ordinance, we can secure the gift for ever; "Seek the Lord and His
strength, seek His face evermore." The bread which comes down from
heaven is like the manna, "_daily_ bread," and that "till He come,"
till His "kingdom come." In His coming at the end of the world, all
our wishes and prayers rest and are accomplished; and in His present
communion we have a stay and consolation meanwhile, joining together
the past and future, reminding us that He has come once, and promising
us that He will come again. Who can live any time in the world,
pleasant as it may seem on first entering it, without discovering that
it is a weariness, and that if this life is worth any thing, it is
because it is the passage to another? It needs no great religion to
feel this; it is a self-evident truth to those who have much experience
of the world. The only reason why all do not feel it is, that they
have not lived long enough to feel it; and those who feel it more than
others, have but been thrown into circumstances to feel it more. But
while the times wax old, and the colours of earth fade, and the voice
of song is brought low, and all kindreds of the earth can but wail and
lament, the sons of God lift up their heads, for their salvation
draweth nigh. Nature fails, the sun shines not, and the moon is dim,
the stars fall from heaven, and the foundations of the round world
shake; but the Altar's light burns ever brighter; there are sights
there which the many cannot see, and all above the tumults of earth the
command is heard to show forth the Lord's death, and the promise that
the Lord is coming.
"Happy are the people that are in such a case!" who, when wearied of
the things seen, can turn with good hope to the things unseen; yea,
"blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God!" "Come unto
Me," He says, "all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest." Rest is better than toil; peace satisfies, and quietness
disappoints not. These are sure goods. Such is the calm of the
heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all; and such is their
calm worship, the foretaste, of heaven, who for a season shut
themselves out from the world, and seek Him in invisible Presence, whom
they shall hereafter see face to face.
[1] First Sunday after Easter.
SERMON XII.
The Gospel Feast
"_When Jesus then lifted up His eyes, and saw a great company come unto
Him, He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may
eat?_"--John vi. 5.
After these words the Evangelist adds, "And this He said to prove him,
for He Himself knew what He would do." Thus, you see, our Lord had
secret meanings when He spoke, and did not bring forth openly all His
divine sense at once. He knew what He was about to do from the first,
but He wished to lead forward His disciples, and to arrest and open
their minds, before He instructed them: for all cannot receive His
words, and on the blind and deaf the most sacred truths fall without
profit.
And thus, throughout the course of His gracious dispensations from the
beginning, it may be said that the Author and Finisher of our faith has
hid things from us in mercy, and listened to our questionings, while He
Himself knew what He was about to do. He has hid, in order afterwards
to reveal, that then, on looking back on what He said and did before,
we may see in it what at the time we did not see, and thereby see it to
more profit. Thus He hid Himself from the disciples as He walked with
them to Emmaus; thus Joseph, too, under different and yet similar
circumstances, hid himself from his brethren.
With this thought in our minds, surely we seem to see a new and further
meaning still, in the narrative before us. Christ spoke of buying
bread, when He intended to create or make bread; but did He not, in
that bread which He made, intend further that Heavenly bread which is
the salvation of our souls?--for He goes on to say, "Labour not for the
meat" or food "which perisheth, but for that food which endureth unto
everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you." Yes,
surely the wilderness is the world, and the Apostles are His priests,
and the multitudes are His people; and that feast, so suddenly, so
unexpectedly provided, is the Holy Communion. He alone is the same.
He the provider of the loaves then, of the heavenly manna now. All
other things change, but He remaineth.
And what is that Heavenly Feast which we now are vouchsafed, but in its
own turn the earnest and pledge of that future feast in His Father's
kingdom, when "the marriage of the Lamb shall come, and His wife hath
made herself ready," and "holy Jerusalem cometh down from God out of
heaven," and "blessed shall they be who shall eat bread in the kingdom
of God"?
