 Chapter 5 of Practical Religion by J. C. Ryle. But the world is not only full of difficulties about points of doctrine, it is equally full of difficulties about points of practice. Every professing Christian, who wishes to act conscientiously, must know that it is so. The most puzzling questions are continually arising. He is tried on every side by doubts as to the line of duty, and can often hardly see what is the right thing to do. He is tried by questions connected with the management of his worldly calling, if he is in business or in trade. He sometimes sees things going on of a very doubtful character, things that can hardly be called fair, straightforward, truthful, and doing as you would be done by. But then everybody in the trade does these things. They have always been done in the most respectable houses. There would be no carrying on a profitable business if they were not done. They are not things distinctly named and prohibited by God. All this is very puzzling. What is a man to do? He is tried by questions about worldly amusements, races and balls and operas, and feeders and card parties. Are all very doubtful methods of spending time. But then he sees the numbers of great people taking part in them. Are all these people wrong? Can there really be such mighty harm in these things? All this is very puzzling. What is a man to do? He is tried by questions about the education of his children. He wishes to train them up morally and religiously and to remember their souls. But he is told by many sensible people that young persons will be young, that it does not do to check and restrain them too much, and that he ought to attend pantomimes and children's parties and give children's balls himself. He is informed that this nobleman, or that lady of rank, always does so, and yet they are reckoned religious people. Surely it cannot be wrong. All this is very puzzling. What is he to do? There is only one answer to all these questions. A man must make the Bible his rule of conduct. He must make its leading principles the compass by which he steers his course through life. By the letter or spirit of the Bible he must test every difficult point and question. To the law and to the testimony what sayeth the Scripture? He ought to care nothing for what other people may think right. He ought not to set his watch by the clock of his neighbor, but by the sundial of the Word. I charge my readers solemnly to act on the maxim I have just laid down, and to adhere to it rigidly all the days of their lives. You will never repent of it. Make it a leading principle never to act contrary to the Word. Care not for the charge of over-strikness and needless precision. Remember you serve a strict and holy God. Listen not to the common objection that the rule you have laid down is impossible, and cannot be observed in such a world as this. Let those who make such an objection speak out plainly, and tell us for what purpose the Bible was given to man. Let them remember that by the Bible we shall all be judged at the last day, and let them learn to judge themselves by it here, lest they be judged and condemned by it hereafter. This mighty rule of faith and practice is the book about which I am addressing the readers of this paper this day. Surely it is no light matter what you are doing with the Bible. Surely when danger is abroad on the right hand and on the left, you should consider what you are doing with the safeguard which God has provided. I charge you, I beseech you, to give an honest answer to my question. What art thou doing with the Bible? Does thou read it? How readest thou? In the seventh place, the Bible is the book which all true servants of God have always lived on and loved. Every living thing which God creates requires food. The life that God imparts needs sustaining and nourishing. It is so with animal and vegetable life, with birds, beast, fishes, reptiles, insects, and plants. It is equally so with spiritual life, when the Holy Ghost raises a man from the death of sin and makes him a new creature in Christ Jesus, the new principle in that man's heart requires food, and the only food which will sustain it is the Word of God. Whenever was a man or a woman truly converted from one end of the world to the other, who did not love the revealed will of God. Just as a child born into the world desires naturally the milk provided for its nourishment, so does a soul born again desire the sincere milk of the Word. This is a common mark of all the children of God. The delight in the law of the Lord. Psalms 1, 2. Show me a person who despises Bible reading or thinks little of Bible preaching, and I hold it to be a certain fact that he is not yet born again. He may be zealous about forms and ceremonies. He may be diligent in attending sacraments and daily services, but if these things are more precious to him than the Bible, I cannot think he is a converted man. Tell me what the Bible is to a man, and I will generally tell you what he is. This is the pulse to try. This is the barometer to look at. If we would know the state of the heart, I have no notion of the spirit dwelling in a man and not giving clear evidence of his presence, and I believe it to be a signal evidence of the spirit's presence when the Word is really precious to a man's soul. Love to the Word is one of the characteristics we see in Job. Little as we know of this patriarch and his age, this at least stands out clearly. He says I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. Love to the Word is a shining feature in the character of David. Mark how it appears all through that wonderful part of Scripture. The 119th Psalm. He might well say, Oh, how I love thy law. Psalm 119th 97. Love to the Word is a striking point in the character of St. Paul. What were he and his companions but men mighty in the Scriptures? What were his sermons but expositions and applications of the Word? Love to the Word appears preeminently in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He read it publicly. He quoted it continually. He expounded it frequently. He advised the Jews to search it. He used it as his weapon to resist the devil. He said repeatedly, The Scripture must be fulfilled. Almost the last thing he did was to open the understanding of his disciples that they might understand the Scriptures. Luke 24.45. I'm afraid that man can be no true servant of Christ who has not something of his master's mind and feeling toward the Bible. Love to the Word has been a prominent feature in the history of all the saints, of whom we know anything, since the days of the apostles. This is the lamp which Athanasius and Chrysostom and Augustine followed. This is the compass which kept the Valensis and Abagnesis from making shipwreck of the faith. This is the well which was reopened by Wycliffe and Luther after it had been long stopped up. This is the sword which Latimer and Jewel and Knox won their victories. This is the manna which fed Baxter and Owen and the noble host of the Puritans and made them strong to battle. This is the armory from which Whitfield and Wesley drew their powerful weapons. This is the mine from which Bikkersteth and McChain brought forth rich gold, differing as these holy men did in some matters. On one point they were all agreed. They all delighted in the Word. Love to the Word is one of the first things that appears in the converted heathen, at the various missionary stations throughout the world, in hot climates and in cold, among savage people and among civilized, in New Zealand, in the South Sea islands, in Africa, in Hindustan. It is always the same. They enjoy hearing it read. They long to be able to read it themselves. They wonder why Christians did not send it to them before. How striking is the picture which Moffat draws of Afrikaner, the fierce South African chieftain, when first brought under the power of the Gospel. Often have I seen him, he says, under the shadow of a great rock nearly the live long day. Finally pursuing the pages of the Bible. How touching is the expression of a poor converted negro, speaking of the Bible. He said, it is never old and never cold. How affecting was the language of another old negro when some would have dissuaded him from learning to read because of his great age. No, he said, I will never give it up till I die. It is worth all the labour to be able to read that one verse. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Love to the Bible is one of the grand points of agreement among all converted men and women in our own land. Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Baptists and Independents, Methodists and Plymouth brethren, all unite in honouring the Bible as soon as they are real Christians. This is the manna which all the tribes of our Israel feed upon and find satisfying food. This is the fountain round which all the various portions of Christ's flock meet together and from which no sheep goes thirsty away. Oh, that believers in this country would learn to cleave more closely to the written word. Oh, that they would see that the more the Bible, and the Bible only, is the substance of men's religion, the more they agree. It is probably there never was an uninspired book more universally admired than Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It is a book which all denominations of Christians delight to honour. It has one praise from all the parties. Now what a striking fact it is that the author was preeminently a man of one book. He had hardly read anything but the Bible. It is a blessed thought that there will be much people in heaven at last, few as the Lord's people undoubtedly are at any one given time or place, yet all gathered together at last. They will be a multitude that no man can number. Revelations 7.9. 