Read Ebook: Some Essentials of Religion by Bidwell Edward John Contributor Cody John Henry Contributor Doull Alexander John Contributor Little Henry M Contributor Owen Derwyn Trevor Contributor Roper John Charles Contributor Smyth J Paterson John Paterson Contributor

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THE CENTRAL RITE OF DISCIPLESHIP.

Secondly, we believe that from the days of the Apostles down to the present time the Holy Communion has ever been regarded as the distinctive act of Christian Worship and the highest means of Christian grace. It is impossible to go into the proof of this statement here but it can easily be verified by those ready and desirous to investigate. From the very earliest times of the Apostles, when on the first day of the week the disciples met together for the breaking of the bread, down to the present time Christians have ever regarded the Holy Communion as the Central rite of discipleship, the Sacrament or bond of comradeship between Jesus and His people, between Christ the Lord and those who are members of the Church which is His Body.

THE REAL SPIRITUAL PRESENCE.

Thirdly, we believe in the fact of Christ's presence with us in the Holy Communion. Regarding the fact there is unity of belief amongst all Anglicans, I might go further and say amongst all Christian people. It is only when men proceed to define the mode that differences arise.

Some would regard his presence as due to a Sacramental change in the elements, or to a new relationship established between the elements and the Body and Blood of Christ. Others prefer to connect it with His promise, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them," and to lay stress upon the fact that if ever there be an occasion when two or three are gathered together in Christ's name it is when in obedience to His Command they assemble to break the bread and bless the cup.

This fact of the real spiritual presence of Christ in the Holy Communion has ever been the belief of the Church Catholic and of the Anglican Church as a part thereof. Bishop Andrewes in the seventeenth century, writing in reply to Roman Controversalists, at a time when the Church in England had at length settled down after the upheaval and conflict of the Reformation period, asserted the belief of the Anglican Church as to the fact but also her refusal to dogmatize as to the mode of the Saviour's presence. "The Presence we believe no less truly than you to be real. Concerning the mode of the Presence, we define nothing rashly, nor, I add, do we curiously enquire."

True to the teaching and to the Spirit of the early Church the Church of England devoutly accepts her Lord's words, neither attempting to explain them or to explain them away, but leaving them where He has left them a holy mystery not requiring and therefore not receiving definition. Not as attempting to define, but as a safeguard against errors which have at various times been prominent in the Church, representative writers of the Anglican Communion have been accustomed to speak of Our Lord's presence as being at once real and spiritual. To understand the full significance of this language it is necessary that we dismiss forever from our minds the idea that there is any opposition between that which is real and that which is spiritual. On the contrary, we must grasp the fact, which all are coming to recognize more and more, that the spiritual is the real, and the real is the spiritual. I do not think that it would be possible to have this truth concerning the Sacramental Presence of Our Lord expressed more clearly, more beautifully, or more truly than it has been by Dr. Hall, the present Bishop of Vermont, who says that "Christ's presence in the Baptized is as real as His presence in the Eucharist, His presence in the Eucharist as spiritual as His presence in the Baptized". Moreover, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist cannot be said to differ in kind or in degree from His presence in and with His people at other times and in other Sacramental ordinances, but it does differ in purpose.

Our Lord is present with us in the Eucharist for certain very definite and specific purposes and we must now proceed to enquire what those purposes are. We shall be on safe ground if we say that Our Lord as the great Head is present with the members of the Church which is His Body to do those things which He did or commanded to be done at the last supper.

Why then did Our Lord at the Last Supper institute and ordain the Sacrament of the Holy Communion and command it to be celebrated and observed by His Church until His coming again?

THE CONTINUAL REMEMBRANCE.

It was ordained for the continual remembrance of the Sacrifice of the death of Christ, a commemoration of Our Saviour's meritorious Cross and Passion. This commemoration is made before God, before ourselves, before the world.

It is a commemoration of the Saviour's death before God. The whole service of Holy Communion as celebrated in the Church of England, with the exception of certain exhortations and invitations, consists of prayers addressed, as all prayer must be, to God. The most important of these prayers is the one which we call the prayer of consecration.

In this prayer the Celebrant, as the commissioned leader and mouthpiece of the Congregation, commemorates before God that which Our Lord did in the upper room as the Passover feast on the same night in which He was betrayed.

