Imatges de pàgina
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QUESTIONS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA ON WHICH THE CEREMONY IS FOUNDED.

Q. What do you consider to be the fundamental idea on which the ceremony of the Supper is founded?

A. It is simply doing over again, in remembrance of Christ, what he did with his disciples at that last interview which he had with them, on the evening of the day before he suffered death.

Q. What did he do at that meeting?

A. He collected them together at a parting supper-took bread and blessed it, and gave it to them, and likewise, the cup, saying, "Drink ye all of it, and this do in remembrance of me."

Q. Whom then do the parties that now partake of this ordinance represent for the time?

A. The Minister stands in the place of Him who sat down with the twelve," in that upper hall in Jerusalem, where the ceremony was first instituted; the communicants personate those twelve disciples, who were the representatives of the followers of Christ in all future ages;-and they take

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their seats around a table, as the twelve seated themselves at that Paschal table where Jesus, their blessed Lord, condescended to sit with them.

Q. What then do you consider to be the name that is most distinctive of this ceremony?

A. Its proper and most characteristic name is undoubtedly the Lord's Supper, or the Last Supper.

Q. What other names have occasionally been given to it?

A. It has been called the Eucharist, from a Greek word signifying to give thanks,-both because Christ gave thanks before he distributed the elements, and because it is in its very nature a ceremony of holy gratitude or thanksgiving for divine love and redeeming mercy.

Q. Has it received any other name?

A. It has received several ;-particularly it has been often called the Communion,-both because those who come to it hold fellowship with Christ and with each other in this truly Christian service, -and probably, also, because they partake of elements which shadow forth the broken body and

shed blood of the Redeemer.

Hence they are

called Communicants.

Q. Is there any thing objectionable in these names?

A. There is nothing objectionable in the names themselves;—they only, however, point out some accessory ideas that belong to the service, and do not suggest that fundamental and distinctive idea on which the ceremony is founded. The Lord's Supper, or The Last Supper, is the name that answers this purpose better than any other. Q. Why is it important that this name should be chiefly used?

A. Because men have shown themselves peculiarly prone to lose sight of the simple, but truly beautiful idea on which the service is founded ;and because a name has more effect in preserving this idea than is commonly supposed.

Q. Ought not the same purpose to direct us in the form which we observe while partaking of the solemnity?

A. Certainly; the service being a repetition of the Last Supper, this idea is not preserved when

we partake of it, either kneeling at an altar, or in any other form in which it may have been celebrated, except that in which the communicants meet around a table, as the original disciples sat down with their Lord, to partake with him of "his last supper."

Q. Do you consider, then, that the ceremony is in any degree vitiated, or conducted in an unacceptable manner, when it is not partaken of as a supper?

A. I am of opinion that the service may be partaken of, and has been partaken of acceptably in all the forms in which it has been celebrated, provided it has been done by truly pious minds, and in thankful remembrance of the benefits which mankind have received from the death of Christ. But I also think, that the beauty of the service is in danger of being overlooked,-or, at least, its appropriate character is apt to vanish, unless the minds of the communicants are strongly recalled to it, by the expressive form of the service itself, -and by its tendency to suggest that original ceremony which Jesus held with his friends, as his parting interview with them, on the night in which he was betrayed.

And surely in regard to so very solemn and important a service, every thing ought to be so arranged, as may best accommodate the ceremony to the form of its original institution.

Q. Have not feasts sacred to the memory of departed worth been usual among men ?

A. Yes; and we learn from ancient writers that, among the enlightened nations of antiquity, such feasts were especially appropriated to the remembrance of those who had taught wisdom,—and founded sects, and who had acquired a high place in the esteem of their followers.

Q. Are there any circumstances, then, that seem to give this Christian solemnity a character peculiar to itself, and which ought to render it especially interesting to the hearts of those who celebrate it?

A. There seem to me to be two circumstances of this kind:

First, It is not merely a feast in honour of him whom we honour, as the founder of the Christian faith, it is a repetition of a corresponding ceremony which he himself held with his personal fol

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