19.1. They will be of one heart in mind. They will have passed through like experience. They will all have repented, believed, lived holy, prayerful and humble. They will all have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. But one thing beside all this they will have in common. They will all love the texts and doctrines of the Bible. The Bible will have been their food and delight in the days of their pilgrimage on earth, and the Bible will be a common subject of joyful meditation and retrospect when they are gathered together in heaven. This book, which all true Christians live upon and love, is the subject about which I am addressing the readers of this paper this day. Surely, it is no light matter what you are doing with the Bible. Surely, it is matter for serious inquiry whether you know anything of this love to the word and have this mark of walking in the footsteps of the flock. Can't one eat? I charge you. I entreat you to give me an honest answer. What art thou doing with the Bible? Does thou read it? How readest thou? 8. In the last place, the Bible is the only book which can comfort a man in the last hours of his life. Death is an event which in all probability is before us all. There is no avoiding it. It is the river which each of us must cross. I who write and you who read have each one day to die. It is good to remember this. We are all sadly apt to put away the subject from us. Each man thinks each man mortal but himself. I want everyone to do his duty in life, but I also want everyone to think of death. I want everyone to know how to live, but I also want everyone to know how to die. Death is a solemn event to all. It is the winding up of all earthly plans and expectations. It is a separation from all we have loved and lived with. It is often accompanied by much bodily pain and distress. It brings us to the grave, the worm, and corruption. It opens the door to judgment and eternity, to heaven or to hell. It is an event after which there is no change or space for repentance. Other mistakes may be corrected or retrieved, but not a mistake on our deathbeds. As the tree falls, there it must lie. No conversion in the coffin. No new birth after we have ceased to breathe. And death is before us all. It may be close at hand. The time of our departure is quite uncertain. But sooner or later we must each lie down alone and die. All these are serious considerations. Death is a solemn event even to the believer in Christ. For him, no doubt, the sting of death is taken away. For Corinthians 15-55, death has become one of his privileges, for he is Christ's. Living or dying, he is the Lord's. If he lives, Christ lives in him. And if he dies, he goes to live with Christ. To him, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Romans 1-21 Death frees him from many trials, from a weak body, a corrupt heart, a tempting devil, and an ensnaring or persecuting world. Death admits him to the enjoyment of many blessings. He rests from his labors. The hope of a joyful resurrection is changed into a certainty. He has the company of wholly redeemed spirits. He is with Christ. All this is true, and yet even to a believer death is a solemn thing. Flesh and blood naturally shrink from it. Depart from all we love is a wrench and trial to the feelings. The world we go to is a world unknown even though it is our home. Friendly and harmless as death is to a believer, it is not an event to be treated lightly It always must be a solemn thing. It becomes every thoughtful and sensible man to consider calmly how he is going to meet death. Gird up your loins like a man and look the subject in the face. Listen to me, while I tell you a few things about the end to which we are coming. The good things of the world cannot comfort a man when he draws near death. All the gold of California and Australia will not provide light for the dark valley. Money can buy the best medical advice in the tendons for a man's body, but money cannot buy peace for his conscience, heart, and soul. Relatives, loved friends, and servants cannot comfort a man when he draws near death. They may minister affectionately to his bodily wants. They may watch by his bedside tenderly, and anticipate his every wish. They may smooth down his dying pillow, and support his sinking frame in their arms. But they cannot minister to a mind diseased. They cannot stop the aching of a troubled heart. They cannot screen an uneasy conscience from the eye of God. The pleasures of the world cannot comfort a man when he draws near death. The brilliant ballroom, the merry dance, the midnight revel, the party to eps and races, the card table, the box at the opera, the voices of singing men and singing women. All these are at length distasteful things. To hear of hunting and shooting engagements gives him no pleasure. To be invited to feasts and regattas and fancy fares gives him no ease. He cannot hide from himself that these are hollow, empty, powerless things. They jar upon the ear of his conscience. They are out of harmony with his condition. They cannot stop one gap in his heart. When the last enemy is coming in like a flood, they cannot make him calm in the unknown. And though it is our home, friendly and prospect of meeting a holy God. Books and magazines cannot comfort a man when he draws near death. The most brilliant writings of Macaulay or Dickens will pawl on his ear. The most able article in the Times will fail to interest him. The Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews will give him no pleasure. Punch and the Illustrated News and the last new novel will lie unopened and unheeded. Their time will be past. Their vocation will be gone. Whatever they may be in health they are useless in the hour of death. There is but one fountain of comfort for a man drawing near to his end, and that is the Bible. Chapters out of the Bible, texts out of the Bible, statements of truth taken out of the Bible, books containing matter drawn from the Bible, these are a man's only chance of comfort when he comes to die. I do not at all say that the Bible will do good as a matter of course to a dying man if he has not valued it before. I know unhappily too much of deathbeds to say that. I do not say whether it is probable that he who has been unbelieving and neglectful of the Bible in life will at once believe and get comfort from it in death. But I do say positively that no dying man will ever get real comfort except from the contents of the Word of God. All comfort from any other source is a house built upon sand. I lay this down as a rule of universal application. I make no exception in favor of any class on earth. Kings and poor men learned and unlearned. All are on a level in this matter. There is not a jot of real consolation for any dying man unless he gets it from the Bible. Chapters, passages, texts, promises, and doctrines of scripture heard, received, believed, and rested on. These are the only comforters I dare promise to anyone when he leaves the world. Between the sacrament will do a man no more good than the popish extreme unction, so long as the Word is not received and believed. Priestly absolution will no more ease the conscience than the incantations of a heathen magician. If the poor dying sinner does not receive and believe Bible truth, I tell everyone who reads this paper that although men may seem to get uncomfortably without the Bible while they live, they may be sure that without the Bible they cannot comfortably die. It was a true confession of the learned seldom. There is no book upon which we can rest in a dying moment but the Bible. I might easily confirm all I have just said by examples and illustrations. I might show you the deathbeds of men who have affected to despise the Bible. I might tell you how, Voltaire in pain, the famous infidels died in misery, bitterness, rage, fear, and despair. I might show you the happy deathbeds of those who have loved the Bible and believed it, and the blessed effect the sight of their deathbeds had on others. Cecil, a minister whose praise ought to be in all churches, says, I shall never forget standing by the bedside of my dying mother. Are you afraid to die, I asked? No, she replied, but why does the uncertainty of another state give you no concern? Because God has said, Fear not. When thou passest, through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. Isaiah 43.2 I might easily multiply illustrations of this kind, but I think it better to conclude this part of my subject by giving the result of my own observations as a minister. I have seen not a few dying persons in my time. I have seen great varieties of manner and deportment among them. I have seen some die, solan, silent, and comfortless. I have seen others die, ignorant, unconcerned, and apparently without much fear. I have seen some die so wearied out with long illness that they were quite willing to depart, and yet they did not seem to me at all in a fit state to go before God. I have seen others die with professions of hope and trust in God, without leaving satisfactory evidences that they were on the rock. I have seen others die who I believe were in Christ, and safe, and yet they never seem to enjoy much sensible comfort. I have seen some few dying in the full assurance of hope, and like Bunyan's steadfast, giving glorious testimony to Christ's faithfulness, even in the river. But one thing I have never seen. I never saw any one enjoy what I should call real, solid, calm, reasonable peace on his deathbed, who did not draw his peace from the Bible. And this I am bold to say, that the man who thinks to go to his deathbed without having the Bible for his comforter, his companion, and his friend, is one of the greatest madmen in the world. There are no comforts for the soul but Bible comforts, and he who has not got hold of these has got hold of nothing at all, unless it be a broken read. The only comforter for a deathbed is the book about which I address the readers of this paper this day. Surely it is no light matter whether you read that book or not. Surely a dying man, in a dying world, should seriously consider whether he has got anything to comfort him when his turn comes to die. I charge you, I treat you, for the last time, to give an honest answer to my question. What art thou doing with the Bible? How readest thou? I have now given the reasons why I press on every reader the duty and importance of reading the Bible. I have shown that no book is written in such a manner as the Bible. That knowledge of the Bible is absolutely necessary to salvation. That no book contains such matter. That no book has done so much for the world generally. That no book can do so much for every one who reads it right. That this book is the only rule of faith and practice. That it is, and always has been, the food of all true servants of God. And that it is the only book which can comfort men when they die. All these are ancient things. I do not pretend to tell anything new. I have only gathered together old truths and tried to mold them into a new shape. Let me finish all by addressing a few plain words to the conscience of every class of readers. 