The best preparation for taking this sacrament, better than any or all of
the books or tracts composed for this end, is to read over and over
again, and often on your knees—at all events with a kneeling and praying
heart—the Gospel according to St. John, till your mind is familiarised to
the contemplation of Christ, the Redeemer and Mediator of mankind, yea,
of every creature, as the living and self-subsisting Word, the very truth
of all true being, and the very being of all enduring truth; the reality,
which is the substance and unity of all reality; _the light which
lighteth every man_, so that what we call reason is itself a light from
that light, _lumen a luce_, as the Latin more distinctly expresses this
fact. But it is not merely light, but therein is life; and it is the
life of Christ, the co-eternal Son of God, that is the only true
life-giving light of men. We are assured, and we believe, that Christ is
God; God manifested in the flesh. As God, he must be present entire in
every creature;—(for how can God, or indeed any spirit, exist in
parts?)—but he is said to dwell in the regenerate, to come to them who
receive him by faith in his name, that is, in his power and influence;
for this is the meaning of the word “name” in Scripture when applied to
God or his Christ. Where true belief exists, Christ is not only present
with or among us;—for so he is in every man, even the most wicked;—but to
us and for us. _That was the true light_, _which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world_. _He was in the world_, _and the world was made
by him_, _and the world knew him not_. _But as many as received him_,
_to them gave he power to become the sons of God_, _even to them that
believe in his name_; _which were born_, _not of blood_, _nor of the will
of the flesh_, _nor of the will of man_, _but of God_. _And the Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us_. John i. 9–14. Again—_We will come unto
him_, _and make our abode with him_. John xiv. 23. As truly and as
really as your soul resides constitutively in your living body,
personally and substantially does Christ dwell in every regenerate man.
After this course of study, you may then take up and peruse sentence by
sentence the communion service, the best of all comments on the
Scriptures appertaining to this mystery. And this is the preparation
which will prove, with God’s grace, the surest preventive of, or antidote
against, the freezing poison, the lethargising hemlock, of the doctrine
of the Sacramentaries, according to whom the Eucharist is a mere
practical metaphor, in which things are employed instead of articulated
sounds for the exclusive purpose of recalling to our minds the historical
fact of our Lord’s crucifixion; in short—(the profaneness is with them,
not with me)—just the same as when Protestants drink a glass of wine to
the glorious memory of William III.! True it is that the remembrance is
one end of the sacrament; but it is, _Do this in remembrance of me_,—of
all that Christ was and is, hath done and is still doing for fallen
mankind, and, of course, of his crucifixion inclusively, but not of his
crucifixion alone. 14 December, 1827.