a wish to find the words of our Lord, "this bread is my body, and this cup is my blood," capable of a strictly literal interpretation,—though they were evidently but a figurative shadowing out of things spiritual and removed from the bodily view, by means of objects that were actually before the eyes of the communicants.

The whole ceremony, then, both in the fundamental idea on which it is founded as a repetition of "our Lord's last supper," and as a partaking of the "consecrated symbols of bread and wine,” is thus made to harmonize in producing the same beautiful and interesting result,-namely, a devout recollection of the death of Christ, as that grand and central event in the Divine economy, by which the covenant of reconciliation between God and man is sealed,-and the promise of forgiveness and eternal life is now made, freely and in the name of Christ, to all who believe in him and obey his laws.

And here I cannot help remarking a very beautiful and instructive characteristic of this solemnity, which has not perhaps been so much attended to as it ought,-I mean its adaptation to the

condition and mental illumination of all the varieties of men who may ever partake of it. Under its first aspect, as simply simply "a repetition of the last supper," the humblest of mankind, in respect of intellectual attainment, is in a condition to understand its import, and to feel its beauty;—and, perhaps, the simplest understandings, and best-conditioned hearts, are better adapted to receive the full impression of the solemnity, than those of greater expansion of thought, but of less simplicity of moral feeling. At the same time, what a grand field of contemplation is opened up to the understandings, even of the most enlightened of mankind, by the recollections which the symbolical character of the elements employed in the service was meant to awaken! "This," said the Redeemer, "is my body, which is broken for you,”—“ and this cup is the new testament in my blood, shed for the remission of the sins of many." All the spiritual blessings of the new covenant seem thus, in the simple elements of bread and wine, to be set before the view of the communicant,-all the grand scheme of the Divine economy, and all the glorious consequences which its provisions are intend

ed to secure for the moral regeneration,―the intellectual and religious culture,—and the final forgiveness and salvation of the human race.

Surely this is a service worthy of having been instituted by Divine wisdom itself,-adapted to the intellectual condition of all orders of worshippers, -and fitted at once to interest the hearts of the most simple, and to occupy, with an exhaustless fund of ever-expanding treasures, the intellect and imagination, and most refined sentiments of those who have attained, or shall ever attain, to the utmost possible reach of human refinement.

These, indeed, are things into which higher beings delight to look,—and in the study of which, the purest and loftiest spirits that have graced and enlightened humanity, have evinced their affinity to those of angels, by finding them favourite subjects of devout contemplation.

Let no man then presume to consider this service as foolishness,-or, because of its symbolical character, to regard it as fitted only for those who live rather by "sight than by faith;”—for while, by this character, it is made interesting to the hearts and level to the imaginations of the lowliest,-it

offers objects of thought on which the most improved and expanded intellect that has ever adorned humanity may continue to expatiate with increasing advantage.

And thus we see the divine wisdom of our Lord, in the institution of this rite, most beautifully pointed out, by the twofold adaptation of it which I have now illustrated. For the ceremony is so ordered, as not only to be suited to the infinitelyvaried condition of those who in all the ages and countries of time should ever partake of it,-but is an evidence, by this adaptation, of the matchless wisdom, and, indeed, of the divine foresight of him by whom it was thus consecrated for the use of

men.

SACRAMENTAL CHARACTER OF THE CEREMONY.

Throughout this discourse I have made as little use as I could of the word Sacrament,-not only because it is not a word used in Scripture,-but because it conveys no idea of the fundamental notion on which the ceremony is established, or rather

because, from the vagueness of its signification, it has a tendency to invest the service with a general character of mysticism.

At the same time, the primitive idea conveyed by the word Sacrament, as applicable to this and the other corresponding rite of the Christian church, is one of great importance, and never to be lost sight of in any explanation of the ceremony,—that I mean of its being an oath of fidelity taken to our Divine Master,—as a soldier in ancient times bound himself by an oath to be true to the service of his commander or prince.

This was the original use of the word Sacrament undoubtedly, or rather of the etymological term from which its use in the Christian church has been derived,-for, like most other terms, it soon passed from its strictly original meaning, and was used to denote any solemn engagement, accompanied by an oath, or still more when ratified and consecrated by a religious act. It was from this modified use of the word, rather than from its original signification, that it seems to have presented itself to the minds of Christians, as a proper term for expressing the peculiarly solemn and binding nature of the engagement under which they

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