And further, since to that Feast above we do lift up our eyes, though
it will not come till the end; and as we do not make remembrance of it
once only, but continually, in the sacred rite which foreshadows it;
therefore, in like manner, not in the miracle of the loaves only,
though in that especially, but in all parts of Scripture, in history,
and in precept, and in promise, and in prophecy, is it given us to see
the Gospel Feast typified and prefigured, and that immortal and
never-failing Supper in the visible presence of the Lamb which will
follow upon it at the end. And if they are blessed who shall eat and
drink of that table in the kingdom, so too blessed are they who
meditate upon it, and hope for it now,--who read Scripture with it in
their thoughts, and endeavour to look beneath the veil of the literal
text, and to catch a sight of the gleams of heavenly light which are
behind it. "Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for
they hear; for verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous
men have desired to see those things which ye see, but have not seen
them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them."
"Blessed are they which have not seen, and yet have believed." Blessed
they who see in and by believing, and who have, because they doubt not.
Let us, then, at this time of year[1], as is fitting, follow the train
of thought thus opened upon us, and, looking back into the Sacred
Volume, trace the intimations and promises there given of that sacred
and blessed Feast of Christ's Body and Blood which it is our privilege
now to enjoy till the end come.
Now the Old Testament, as we know, is full of figures and types of the
Gospel; types various, and, in their literal wording, contrary to each
other, but all meeting and harmoniously fulfilled in Christ and His
Church. Thus the histories of the Israelites in the wilderness, and of
the Israelites when settled in Canaan, alike are ours, representing our
present state as Christians. Our Christian life is a state of faith
and trial; it is also a state of enjoyment. It has the richness of the
promised land; it has the marvellousness of the desert. It is a "good
land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring
out of vallies and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines, and
fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil, olive, and honey; a land
wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness; thou shalt not lack
any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills
thou mayest dig brass." And, on the other hand, it is still a land
which to the natural man seems a wilderness, a "great and terrible
wilderness, wherein are fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought,
where there is no water;" where faith is still necessary, and where,
still more forcibly than in the case of Israel, the maxim holds, that
"man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of the Lord doth man live."
This is the state in which we are,--a state of faith and of possession.
In the desert the Israelites lived by the signs of things, without the
realities: manna was to stand for the corn, oil, and honey, of the good
land promised; water, for the wine and milk. It was a time for faith
to exercise itself; and when they came into the promised land, then was
the time of possession. That was the land of milk and honey; they
needed not any divinely provided compensations or expedients. Manna
was not needed, nor the pillar of the cloud, nor the water from the
rock. But we Christians, on the contrary, are at once in the
wilderness and in the promised land. In the wilderness, because we
live amid wonders; in the promised land, because we are in a state of
enjoyment. That we are in the state of enjoyment is surely certain,
unless all the prophecies have failed; and that we are in a state in
which faith alone has that enjoyment, is plain from the fact that God's
great blessings are not seen, and in that the Apostle says, "We walk by
faith, not by sight." In a word, we are in a super-natural state,--a
word which implies both its greatness and its secretness: for what is
above nature, is at once not seen, and is more precious than what is
seen; "the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not
seen are eternal."
And if our state altogether is parallel to that of the Israelites, as
an antitype to its type, it is natural to think that so great a gift as
Holy Communion would not be without its appropriate figures and symbols
in the Old Testament. All that our Saviour has done is again and again
shadowed out in the Old Testament; and this, therefore, it is natural
to think, as well as other things: His miraculous birth, His life, His
teaching, His death, His priesthood, His sacrifice, His resurrection,
His glorification, His kingdom, are again and again prefigured: it is
not reasonable to suppose that if this so great gift is really given
us, it should be omitted. He who died for us, is He who feeds us; and
as His death is mentioned, so we may beforehand expect will be
mentioned the feast He gives us. Not openly indeed, for neither is His
death nor His priesthood taught openly, but covertly, under the types
of David or Aaron, or other favoured servants of God; and in like
manner we might expect, and we shall find, the like reverent allusions
to His most gracious Feast,--allusions which we should not know to _be_
allusions but for the event; just as we should not know that Solomon,
Aaron, or Samuel, stood for Christ at all, except that the event
explains the figure. When Abraham said to Isaac, "God will provide
Himself a lamb for a burnt offering," who can doubt this is a prophecy
concerning Christ?--yet we are nowhere told it in Scripture. The case
is the same as regards the Sacrament of Baptism. Now that it is given,
we cannot doubt that the purifications of the Jews, Naaman's bathing,
and the prophecy of a fountain being opened for sin and all
uncleanness, have reference to it, as being the visible fulfilment of
the great spiritual cleansing: and St. Peter expressly affirms this of
the Deluge, and St. Paul of the passage of the Red Sea. And in like
manner passages in the Bible, which speak prophetically of the Gospel
Feast, cannot but refer (if I may so speak) to the Holy Sacrament of
the Lord's Supper, as being, in fact, the Feast given us under the
Gospel.