Before God in this prayer commemoration is made of His gift of His only begotten Son to suffer death for our redemption, before God commemoration is made of that which Christ did for us upon the Cross, before God the institution of this Sacrament of perpetual memory is recalled, before God the very acts and words of Our Saviour Christ in instituting and ordaining this Holy Sacrament are solemnly rehearsed and enacted. It is impossible for any Priest of the Church of England to celebrate the Holy Communion, or for any member of the Church of England to take part in the celebration of this Holy Sacrament, without making before God the most solemn commemoration of the death of Christ and His all sufficient Sacrifice which it is possible for the mind of man to conceive. And in so doing we are at one with the Historic Churches in all ages. If it be objected that God needs no such reminding of what Christ did, then the objection is equally valid against all mention of Christ's holy name in prayer as the ground and basis whereby we trust such prayer will be accepted and answered by God. The commemoration before God in the Eucharist is but the doing in act by the whole body of the faithful of that which each individual Christian does when he says, at the close of his prayers, "Grant this for Jesus Christ's sake," or, "through the merits of Christ Jesus Thy Son Our Lord."

And now, O Father, mindful of the Love That bought us, once for all, on Calvary's Tree, And having with us Him that pleads above We here present, we here spread forth to Thee That only offering perfect in Thine eyes The one true pure, immortal Sacrifice.

Look, Father, look on His anointed face And only look on us as found in Him Look not on our misusings of Thy grace, Our prayer so languid, and our faith so dim For lo! between our sins and their reward We set the Passion of Thy Son Our Lord.

Our Blessed Lord is therefore present as the Head of the Church which is His Body, as the great High Priest to enable us in union with Him to plead His Sacrifice, which is the sole ground of our approach to and acceptance with God. In that which has been called the Companion hymn to Dr. Bright's, part of which I have quoted just above, the Saintly Bishop Bickersteth expressed the same great truth from his standpoint as an Evangelical Churchman.

O Holy Father, who in tender love Didst give Thine only Son for us to die, The while He pleads at Thy right hand above We in One Spirit now with faith draw nigh, And, as we eat this Bread and drink this Wine, Plead His once offered Sacrifice Divine.

But not only is the commemoration of the Lord's death made before God, it is also made before and amongst ourselves. The breaking of the Bread, the blessing of the Cup with the use of Our Saviour's words do remind us in the most solemn manner of the cost of our redemption and the great love wherewith He loved us and gave Himself for us.

The more we ponder God's amazing love in Redemption, the more wonderful does it appear and the deeper and more ardent becomes our love whereby we love Him who first loved us.

Perhaps the chiefest essential in the Christian life is that we should have a living faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death, and nothing helps us to secure this essential so much as the due and devout observance of the Lord's Supper ordained by Our Blessed Master Himself in the same night in which He was betrayed and on the very eve of His tremendous death and Sacrifice.

There is a third aspect of the commemoration which must not be overlooked. The Eucharist is a means of proclaiming or preaching the Lord's death before the world until His coming again. "For as often as ye eat this bread and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till He come" . There is not space at my disposal to do more than merely call attention to the evidential value of the Holy Eucharist to the truth of Christianity and to the Gospel history. But its constant celebration week by week is a fact, a fact which even the world must take note of, a fact which proclaims as no other institution of religion does that Jesus died and rose again. And He, Who has promised to be present where two or three are gathered together in His Name, He, Who has pledged His presence to His Church in the proclamation of the Gospel, is ever mindful of His promise when His followers meet together at His table, and amongst themselves and before the world proclaim and herald the death of Him Who died to be the Saviour of all mankind.

THE SPIRITUAL FOOD OF HIS BODY AND BLOOD.

Realizing that we are moving in the realm of the Spiritual and meditating upon the words of the Incarnate God, the very truth who can neither deceive or be deceived, we will not ask with the unbelieving Jews how can this man give us his flesh to eat, we will leave all questions as to the manner how where Christ Himself has left them, and with a most thankful heart will make the words of Hooker, the great Elizabethan Divine, our own, "What these elements are in themselves it skilleth not, it is enough that to me which take them they are the body and blood of Christ, His promise in witness hereof sufficeth, His word He knoweth which way to accomplish; why should any cogitation possess the mind of a faithful Communicant but this, O My God thou art true, O My Soul, thou art happy."

THE REASONABLE, HOLY AND LIVING SACRIFICE OF DISCIPLESHIP.

The present era in the history of the Church and the world is one which calls for great power if Christ is to be brought to a distracted disorganized sin-laden, sin-weary world,--and if the world is to be brought to Christ its one and only possible helper and Saviour, its Saviour from present and future evils in the age that now is as well as in the ages to come. That power is in Christ and is made over to His followers when in simple faith they come to Him in a receptive attitude and with the determination to use it. The fundamental importance of the Holy Communion is, that it stands forth preeminently as the principal channel through which this power is bestowed.