1. This paper may fall into the hands of some who can read, but never do read the Bible at all. Are you one of them? If you are, I have something to say to you. I cannot comfort you in your present state of mind. It would be a mockery and deceit to do so. I cannot speak to you of peace in heaven, while you treat the Bible as you do. You are in danger of losing your soul. You are in danger because your neglected Bible is a plain evidence that you do not love God. The health of a man's body may generally be known by his appetite. The health of a man's soul may be known by his treatment of the Bible. Now you are manifestly laboring under a sore disease. Will you not repent? I know I cannot reach your heart. I cannot make you see and feel these things. I can only enter my solemn protest against your present treatment of the Bible, and lay that protest before your conscience. I do so with all my soul. Oh, beware lest you repent too late. Beware lest you put off reading the Bible till you send for the doctor in your last illness, and then find the Bible a sealed book, and dark, as the cloud between the hosts of Israel and Egypt, to your anxious soul. Beware lest you go on saying all your life, men do very well without all this Bible reading, and find at length, to your cost, that men do very ill and end in hell. Beware lest the day come when you will feel, had I but honored the Bible as much as I have honored the newspaper, I should not have been left without comfort in my last hours. Bible-neglecting reader, I give you a plain warning. The plague cross is at present on your door. The Lord have mercy upon your soul. 2. This paper may fall into the hands of someone who is willing to begin reading the Bible, but wants advice on the subject. Are you that man? Come to me, and I will give you a few short hints. For one thing, begin reading your Bible this very day. The way to do a thing is to do it, and the way to read the Bible is actually to read it. It is not meaning or wishing or resolving or intending or thinking about it, which will advance you one step. You must positively read. There is no royal road in this matter, any more than in the matter of prayer. If you cannot read yourself, you must persuade somebody else to read to you. But one way or another, through eyes or ears, the words of Scripture must actually pass before your mind. For another thing, read the Bible with an earnest desire to understand it. Think not for a moment that the great object is to turn over a certain quantity of printed paper, and that it matters nothing whether you understand it or not. Some ignorant people seem to fancy that all is done if they clear off so many chapters every day, though they may not have a notion what they are all about, and only know that they have pushed on their mark so many leaves. This is turning Bible reading into a mere form. It is almost as bad as the popish habit of buying indulgences, by saying an almost fabulous number of Ave Maria's, and Paternoster's. It reminds one of the poor Hottentot who ate up a Dutch hymnal book because he saw it comforted his neighbor's hearts. Feel it down in your mind as a general principle that a Bible not understood is a Bible that does no good. Say to yourself often as you read, what is all this about? Dig for the meaning like a man digging for Australian gold. Work hard, and do not give up the work in a hurry. For another thing, read the Bible with childlike faith and humility. Open your heart as you open your book, and say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Resolve to believe implicitly whatever you find there. However much it may run counter to your own prejudices. Resolve to receive heartily every statement of truth whether you like it or not. Beware of that miserable habit of mind into which some readers of the Bible fall. They receive some doctrines because they like them. They reject others because they are condemning to themselves or to some lover or relation or friend. At this rate the Bible is useless. Are we to be judges of what ought to be in the Word? Do we know better than God? Settle it down in your mind that you will receive all and believe all and that what you cannot understand you will take on trust. Remember when you pray you are speaking to God and God hears you. But remember when you read God is speaking to you, and you are not to answer again, but to listen, dee. For another thing, read the Bible in a spirit of obedience and self-application. Sit down to the study of it with a daily determination that you will live by its rules, rest on its statements, and act on its commands. Consider as you travel through every chapter, how does this affect my position and course of conduct? What does this teach me? It is poor work to read the Bible from mere curiosity and for speculative purposes in order to fill your head and store your mind with opinions, while you do not allow the book to influence your heart and life. That Bible is read best, which is practiced most. E. For another thing, read the Bible daily. Make it a part of every day's business to read and meditate on some portion of God's Word. It means of grace are just as needful every day for our souls as food and clothing are for our bodies. Yesterday's bread will not feed the laborer today, and today's bread will not feed the laborer tomorrow. Do as the Israelites did in the wilderness, gather your manna fresh every morning, choose your own seasons and hours, do not scramble over, and hurry your reading. Give your Bible the best and not the worst part of your time. But whatever plan you pursue, let it be a rule of your life to visit the throne of grace and the Bible every day. F. For another thing, read all the Bible and read it in an orderly way. I fear there are many parts of the Word which some people never read at all. This is to say the least, a very presumptuous habit. All Scripture is profitable, II Timothy 3.16. To this habit may be traced, that want of broad, well-proportioned views of truth which is so common in this day. Some people's Bible reading is a system of perpetual dipping and picking. They do not seem to have an idea of regularly going through the whole book. This also is a great mistake. No doubt in times of sickness and affliction it is allowable to search out seasonable portions. But with this exception, I believe it is by far the best plan to begin the old and new Testaments at the same time. To read each straight through to the end and then begin again. This is a matter in which everyone must be persuaded in his own mind. I can only say it has been my own plan for nearly forty years, and I have never seen cause to alter it. For another thing, read the Bible fairly and honestly, determined to take everything in its plain, obvious meaning, and regard all forced interpretations with great suspicion. As a general rule, whatever a verse of the Bible seems to mean, it does mean. Cecil's rule is a very valuable one. The right way of interpreting Scripture is to take it as we find it, without any attempt to force it into any particular system. Well said Hooker, I hold it for a most infallible rule in the exposition of Scripture, that when the literal construction will stand, the furthest from the literal is commonly the worst. H. In the last place, read the Bible with Christ continually in view. The grand primary object of all Scripture is to testify of Jesus. Old Testament ceremonies are shadows of Christ. Old Testament judges and deliverers are types of Christ. Old Testament history shows the world's need of Christ. Old Testament prophecies are full of Christ's sufferings, and of Christ's glory yet to come. The first advent and the second, the Lord's humiliation and the Lord's kingdom, the cross and the crown, shine forth everywhere in the Bible. Keep fast hold on this clue, if you would read the Bible aright. I might easily add to these hints, if space permitted, few and short as they are, you will find them worth attention, act upon them, and I firmly believe you will never be allowed to miss the way to heaven. Act upon them, and you will find light continually increasing in your mind. No book of evidence can be compared with that internal evidence which he obtains who daily uses the word in the right way. Such a man does not need the books of learned men like Pallie and Wilson and Milivane. He has the witness in himself. The book satisfies and feeds his soul. A poor Christian woman once said to an infidel, I am no scholar, I cannot argue like you, but I know that honey is honey because it leaves a sweet taste in my mouth, and I know the Bible to be God's book because of the taste it leaves in my heart. 3. This paper may fall into the hands of someone who loves and believes the Bible and yet reads it but little. I fear there are many such in this day. It is a day of bustle and hurry. It is a day of talking and committee meetings and public work. These things are very well in their way, but I fear that they sometimes clip and cut short the private reading of the Bible. Does your conscience tell you that you are one of the persons I speak of? Listen to me and I will say a few things which deserve your serious attention. You are the man that is likely to get comfort from the Bible in time of need. Trial is a sifting season. Affliction is a searching wind which strips the leaves off the trees and brings to light the bird's nests. Now I fear that your stores of Bible consolations may one day run very low. I fear lest you should find yourself at last on very short allowance and come into harbour weak, worn, and thin. You are the man that is likely never to be established in the truth. I shall not be surprised to hear that you are troubled with doubts and questionings about assurance, grace, faith, perseverance, and the like. The devil is an old and cunning enemy. Like the bingemites he can throw stones at a hair-breath and not miss. Judges 2016 He can quote scripture readily enough when he pleases. Now you are not sufficiently ready with your weapons to be able to fight a good fight with him. Your armor does not fit you well. Your sword sits loosely in your hand. You are the man that is likely to make mistakes in life. I shall not wonder if I am told that you have erred about your own marriage, erred about your children's education, erred about the conduct of your household, erred about the company you keep. The world you steer through is full of rocks and shoals and sandbanks. You are not sufficiently familiar either with the lights or charts. You are the man that is likely to be carried away by some spacious false teacher for a season. It will not surprise me if I hear that some one of those clever, eloquent men who can make the worse appear the better cause is leading you into many follies. You are wanting in ballast. No wonder if you are tossed to and fro like a cork on the waves. All these are uncomfortable things. I want every reader of this paper to escape them all. Take the advice I offer you this day. Do not merely read your Bible a little, but read it a great deal. