M. Be it unto you according to your faith.

I was to have preached to the people this evening, but we were necessitated to postpone our lecture, even after the first bell had announced our intention. This gave me some hours for conversation. I passed my time pleasantly at a friend's house, one of the disappointed multitude was of our party; he had been to church and not finding me there, traced me to the house of my friend. The gentleman was an entire stranger to me, but I have since been told he is a selectman of this town, and I am inclined to think he will, if he is not already, be a selectman in another sense. I felt as soon as he had taken his seat, a strong desire to speak before him, although, as I said, I had never until then seen him.

I do not often talk of impulses, nor do I lay much stress on what I have frequently considered rather whimsical; but yet I am necessitated to believe that the "way of man is not in himself, and that God's providence is his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions ;" I am inclined to think it was so in the present instance. I made many observations on various subjects, and I related what had passed in a company, in which I had recently been engaged. This mode of conveying information, is in my opinion, if judiciously managed, very profitable.

Among other observations made upon this occasion, I was induced to notice a few of the many proofs given to us of gospel truth in, unequivocal figures, as well as in words; and I assayed to point out the errors of religious professors, respecting the use of those figures. It appears to me that both Jews and professing Christians, are in this particular, equally bewildered; and addressing myself to the visiting stranger, I sought to turn his attention to the sacrament of the Lord's supper.

In my early days, I was taught to believe that Jesus instituted the use of bread and wine in his church, for the purpose of giving communicants a view of his sufferings; of those sufferings to which he submitted for the sake of certain individuals, who were distinguished from the rest of mankind by his peculiar favour, and who were therefore permitted the use of these sacred symbols. Taking it for granted, that none but such distinguished favourites were allowed to taste even these symbols of his passion, I did not receive the bread, nor take the cup without fear and trembling.

But when it pleased God to turn my attention to sacred testimonies, and gave me confidence to read for myself, without asking the commentator how I should understand those testimonies; I found that the whole world had wandered from the straight plain path, and that the false prophet had deceived professing Christians, as much as the other nations of the world.

It appeared to me, that this bread and this wine did not point out, nor ever was intended to point out the sufferings of our Lord; those unequalled agonies which he endured, when he trod the wine press alone, and of the people there were none with him. That in this active sense he sustained the singular character, and that his sufferings and death were held forth to mankind, by a figure abundantly more striking, viz. that of the Lamb, which was eaten with his disciples.

When I hear John say, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, I look to this figure; when I see this figure slain, I see the Lamb of God giving his life a sacrifice for the sins of the world. I behold the Lamb roasted with fire, and I look to the Lamb in the garden, viewing with gratitude, admiration, and sacred awe, the flames of divine vengeance operating on this Lamb of God, our passover sacrificed for us, and these tremendous flames operate with such intenseness, that the sweat issuing from every distended pore, trickles down as great drops of blood falling to the ground!

When I see this Lamb, the paschal Lamb eaten with bitter herbs, I look to Calvary's bloody brow, and hear the Lamb of God saying, I thirst, and lo, they give him vinegar, mingled with gall. When I see the disciples eating the Lamb in haste, I look to the multitude that laid hold of the Lamb of God, and hear the Redeemer say, If me ye seek, let these go their way. When I see the disciples at supper with their loins girt, and their staff in their hand, as though they were just ready to depart, I turn my eyes to the Lamb of God, and I find the disciples all fled away, every man to his own, and he left alone! When I see the frame of the paschal Lamb preserved entire, not a bone of it broken, and this whole process under the immediate direction of Israel's lawgiver, I look to the cross, and I see the legs of the thieves are broken; but they brake not the legs of the sacred Sufferer, and this because the scriptures might be fulfilled, which declare a bone of him shall not be broken.

Thus as the suffering expiating Saviour, every relative particular was pre-figured in the paschal Lamb.

But when the Redeemer would teach his disciples to rejoice in his sufferings, in consideration of the glory which should follow, after they had eaten of the paschal Lamb, after supper he took the bread, and when he had given thanks, not only for the bread, but for the grace it contained as a figure, he directed the twelve to view it as his body. This is my body given for you, surrendered to the claims of divine justice that God may be true, that the guilty might not by any means be cleared. Thus saith the Lord, "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me," and that this declaration pointed to Calvary, is rendered unquestionable by the verse immediately succeeding, "This spake he, signifying what death he should die." That his death was not the death of one only, but of the many; the death of all those men, whom when he was lifted up, he was to draw unto him, the death of the aggregate body. One member of the body may die, and the others still continue to exist, but if the head die, all the members die with it. one died for all, then were all dead.