May all those who bear His name and desire to do Him service realize what an inexhaustible treasury of Divine strength and power the Master has provided for us in this Sacrament of His Love. Just a few words in conclusion as to our use of it.

It is food, therefore, it must be received frequently and with regularity. It is food, therefore it presupposes life and at least a degree of health in those who take it. A corpse cannot receive food, the sick have no desire for it. The Holy Communion is for those who are Baptized and have received the life of the Risen Lord. It is for those who have been forgiven and who long to show their gratitude by becoming strong through the assimilation of Christ the Bread of Life to do Him service and perform His will.

It is food, therefore not a Spiritual luxury for good people, but the ordinary necessary food for us all, poor weak pardoned sinners, God's Children reconciled in Christ, who are trying to become good and to love Him who first loved us.

The realization of our own nothingness and the all sufficiency of Christ is the condition of heart and soul requisite for a good Communion. Repentance for the fact that it should be so with us, faith that He will supply all our needs, because He alone can and because He so wills, is the attitude of those who would really know what this Sacrament was meant to be and can be to those who come to Him "as sick to the Physician of Life, as unclean to the Fountain of Mercy, as blind to the Light of Eternal Splendour, as needy to the Lord of Heaven and earth, as naked to the King of Glory, as lost sheep to the Good Shepherd, as fallen creatures to their Creator, as desolate to the kind Comforter, as miserable to the Pitier, as guilty to the Bestower of pardon, as sinful to the Justifier, as hardened to the Infuser of Grace."

IMMORTALITY

IF A MAN DIE SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN?

The question will not rest, because death will not let us alone. As long as death breaks into our family circles, the problem will recur. Death came with his legions during the War and compelled a fresh answer to his challenge. No one who can think or feel is able to look unmoved on the face of death: he must ask "Shall he live again?"

It is passing strange that this should remain to any degree an open question. Why have not men reached a decisive answer? As a matter of fact, the history of nations and religions shows that man's tendency is to answer "Yes, he will live again." The natural inclination of man everywhere is to believe, not in his extinction, but in his survival.

WHAT HISTORY SAYS.

WHAT PHILOSOPHY SAYS.

"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust, Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die; And Thou hast made him, Thou are just."

A just Creator will not place instinctive longings in His Creature's soul, only to betray them.

Not so can things be ordained in a world of order. The poets are the prophets of the heart; and all the great poets teach immortality.

WHAT SCIENCE SAYS.

The evolutionist has made men think in immensities and has given prime importance to the idea of development. But a creature like man who is alleged to be the product of ages of development is surely not going to be extinguished at the tomb. Darwin himself wrote: "It is an intolerable thought that men and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress."

What candles, then, does Science light up for us?

If this belief has survived when quickened by the most awful imaginable strain of the Great War may we not conclude that it is one of those beliefs fit to live, one of those beliefs which the Creator desires to live and grow?

So far is Science from giving demonstrative evidence against immortality that it actually presents some considerations in its favour. The reasonableness and the beneficence of creation protest against the extinction of men by death.

WHAT CHRIST SAYS.

HOW HAS HE DONE THIS?

The Christian faith is sufficient to give us certainty and comfort concerning our departed. We are assured that the blessed dead are in His safe keeping and through Him we are one with them in a union which will one day be consummated in everlasting reunion and communion. Our Christian watchwords are enough--"love in absence, trust in silence, faith in reunion."

The rising life is the present demonstration of the risen life. All low, worldly, unspiritual living tends to doubt in it. If we would escape from doubt about the future, let us through the Living Christ make life larger now. If we would overcome weakening uncertainty, let us daily practice immortality. If we set our affections on things above, our rising life will assure us that we shall live forever. One of Gladstone's great exhortations was: "Be inspired with the belief that life is a great and noble calling; not a mean and grovelling thing, that we are to shuffle through as we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny." This belief is created and can be maintained only by viewing life in relation to God and immortality.

"In the midst of life we are in death" such is the cry of bereaved and dying humanity. But in Christ we are able to say: "in the midst of death, we are in life." "God has given us eternal life, and that life is in His Son." Can death touch that life? Never.

T. H. BEST PRINTING CO. LIMITED, TORONTO

THE LAYMAN'S LIBRARY OF PRACTICAL RELIGION

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