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Colossians 3.16 Do not be a mere babe in spiritual knowledge. Seek to become well instructed in the kingdom of heaven, and to be continually adding new things to old. A religion of feeling is an uncertain thing. It is like the tide, sometimes high and sometimes low. It is like the moon, sometimes bright and sometimes dim. A religion of deep Bible knowledge is a firm and lasting possession. It enables a man not merely to say, I feel hope in Christ, but I know whom I have believed. Second Timothy 1.12.4 This paper may fall into the hands of someone who reads the Bible much, and yet fancies he is no better for his reading. This is a crafty temptation of the devil. At one stage he says, do not read the Bible at all. At another he says, your reading does you no good. Give it up. Are you that man? I feel for you from the bottom of my soul. Let me try to do you good. Do not think you are getting no good from the Bible. Only because you do not see that good day by day. The greatest effects are by no means those which make the most noise and are most easily observed. The greatest effects are often silent, quiet, and hard to detect at the time they are being produced. Think of the influence of the moon upon the earth, and of the air upon the human lungs. Remember how silently the dew falls, and how imperceptibly the grass grows. There may be far more doing than you think in your soul by your Bible reading. The word may be gradually producing deep impressions on your heart, of which you are not at present aware. Often when the memory is retaining no facts, the character of a man is receiving some everlasting impression. Is sin becoming every year more hateful to you? Is Christ becoming every year more precious? Is holiness becoming every year more lovely and desirable in your eyes? If these things are so, take courage. The Bible is doing you good. Though you may not be able to trace it out day by day, the Bible may be restraining you from some sin or delusion into which you would otherwise run. It may be daily keeping you back and hedging you up and preventing many a false step. Ah, you might soon find this out to your cost if you were to cease reading the word. The very familiarity of blessings sometimes makes us insensible to their value. Resist the devil. Settle it down in your mind as an established rule that whenever you feel it at the moment or not, you are inhaling spiritual health by reading the Bible and insensibly becoming more strong. 5. This paper may fall into the hands of some who really love the Bible, live upon the Bible, and read it much. Are you one of these? Give me your attention, and I will mention a few things which we shall do well to lay to heart for time to come. Let us resolve to read the Bible more and more every year we live. Let us try to get it rooted in our memories and engrafted into our hearts. Let us be thoroughly well provisioned with it against the voyage of death. Who knows, but we may have a very stormy passage. Sight and hearing may fail us, and we may be in deep waters. Oh, to have the word hid in our hearts in such an hour as that. Psalms 119.11. Let us resolve to be more watchful over our Bible reading every year that we live. Let us be jealously careful about the time we give to it and the manner that time is spent. Let us beware of omitting our daily reading without sufficient cause. Let us not be gaping and yawning and dozing over our book while we read. Let us read like a London merchant studying the City article in the Times. Or like a wife reading a husband's letter from a distant land. Let us be very careful that we never exalt any minister or sermon or book or tract or friend above the word, cursed be that book or track or human counsel which creeps in between us and the Bible and hides the Bible from our eyes. Once more I say, let us be very watchful. The moment we open the Bible, the devil sits down by our side. Oh, to read with a hungry spirit and a simple desire for edification. Let us resolve to onto the Bible more in our families. Let us read it morning and evening to our children and households. And not be ashamed to let men see that we do so. Let us not be discouraged by seeing no good arise from it. The Bible reading in a family has kept many a one from the goal, the workhouse, and the gazette, if it has not kept him from hell. Let us resolve to meditate more on the Bible. It is good to take with us two or three texts when we go out into the world and to turn them over and over in our minds whenever we have a little leisure. It keeps out many vain thoughts. It clinches the nail of daily reading. It preserves our souls from stagnating and breeding corrupt things. It sanctifies and quickens our memories and prevents them becoming like those ponds where the frogs live but the fish die. Let us resolve to talk more to believers about the Bible when we meet them. Alas, the conversation of Christians, when they do meet, is often sadly unprofitable. How many frivolous and trifling and uncharitable things are said? Let us bring out the Bible more, and it will help to drive the devil away and keep our hearts in tune. Oh, that we may all strive so to walk together in this evil world that Jesus may often draw near and go with us as he went with the two disciples journeying to Emmaus. Last of all, let us resolve to live by the Bible more and more every year we live. Let us frequently take account of all our opinions and practices, of our habits and tempers, of our behavior in public and in private, in the world and by our own firesides. Let us measure all by the Bible, and resolve, by God's help, to conform to it. Oh, that we may learn increasingly to cleanse our ways by the Word. Psalms 119 I commend all these things to the serious and prayerful attention of every one into whose hands this paper may fall. I want the ministers of my beloved country to be Bible-reading ministers, the congregations, Bible-reading congregations, and the nation, a Bible-reading nation. To bring about this desirable end I cast in my might into God's Treasury, the Lord Grant that it may prove not to have been in vain. Chapter 6 of Practical Religion by J. C. Ryle This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, going to the table. Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 1 Corinthians 1128 The words which form the title of this paper refer to a subject of vast importance. That subject is the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Perhaps no part of the Christian religion is so thoroughly misunderstood as the Lord's Supper. On no point have there been so many disputes, strifes, and controversies for almost eighteen hundred years. On no point have mistakes done so much harm. Even at this very day the battle is still raging, and Christians seem hopelessly divided. The very ordinance which was meant for our peace and profit has become the cause of discord and occasion of sin. These things ought not so to be. I make no excuse for including the Lord's Supper among the leading points of practical Christianity. I believe firmly that ignorant views or false doctrine about this sacrament lie at the root of half the present divisions of professing Christians. Some neglect it altogether. Some completely misunderstand it. Some exalt it to a position. It was never meant to occupy and turn it into an idol. If I can throw a little light on it and clear up the doubts of some minds, I shall feel very thankful. It is hopeless, I fear, to expect that the controversy about the Lord's Supper will ever be finally closed until the Lord comes. But it is not too much to hope that the fog and mystery and obscurity with which it is surrounded in some minds may be cleared away by plain, viable truth. In examining the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, I shall content myself with asking four practical questions and offering answers to them. 1. Why was the Lord's Supper ordained? 2. Who ought to go to the table and be communicants? 3. What may communicants expect from the Lord's Supper? 4. Why do many so-called Christians never go to the Lord's Table? I think it will be impossible to handle these four questions fairly, honestly, and impartially without seeing the subject of this paper more clearly, and getting some distinct and practical ideas about some leading errors of our day. I say, practical, emphatically. My chief aim in this volume is to promote practical Christianity. 1. In the first place, why was the Lord's Supper ordained? I answer that question in the words of the Church Catechism. I am sure I cannot mend them. It was ordained for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ and of the benefits which we receive thereby. The bread which in the Lord's Supper is broken, given, and eaten, is meant to remind us of Christ's body given on the cross for our sins. The wine which is poured out and received is meant to remind us of Christ's blood shed on the cross for our sins. He that eats that bread and drinks that wine is reminded, in the most striking and forcible manner, of the benefits Christ has obtained for his soul and of the death of Christ as the hinge and turning point on which all those benefits depend. Now is the view here stated, the doctrine of the New Testament? If it is not, for ever let it be rejected, cast aside, and refused by men. If it is, let us never be ashamed to hold it fast, profess our belief in it, pin our faith on it, and steadfastly refuse to hold any other view, no matter by whom it is taught. In subjects like this we must call no man master. It signifies little what great bishops and learned divines have thought fit to put forth about the Lord's Supper. If they teach more than the Word of God contains, they are not to be believed. I take down my Bible and turn to the New Testament. There I find no less than four separate accounts of the first appointment of the Lord's Supper. St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. Paul. All four describe it. All four agree in telling us what our Lord did on this memorable occasion. Two only tell us the reason which our Lord has signed, why His disciples were to eat the bread and drink the cup. St. Paul and St. Luke both record the remarkable words. Do this in remembrance of me. St. Paul adds his own inspired comment. As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show or declare or proclaim the Lord's death till ye come. Luke 22 19 1 Corinthians 11 25 26 When scripture speaks so plainly, why cannot men be content with it? Why should we mystify and confuse a subject which in the New Testament is so simple? The continual remembrance of Christ's death was the one grand object for which the Lord's Supper was ordained. He that goes further than this is adding to God's Word and does so to the great peril of his soul. Now is it reasonable to suppose that our Lord would appoint an ordinance for so