was brought into subjection, and rejoiced in his burden as a blessing. As to be led in triumph by man is miserable degradation, so to be led in triumph by the Lord of hosts is highest honor and blessedness. Our only true triumphs are God's triumphs over us. His defeats of us are our only true victories. Near the gate of Damascus the lion is smitten into a lamb by the hand of the Crucified; and in a short time the lamb has become his bravest champion. Brought into willing obedience, he falls into Christ's triumphal train, ascends into Christ's triumphal chariot; and, in full sympathy with Christ, becomes the partner of his triumph. Bengal writes--"who shows us in triumph"--that is, not only as conquered by Christ, but as conquering with him. Our victory is the fruit of his victory over us; and the open showing of that, so far from being our shame, is our greatest glory. Therefore saith the apostle--and it is the most heroic utterance of the prince of heroes: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." And from this evangel of the crucifixion, which he lives to preach and will die to defend, arises the fragrant odor with which he and his companions are filling the world. As the approach of the triumphal procession is made manifest by the sweet perfume scattered far and wide by incense-bearers in the conqueror's train, so the heavenly Victor makes use of his vanquished to herald the victories of his grace and diffuse like fragrant odors the saving knowledge of his name. It is the triumph of grace over sin, the triumph of truth over error, the triumph of faith over unbelief, the triumph of divine love over human selfishness. It is the right triumphing over the wrong, the pure triumphing over the impure, the heavenly triumphing over the earthly, the spiritual triumphing over the sensual, the eternal triumphing over the temporal, the true religion triumphing over all superstition. It is God by Christ triumphing in man, and man through Christ triumphing with God; who leads us in triumph as his captives, shows us in triumph as his trophies, and "maketh manifest by us the savor of his knowledge in every place."