Thus if

This is strikingly pointed out by the figure before us. This, says i Jesus, is my body. You behold in this bread a gathering together of an innumerable multitude, which, growing in a natural state, were all separate, not only in separate fields or soils, but produced upon separate stocks; nay, every grain separate one from the other, and each grain wearing its own coat of chaff; but in the harvest they are all cut down, the chaff is separated from the grain, and being all collected together, are together ground, together leavened with one leaven, together baked in one oven, and being brought forth from the oven in one piece of bread; "This," says the Redeemer, "is my body." My body is not a single grain, but it is all the harvest collected. It pleased the Father, that in him all fulness should dwell. Thus the fulness of the human nature was in the God-man, and as the many grains of wheat constituted one piece of bread, so the many children of men, made one Son of man, the many bodies one body; and as all the grains of wheat, whatever their appearance while growing in their natural state, partake in this bread the same condition: so the whole lump in the second Adam, partakes of one life, one righteousness; for, says the Apostle, the righteousness of God is now manifest, which is unto all, and upon all that believe, there being no difference. Looking with a single eye at this fig

ure, I find the whole collected body full of light, and I understand what the Apostle intended, when he said, ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.

In this figure, I can trace no distinction; no large, no small, no good, no bad, I find all one piece; and turning to the substance of this figure, the second Adam, I can trace neither Jew nor Gentile, Greek nor Barbarian, bond nor free, male nor female, but all is one in the mystical body of our Lord.

I cannot therefore, set at nought my brother; I cannot say, stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou. In this body, I am necessitated to measure the same measure, I measure to myself: here I love my neighbour as myself; here if one member suffer, all suffer, and if one member rejoice, all rejoice.

This is the reason why our bodies must be fashioned, like unto the glorious body of the Son of God. In him we have the earnest of our inheritance, and every individual will ultimately arise incorruptible, as Jesus is incorruptible.

But as his body included the fulness of all bodies, so his soul, that soul which was exceeding sorrowful even unto death, included all souls. This our Lord pointed out in the symbolic cup.

"And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it, Judas and all.

"And he said unto them, this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many."

As the many grapes being pressed together, after they are all gathered into one vat, make one cup of wine; so the many lives, or souls of all the ruined race, all gathered into one, is what Jesus calls his soul. When therefore I view this cup, I fully comprehend the Apostle, who decidedly pronounces, that God hath made of one blood all nations of men, that are upon the earth. As these grapes grew on the vines in their natural state, there was a very visible difference, some large, and some small, some filled with refreshing juice, and some nearly dry: but looking with a single eye to this cup, or to the substance of this figure, the life or soul of Jesus Christ, you find all distinctions completely swallowed up, precisely as in the bread or body.

This is what the Apostle intended when he said, What is the bread we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? What is the cup we drink, is it not the communion of the blood of. Christ?

Now what is a communion, but a gathering together? the Apostle therefore teaches us that as the bread we break is the gathering together of the multitude of grains, and the cup of wine the gathering together of the multitude of grapes: so the body and blood of Jesus Christ, is the gathering together of the many who were lost by the transgressions of the first, and by this wonderful method recovered in the second Adam. And, to prove that the bodies and souls of sinners were to be viewed in his body, who came to save sinners, lost sinners, Jesus commanded all of them to drink of that cup which was shed for the remission of sins. It is in this aggregate view, that there is none before nor after others.

When the Apostles saw some of the first professors of Christianity making distinctions, he sharply reproved them, and told them they ate and drank unworthily, not discerning the Lord's body. If they had discerned the Lord's body, they would have seen those whom they excluded, as absolutely a part of the fulness of that body, as they themselves were, and then they would not have dared to exclude them.

If, indeed, they had walked in a scandalous or disorderly manner, they would have withdrawn themselves from their society for a time, that their spirits might be saved in the day of the Lord.

But instead of viewing Jesus a complete Saviour, as this striking figure exhibits him, a very large proportion of those who profess Christianity regard the sacred eucharist as a badge of distinction, and when assembled together, they say to the rest of the world, even to those whom God so loved as to ransom them by the precious blood of his son, Stand off, come not near unto us, we have an interest in the Son of God, but you have not; we are loved of God, but you are not.

It is from this self-righteous spirit, that all and every species of religious persecution originates, and thus what Jesus pointed out as an emblem of grace, mercy, and peace, to them that were nigh, and to them that were afar off, and that wholly and fully by himself, and in himself, the people who style themselves Christians make the same use of, as the Jews did of their institutions.

But, it will be asked, is there not cause for serious and solemn alarm, when we hear an Apostle positively affirm, 1 Corinthians xi. 29,

"For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body."