simple a purpose as the keeping his death in remembrance? Most certainly it is. Of all the facts in his earthly ministry, none are equal in importance to that of his death. It was the great satisfaction for man's sin which had been appointed in God's covenant from the foundation of the world. It was the great atonement of all mighty power to which every sacrifice of animals from the fall of man continually pointed. It was the grand end and purpose for which Messiah came into the world. It was the cornerstone and foundation of all man's hopes of pardon and peace with God. In short, Christ would have lived and taught and preached and prophesied and wrought miracles in vain if he had not crowned all by dying for our sins as our substitute. His death was our life. His death was the payment of our debt to God. Without his death we should have been of all creatures most miserable. No wonder that an ordinance was specially appointed to remind us of our Saviour's death. It is the very one thing of which poor, weak, sinful man needs to be continually reminded. Does the New Testament warrant men in saying that the Lord's upper was ordained to be a sacrifice, and that in it Christ's body and blood are present under the forms of bread and wine? Most certainly not. When the Lord Jesus said to the disciples, this is my body, and this is my blood, he evidently meant this bread in my hand is an emblem of my body, and this cup of wine in my hand contains an emblem of my blood. The disciples were accustomed to hear him use such language. They remembered his saying, the field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom, Matthew 13, 38. It never entered into their minds that he meant to say he was holding his own body, and his own blood in his hands, and literally giving them his literal body and blood to eat and drink. Not one of the riders of the New Testament ever speaks of the sacrament as a sacrifice, or calls the Lord's table an altar, or it even hints that a Christian minister is a sacrificing priest. The universal doctrine of the New Testament is that after the one offering of Christ, there remains no more need of sacrifice. Does the English prayer book warrant any churchman in saying that the Lord's upper was meant to be a sacrifice, and that Christ's body and blood are present under the forms of bread and wine? Once more I reply, most certainly not. Not once is the word altar to be found in the prayer book. Not once is the Lord's upper called a sacrifice. Throughout the communion service the one idea of the ordinance continually pressed on our attention is that of remembrance of Christ's death. As to any presence of Christ's natural body and blood under the forms of bread and wine, the rubric at the end of the service gives the most flat and distinct contradiction to the idea. That rubric expressly asserts that the natural body and blood of Christ are in heaven and not here. Those many churchmen, so-called, who delight in talking of the altar, the sacrifice, the priest, and the real presence in the Lord's upper would do well to remember that they are using language which is entirely unused by the Church of England. The point before us is one of vast importance. Let us lay hold upon it firmly and never let it go. It is the very point on which our reformers had their sharpest controversy with the Romanist, and went to the stake rather than give way. Sooner than admit that the Lord's upper was a sacrifice, they cheerfully laid down their lives. To bring back the doctrine of the real presence and to turn the good old English communion into the Romish mass is to pour contempt on our martyrs and to upset the first principles of the Protestant Reformation. Nay, rather, it is to ignore the plain teaching of God's Word and to dishonor to the priestly office of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches expressly that the Lord's upper was ordained to be a remembrance of Christ's body and blood, and not an offering. The Bible teaches that Christ's vicarious death on the cross was the one perfect sacrifice for sin, which never needs to be repeated. Let us stand fast in these two great principles of the Christian faith. A clear view of the intention of the Lord's upper is one of the soul's best safeguards against the delusions of modern days. 2. In the second place, let me try to show who ought to be communicants. What kind of persons were meant to go to the table and receive the Lord's upper? It will clear the ground if I first show who ought not to be partakers of this ordinance. The ignorance which prevails on this as well as on every part of the subject is vast, lamentable, and appalling. If I can contribute anything that may throw light upon it, I shall feel very thankful. The principal giants whom John Bunyan describes in Pilgrim's Progress as dangerous to Christian Pilgrims were two, Pope and Pagan. If the good old Puritan had foreseen the times we live in, he would have said something about the giant ignorance. A. It is not right to urge all baptized persons to become communicants. There is such a thing as fitness and preparedness for the ordinance. It does not work like a medicine independently of the state of mind of those who receive it. The teaching of those who press all their congregation to come to the Lord's table, as if the coming must necessarily do everyone good, is entirely without warrant of scripture. Nay, rather, it is teaching which is calculated to do immense harm to men's souls and to turn the reception of the sacrament into a mere form. This can never be the mother of acceptable worship, and an ignorant communicant who comes to the Lord's table without knowing why he comes is altogether in the wrong place. Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, to discern the Lord's body, that is to understand what the elements of bread and wine represent, and why they are appointed. And what is the particular use of remembering Christ's death? Is an essential qualification of a true communicant. God commands all men everywhere to repent, and believe the Gospel. Acts 1730. But he does not in the same way, or in the same manner, command everybody to come to the Lord's table. No. This thing is not to be taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or carelessly. It is a solemn ordinance, and solemnly it ought to be used. B. But this is not all. Sinners living in open sin, and determined not to give it up, ought on no account to come to the Lord's table. To do so is a positive insult to Christ, and to pour contempt on his Gospel. It is nonsense to profess we desire to remember Christ's death while we cling to the accursed thing which made it needful for Christ to die. The mere fact that a man is continuing in sin is plain evidence that he does not care for Christ, and feels no gratitude for redemption. The ignorant papist who goes to the priest's confessional, and receives absolution, may think he is fit to go to the Popish Mass, and after Mass may return to his sins. He never reads the Bible, and knows no better. But the Englishman who habitually breaks any of God's commandments, and yet goes to the sacrament, as if it would do him good, and wipe away his sins, is very guilty indeed. So long as he chooses to continue his wicked habits, he cannot receive the slightest benefit from Christ's ordinances, and is only adding sin to sin. To carry unrepentant sin up to the communion rail, and there receive the bread and wine knowing in our hearts, that we and wickedness are yet friends, is one of the worst things a man can do, and one of the most hardening to conscience. If a man must have his sins, and cannot give them up, let him by all means stay away from the Lord's upper. There is such a thing as eating, and drinking unworthily, and to our own condemnation. To no one do these words apply so thoroughly as to an open center. See, but I have not done yet. Self-righteous people, who think that they are to be saved by their own works, have no business to come to the Lord's table. Strains as it may sound, at first, these persons are the least qualified of all to receive the sacrament. They may be outwardly correct, moral, and respectable in their lives, but so long as they trust in their own goodness for salvation, they are entirely in the wrong place at the Lord's upper. For what do we declare at the Lord's upper? We publicly profess that we have no goodness, righteousness, or worthiness of our own, and that all our hope is in Christ. We publicly profess that we are guilty, sinful, and corrupt, and naturally deserve God's wrath and condemnation. We publicly profess that Christ's merit, and not ours, Christ's righteousness, and not ours, is the alone cause while we look for acceptance with God. Now what has a self-righteous man to do with an ordinance like this? Clearly nothing at all. One thing, at any rate, is very plain. A self-righteous man has no business to receive the sacrament in the Church of England. The communion service of the Church bids all communicants declare that they do not presume to come to the table trusting in their own righteousness, but in God's manifold and great mercies. It tells them to say, We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table. The remembrance of our sins is so grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable. How any self-righteous churchman can ever go to the Lord's table, and take these words into his mouth, passes my understanding. It only shows that many professing Christians use excellent forms of worship without taking the trouble to consider what they mean. The plain truth is that the Lord's upper was not meant for dead souls, but for living ones. The careless, the ignorant, the willfully wicked, the self-righteous are no more fit to come to the communion rail, than a dead corpse is fit to sit down at a king's feast. To enjoy a spiritual feast we must have a spiritual heart and taste and appetite. To suppose that Christ's ordinances can do good to an unspiritual man is as foolish as to put bread and wine into the mouth of a dead person, the careless, the ignorant and the willfully wicked, so long as they continue in that state, are utterly unfit to be communicants. To urge them to attend is not to do them good, but harm. The Lord's upper is not a converting or justifying ordinance. If a man goes to the table unconverted or unforgiven, he will come away no better at all. After all, the ground having been cleared of error, the question still remains to be answered. Who are the sort of persons who ought to be communicants? I answer that question in the words of the church catechism. I, there, find the inquiry made. What is required of them who come to the Lord's upper? In reply I find it taught that people should examine themselves whether they repent them truly of their former sins, steadfastly proposing to lead a new life, whether they have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ with the thankful remembrance of His death, and whether they are in charity with all men. In a word I find that a worthy communicant is one who possesses three simple marks and qualifications—repentance, faith, and charity. Does a man truly repent of sin and hate it? Does a man put his trust in Jesus Christ as his only hope of salvation? Does a man live in charity towards others? He that can truly say to each of these questions, I do. He is a man that is scripturally qualified for the Lord's upper. Let him come boldly. Let no barrier be put in his way. He comes up to the Bible's standard of communicants. He may draw near with confidence, and feel assured that the great master of the banquet is not displeased. Such a man's repentance may be very imperfect. Never mind. Is it real? Does he truly repent at all? His faith in Christ may be very weak. Never mind. Is it real? A penny is as truly the current coin of the realm, and as really stamped, with the Queen's image as a sovereign. His charity may be very defective in quantity and greed. Never mind. Is it genuine? The grand test of a man's Christianity is not the quantity of grace he's got, but whether he has any grace at all. The first twelve communicants, when Christ himself gave the bread and wine, were weak indeed. Weak in knowledge, weak in faith, weak in courage, weak in patience, weak in love. But eleven of them had that about them which outweighed all defects. They were real, genuine, sincere and true. Forever let this great principle be rooted in our minds. The only worthy communicant is the man who is experimentally acquainted with repentance toward God. Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, and practical love toward others. Are you that man? Then you may draw near to the table, and take the sacrament to your comfort. Lower than this I dare not pitch my standard of a communicant. I will never help to crowd a communion rail with careless, ignorant, self-righteous attendants. Higher than this I will not pitch my standard. I will never tell anyone to keep away till he is perfect, and to wait till his heart is as unruffled as an angel's. I will not do so, because I believe that neither my master nor his apostles would have done so. Tell me a man that really feels his sins, really leans on Christ, really struggles to be holy, and I will bid him welcome in my master's name. He may feel weak, airing, empty, feeble, doubting, wretched, and poor. What matter? St. Paul, I believe, would have received him as a right communicant, and I will do likewise. 3. In the third place, let us consider what benefit communicants may expect to get by going to the table and attending the Lord's Supper. This is a point of grave importance, and one on which vast mistakes abound. On no point, perhaps, connected with this ordinance, are the views of Christians so vague and misty and undefined. One common idea among men is that taking the sacrament must do them good. Why they cannot explain? What good they cannot exactly say. But they have a loose general notion that it is the right thing to be a communicant, and that somehow or other it is of service to their souls. This is, of course, nothing better than ignorance. It is unreasonable to suppose that such communicants can please Christ, or receive any real benefit from what they do. If there is any principle clearly laid down in the Bible about any act of religious worship it is this, that it must be intelligent. The worshipper must at least understand something about what he is doing. Mere bodily worship, unaccompanied by mind or heart, is utterly worthless. The man he walks up to a communion-rail and eats the bread and drinks the wine is a mere matter of form, because his minister tells him, without any clear idea of what it means, drives no benefit. He might just as well stay at home. Another common idea among men is that taking the sacrament will help them get to heaven and take away their sins. To this delusive idea you may trace up the habit in some parishes of going to the sacrament once a year, in order, as an old farmer once said, to wipe off the year's sins. To this idea again you may trace the two common practice of sending for a minister in time of sickness in order to receive the sacrament before death. Alas, how many take comfort about their relatives after they have lived the most ungodly life for no better reason than this, that they took the sacrament when they were dying. Whether they repented and believed and had new hearts, they neither seemed to know or care. All they know is that they took the sacrament before they died. My heart sinks within me when I hear people resting on such evidence as this. Ideas like these are mournful proofs of the ignorance that fills the minds of men about the Lord's Supper. They are ideas for which there is not the slightest warrant, either in scripture or the prayer-book. The sooner they are cast aside and given up, the better for the church and the world. Let us settle it firmly in our minds, that the Lord's Supper was not given to be a means either of justification or of conversion. It was never meant to give grace where there is no grace already, or to provide pardon when pardon is not already enjoyed. It cannot possibly supply the absence of repentance to God and faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an ordinance for the penitent, not for the impenitent, for the believing, not for the unbelieving, for the converted, not for the unconverted. The unconverted man, who fancies that he can find a shortcut road to heaven by taking the sacrament, without treading the well-worn steps of repentance and faith, will find to his cost one day that he is totally deceived. The Lord's Supper was meant to increase and help the grace that a man has, but not to impart the grace that he has not. It was certainly never intended to make our peace with God to justify or to convert. The simplest statement of the benefit, which a true hearted communicant may expect to receive from the Lord's Supper, is that which is supplied by the church catechism, the strengthening and refreshing of our souls. Clearer views of Christ and His atonement, clearer views of all the offices which Christ fills as our mediator and advocate, clearer views of the complete redemption of Christ, has obtained for us by His vicarious death on the cross, clearer views of our full and perfect acceptance in Christ before God, fresh reasons for deeper penance for sin, fresh reasons for lively faith. These are among the leading returns which a believer may confidently expect to get from his attendance at the Lord's table. He that eats the bread and drinks the wine in a right spirit, will find himself drawn into closer communing with Christ, and will feel to know Him more and understand Him better. A. Right reception of the Lord's Supper has a humbling effect on the soul. The side of these emblems of Christ's body and blood reminds us how sinful sin must be. If anything less than the death of God's own Son could make satisfaction for it or redeem us from its guilt. Never surely ought we to be so clothed with humility as when we kneel at the communion rail. B. Right reception of the Lord's Supper has a cheering effect on the soul. The side of the bread broken and the wine poured out reminds us how fool, perfect and complete is our salvation. Those lively emblems remind us what an enormous price has been paid for our redemption. They press on us the mighty truth that believing on Christ we have nothing to fear, because a sufficient payment has been made for our debt. The precious blood of Christ answers every charge that can be brought against us. God can be a just God and yet the justifier of everyone that believes on Jesus. C. Right reception of the Lord's Supper has a sanctifying effect on the soul. The bread and wine remind us how great is our debt of gratitude to our Lord and how thoroughly we are bound to live for Him who died for our sins. They seem to say to us, remember what Christ has done for you and ask yourself whether there is anything too great to do for Him. D. Right reception of the Lord's Supper into hearts has a restraining effect on the soul. Every time a believer goes up to the communion rail he is reminded what a serious thing it is to be a Christian and what an obligation is laid on him to lead a consistent life. But with such a price as that bread and wine called to his recollection, ought he not to glorify Christ and body and spirit, which are his? The man that goes regularly and intelligently to the Lord's Table finds it increasingly hard to yield to sin and conform to the world, such as a brief account of the benefits which a right-hearted communicant may expect to receive from the Lord's Supper. In eating that bread and drinking that cup, such a man will have his repentance deepened, his faith increased, his knowledge enlarged, his habit of holy living strengthened. He will realize more of the real presence of Christ in his heart. Eating that bread by faith he will feel closer communion with the body of Christ. Drinking that wine by faith he will feel closer communion with the blood of Christ. He will see more clearly what Christ is to him and what he is to Christ. He will understand more thoroughly what it is to be one with Christ and Christ one with him. He will feel the roots of his soul's spiritual life watered and the work of grace in his heart established, built up and carried forward. All these things may seem and sound bullishness to a natural man, but to a true Christian these things are light and health and life and peace. No wonder that a true Christian finds the Lord's Supper a source of blessing. Remember, I do not pretend to say that all Christians experience the full blessing of the Lord's Supper, which I have just attempted to describe. Nor yet do I say that the same believer will always find his soul in the same spiritual frame and always receive the same amount of benefit from the sacrament. But this I will boldly say. You will rarely find a true believer who will not say that he reckons the Lord's Supper one of his best, helps and highest privileges. He will tell you that if you were deprived of the Lord's Supper he should find the loss of it a great drawback to his soul. There are some things of which we never know the value till they are taken from us. So I believe it is with the Lord's Supper. The weakest and humblest of God's children gets a blessing from this sacrament, to an extent of which he is not aware, for, in the last place, I have to consider why it is that many so-called Christians never come to the Lord's Supper. It is a simple matter of fact that myriads and myriads of baptized persons never come to the table of the Lord. They would not endure to be told that they deny the faith and are practically not in communion with Christ. When they worship they attend a place of Christian worship. When they hear a religious teaching it is the teaching of Christianity. When they are married they use a Christian service. When their children are baptized they ask for the sacrament of baptism. Yet all this time they never come to the Lord's Supper. They often live on in this state of mind for many years, and to all appearance are not ashamed. They often die in this condition without ever having received the sacrament, and yet profess to feel hope at the last, and their friends express a hope about them, and yet they live and die in open disobedience to a plain command of Christ. These are simple facts. Let anyone look around him and deny them if he can. I challenge anyone to deny that the non-communicants in all English congregations form the majority and the communicants the minority of the worshipers. Now how is this? What account can we give of it? Our Lord Jesus Christ's last injunctions to his disciples are a clear, plain and unmistakable. He says to all, eat, drink. Do this in remembrance of me. Did he leave it to our discretion whether we would attend to his injunction or not? Did he mean that it did not signify whether his disciples did or did not keep up the ordinance he had just established? Certainly not. The very idea is absurd, and one certainly never dreamed of it in apostolic times. Saint Paul evidently takes it for granted that every Christian is a communicant. A class of Christian worshipers who never came to the table was a class whose existence was unknown to him. What, then, are we to say to that large multitude of non-communicants which walks out of our churches every sacrament Sunday, unabashed, unhumbled, not afraid, not the least ashamed? Why is it? How is it? What does it all mean? Let us look these questions fairly in the face and endeavor to give an answer to them. One, for one thing, many are not communicants because they are utterly careless and thoughtless about religion and ignorant of the very first principles of Christianity. They go to church as a matter of form because of the people go, but they neither know nor care anything about what is done at church. The faith of Christ has no place either in their hearts, or heads, or consciences, or wills, or understandings. It is a mere affair of words and names about which they know no more than Festus or Galio. There were very few such Christians in St. Paul's times. If indeed there were any, there are far too many in these last days of the world when everything seems to be wearing out and running to seed. They are the dead weight of the churches and the scandal of Christianity. Such people need as light, knowledge, grace, a renewed conscience, a changed heart. In their present state they have no part or lot in Christ, and dying in this state they are unfit for heaven. Do I wish them to come to the Lord's Supper? Certainly not, till they are converted. Except a man be converted he will never enter the kingdom of God. Two. For another thing. Many are not communicants because they know they are living in the habitual practice of some sin, or in the habitual neglect of some Christian duty. Their conscience tells them that so long as they live in this state, and do not break off from their sins they are unfit to come to the table of the Lord. Well, they are so far quite right. I wish no man to be a communicant if he cannot give up his sins. But I warn these people not to forget that if they are unfit for the Lord's Supper they are unfit to die, and that if they die in their present condition they will be lost eternally. The same sins which disqualify them for the sacrament will certainly disqualify them for heaven. Do I want them to come to the Lord's Supper as they are? Certainly not. But I do want them to repent and be converted, to cease to do evil and to break off from their sins. Forever let it be remembered that the man unfit for the Lord's Supper is unfit to die. For another thing. Some are not communicants because they fancy it will add to their responsibility. They are not as many ignorant and careless about religion. They even attend regularly on the means of grace and like the preaching of the Gospel. But they say they dread coming forward and making a profession. They fear that they might afterwards fall away and bring scandal on the cause of Christianity. They think it wisest to be on the safe side and not commit themselves at all. Such people would do well to remember that if they avoid responsibility of one kind by not coming to the Lord's table they incur responsibility of another kind quite as grave and quite as injurious to the soul. They are responsible for open disobedience to a command of Christ. They are shrinking from doing that which their master continually enjoins on his disciples from confessing him before men. No doubt it is a serious step to come forward and receive the sacrament. It is a step that none should take lightly and without self-examination. But it is no less a serious step to walk away and refuse the ordinance. When we remember who invites us to receive it and for what purpose it was appointed. I warn the people I am now dealing with to take heed what they are doing. Let them not flatter themselves that it can ever be a wise, a prudent, a safe line of conduct to neglect the plain command of Christ. They may find at length to their cost that they have only increased their guilt and forsaken their mercies. For another thing some are not communicants because they fancy they are not yet worthy. They wait and stand still under the mistaken notion that no one is qualified for the Lord's supper unless he feels within him something like perfection. They pitch their idea of a communicant so high that they despair of attaining to it, waiting for inward perfection they live, and waiting for it too often they die. Now such persons would do well to understand that they are completely mistaken in their estimate of what worthiness really is. They are forgetting that the Lord's supper was not intended for unsinning angels but for men and women compassed with infirmity, dwelling in a world full of temptations and needing mercy and grace every day they live. A sense of our own utter unworthiness is the best worthiness we can bring to the communion rail. A deep feeling of our own entire indebtedness to Christ for all we have and hope for is the best feeling we can bring with us. The people I now have in view ought to consider seriously whether the ground they have taken up is tenable and whether they are not standing in their own light. If they are waiting till they feel in themselves perfect hearts, perfect motives, perfect feelings, perfect repentance, perfect love, perfect faith, they will wait for ever. There never were such communicants in any age, certainly not in the days of our Lord and of the Apostles. There never will be as long as the world stands. Nay, rather, the very thought that we feel literally worthy is a symptom of secret self-righteousness and proves us unfit for communion in God's sight. Sinners we are when we first come to the throne of grace, sinners we shall be till we die, converted, changed, renewed, sanctified, but sinners still. In short, no man is a really worthy communicant who does not deeply feel that he is a miserable sinner. Five, in the last place, some object to be communicants because they see others coming to the Lord's table who are not worthy and not in a right state of mind. Because others eat and drink unworthily, they refuse to eat and drink at all. Of all the grounds taken up by noncommunicants to justify their own neglect of Christ's ordinance, I must plainly say, I know none which seems to me so foolish, so weak, so unreasonable, and so unscriptural as this. It is as good as saying that we will never receive the Lord's supper at all. When shall we ever find a body of communicants on earth of which all the members are converted? It is setting up ourselves in the most unhealthy attitude of judging others. Who art thou that judgest another? What is that to thee? Follow thou me. It is depriving ourselves of a great privilege merely because others profane it and make a bad use of it. It is pretending to be wiser than our master himself. If the words of St. Luke mean anything, Judas Iscariot was present at the First Communion and received the bread and wine among others. It is taking up ground for which there is no warrant in Scripture. St. Paul rebukes the Corinthians sharply for the irreverent behavior of some of the But I cannot find him giving a single hint that when some came to the table unworthily, others ought to draw back or stay away. Let me advise the non-communicants I have now in view to beware of being wise above that which was written. Let them study the parable of the wheat and tares and mark how both were to grow together till the harvest. Matthew 1330 Let us covet the best gifts and do all we can to check sin in others, but let us not starve our own selves because others are ignorant sinners, and turn their meat into poison. If others are foolish enough to eat and drink unworthily, let us not turn our backs on Christ's ordinance and refuse to eat and drink at all. Such are the five common excuses why myriads in the present day, though professing themselves Christians, never come to the Lord's upper. One common remark may be made about them. There is not a single reason among the five which deserves to be called good, and which does not condemn the man who gives it. I challenge anyone to deny this. I have said repeatedly that I want no one to be a communicant who is not properly qualified, but I ask those who stay away never to forget that the very reasons they assign for their conduct are their condemnation. I tell them that they stand convicted before God of either being very ignorant of what a communicant is, and what the Lord's upper is, or else of being persons who are not living rightly and are unfit to die. In short, to say, I am a non-communicant is as good as saying one of three things. I am living in sin and cannot come. I know Christ commands me, but I will not obey him. I am an ignorant man, and do not understand what the Lord's upper means. I know not in what state of mind this book may find the reader of this paper, or what his opinions may be about the Lord's upper, but I will conclude the whole subject by offering to all some warnings, which I venture to think are peculiarly required by the times. 1. In the first place, do not neglect the Lord's upper. The man who cruelly and deliberately refuses to use an ordinance which the Lord Jesus Christ appointed for his prophet may be very sure that his soul is in a very wrong state. There is a judgment yet to come. There is an account to be rendered of all our conduct on earth. How anyone can look forward to that day and expect to meet Christ with comfort and in peace if he has refused all his life to meet Christ in his own ordinance is a thing that I cannot understand. Does this come home to you? Mind what you are doing. 2. In the second place, do not receive the Lord's upper carelessly, irreverently, and as a matter of form. The man who walks up to the communion rail and eats the bread and drinks the wine while his heart is far away is committing a great sin and robbing himself of a great blessing. In this, as in every other means of grace, everything depends on the state of mind in which the ordinance is used. He that draws near without repentance, faith, and love, and with a heart full of sin in the world will certainly be nothing better, but rather worse. Does this come home to you? Mind what you are about. 3. In the third place, do not make an idol of the Lord's upper. The man who tells you that it is the first, foremost, chief, and principal ordinance in Christianity is telling you that which he will find it hard to prove. 4. In the great majority of the books of the New Testament the Lord's upper is not even named. In the letter to Timothy and Titus, about a minister's duties, the subject is not even mentioned. To repent and be converted, to believe and be holy, to be born again, have grace in our hearts. All these things are of far more importance than to be a communicant. Without them we cannot be saved. Without the Lord's upper we can. The penitent thief was not a communicant, and Judas Iscarii was. Are you tempted to make the Lord's upper override and overshadow everything in Christianity and place it above prayer and preaching? Take care, mind what you are about. 4. In the fourth place, do not use the Lord's upper irregularly. Never be absent when this ordinance is administered. Make every sacrifice to be in your place. Regular habits are essential to the maintenance of the health of our bodies. Regular use of every means of grace is essential to the prosperity of our souls. The man who finds it a weariness to attend on every occasion when the Lord's table is spread. May well doubt whether all is right within him, and whether he is ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb. If Thomas had not been absent when the Lord appeared the first time to the assembled disciples, he would not have said the foolish things he did. Absence made him miss a blessing. Does this come home to you? Mind what you are about. 5. In the fifth place, do not do anything to bring discredit on your profession as a communicant. The man who after attending the Lord's table runs into sin does more harm perhaps than any sinner. He is a walking sermon on behalf of the devil. He gives occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. He helps to keep people away from Christ, lying, drinking, adulterous, dishonest, like communicants are the helpers of the devil, and the worst enemies of the gospel. Does this come home to you? Mind what you are about. 6. In the last place, do not despond and be cast down if with all your desires you do not feel to get great good from the Lord's upper. Very likely you are expecting too much. Very likely you are a poor judge of your own state. Your soul's roots may be strengthening and growing while you think you are not getting on. Very likely you are forgetting that earth is not heaven, and that here we walk by sight and not by faith, and must expect nothing perfect. Lay these things to heart. Do not write bitter things against yourself without cause. To every reader into whose hands his paper may fall, I commend the whole subject of it as deserving of serious and solemn consideration. I am nothing better than a poor, fallible man myself. But if I have made up my mind on any point it is this, that there is no truth which demands such plain speaking as truth about the Lord's upper. Note I ask the special attention of my readers to the following extracts from the last charge of the late Dr. Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury, the office held by the Archbishop, the remarkable gentleness and mildness of his character, the fact that this charge contains his last sentiments and that it was not made public till after his death. All this appears to me to invest these extracts about the Lord's upper with peculiar interest. It is far from my intention to impute to all those who have taken the ill-advised step of adopting the sacrificial vestments, in administering the Lord's upper, any sympathy with Roman error. But I am constrained to avow that there are plain indications in some of the publications which have been issued as manifestos of the opinions of that section of our church, that some of its professed members, yea, even of her ministers, think themselves at liberty to hold the doctrines of the Church of Rome in relation to the sacrifice of the Mass, and yet retain their position within the pale of the Anglican Church with the avowed purpose of eliminating from its formularies every trace of the Reformation as regards its protest against Romish error. The language they hold with respect to it is entirely incompatible with loyalty the Church of which they profess to belong. They call it a communion deeply tainted with Protestant heresy. Our duty, they say, is the expulsion of the evil, not flight from it. It is no want of charity, therefore, to declare that they remain with us in order that they may substitute the Mass for the communion. The obvious aim of our reformers have been to substitute the communion for the Mass. Doubtless the Church of England admits of considerable latitude in the views that may be taken of that most mysterious of all mysteries, the sacrament of the Lord's upper, and so long as those solemn words of its original institution, this is my body, this is my blood, shall remain in the sense of consecration, and they never can be erased from it, so long will there be varieties of interpretation of these words, all of which may be consistent with the true allegiance to our Church, provided these three conditions be observed. One, that they be not construed to signify that the natural body of Christ is present in the sacrament. Two, nor to admit of any adoration either the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received, or of any corporal presence of Christ's natural body and blood. Three, nor to justify the belief that the body and blood are again offered as a satisfaction for sin, seeing that the offering of Christ once made was a perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, original, and actual. These are the limits which our Church imposes upon the liberty of interpretation of the words of our blessed Lord. The use of these sacrificial vestments is in the minds of many intimately connected with idea that an essential element in the Holy Communion is the offering to God a sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, which abide with the elements in a mysterious manner after the act of consecration. The minister wears the vestments at that time as a sacrificing priest. According to this view, it would seem that the most important part of this holy sacrament is what we offer to God, not what we receive from him. This view is not recognized by the Church of England in her formularies. The general definition in the twenty-fifth article states that the sacraments are certain, sure, witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, by which God doth work invisibly in us. And it is said specifically of the Lord's upper article, twenty-eight, that it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death, in so much that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ. The idea of the sacrifice of that body and blood finds no place in either of these strict definitions. The catechism speaks the same language when it defines a sacrament to be an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us. Nor will an examination of the office of the Holy Communion itself give any countenance to the idea in question. The only distinct ablation or offering mentioned in that office is previous to the consecration of the elements, in the prayer for the Church militant, and therefore cannot be an offering or sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, and the only sacrifice which we are spoken of as making is the offering of ourselves, our souls, and bodies to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice. Our Church seems most studiously to have avoided any expression which could countenance the notion of a perpetual sacrifice of Christ, while on the other hand it speaks of Christ's death upon the cross as his own ablation of himself once offered as a full, sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. No room is left for the repetition of that sacrifice, or for the admission of any other sacrifice for sins. The Romish notion of a true, real, and substantial sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, as it is called in the Council of Trent, entailed the use of the term altar, but this term appears nowhere in the Book of Common Prayer, and was no doubt admitted lest any countenance should be given to this sacrificial view. The notion, therefore, of making in the material elements a perpetual offering of the body and blood of Christ is as foreign to the spirit and the letter of our service as I hold it to be to the doctrine of the early Fathers, as well as of the leading divines of our Church. This latter point also I shall endeavor to establish hereafter. Meanwhile it cannot be denied, on the other hand, that the doctrine of the real presence is, in one sense, the doctrine of the Church of England. She asserts that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's upper, and she asserts equally that such presence is not material or corporal, but that Christ's body is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. Christ's presence is effectual for all those intents and purposes for which his body was broken and his blood shed. As to a presence elsewhere than in the heart of the believer, the Church of England is silent, and the words of Hooker, therefore, represent her views. The real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not to be sought in the sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament. End of chapter 6.