And let it be observed, directly we know that we have this great gift,
and that the Old Testament history prefigures it, we have a light
thrown upon what otherwise is a difficulty; for, it may be asked with
some speciousness, whether the Jews were not in a higher state of
privilege than we Christians, until we take this gift into account. It
may be objected that our blessings are all future or distant,--the hope
of eternal life, which is to be fulfilled hereafter, God's forgiveness,
who is in heaven: what do we gain now and here above the Jews? God
loved the Jews, and He _gave_ them something; He gave them present
gifts; the Old Testament is full of the description of them; He gave
them "the precious things of heaven, and the dew, and the deep that
coucheth beneath, and precious things brought forth by the sun, and by
the moon, and the chief things of the ancient mountains, and the
precious things of the lasting hills, and the precious things of the
earth, and the fulness thereof," "honey out of the rock, and oil out of
the flinty rock, butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs,
and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of
wheat, and the pure blood of the grape[2]." These were present real
blessings. What has He given _us?--nothing_ in possession? _all_ in
promise? This, I say, is in itself not likely, it is not likely that
He should so reverse His system, and make the Gospel inferior to the
Law. But the knowledge of the great gift under consideration clears up
this perplexity; for every passage in the Old Testament which speaks of
the temporal blessings given by God to His ancient people, instead of
conveying to us a painful sense of destitution, and exciting our
jealousy, reminds us of our greater blessedness; for every passage
which belongs to them is fulfilled now in a higher sense to us. We
have no need to envy them. God did not take away their blessings,
without giving us greater. The Law was not so much taken away, as the
Gospel given. The Gospel supplanted the Law. The Law went out by the
Gospel's coming in. Only our blessings are not seen; _therefore_ they
are higher, _because_ they are unseen. Higher blessings could not be
visible. How could spiritual blessings be visible ones? If Christ now
feeds us, not with milk and honey, but "with the spiritual food of His
most precious Body and Blood;" if "our sinful bodies are made clean by
His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious Blood," truly
we are not without our precious things, any more than Israel was: but
they are unseen, because so much greater, so spiritual; they are given
only under the veil of what is seen: and thus we Christians are both
with the Church in the wilderness as regards faith, and in the Church
in Canaan as regards enjoyment; having the fulfilment of the words
spoken by Moses, repeated by our Lord, to which I just now referred,
"Man shall not live by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth
out of the mouth of God."
Now, then, I will refer to some passages of both the Old Testament and
the New, which both illustrate and are illustrated by this great
doctrine of the Gospel.
1. And, first, let it be observed, from the beginning, the greatest
rite of religion has been a feast; the partaking of God's bounties, in
the way of nature, has been consecrated to a more immediate communion
with God Himself. For instance, when Isaac was weaned, Abraham "made a
great feast[3]," and then it was that Sarah prophesied; "Cast out this
bondwoman and her son," she said, prophesying the introduction of the
spirit, grace, and truth, which the Gospel contains, instead of the
bondage of the outward forms of the Law. Again, it was at a feast of
savoury meat that the spirit of prophecy came upon Isaac, and he
blessed Jacob. In like manner the first beginning of our Lord's
miracles was at a marriage feast, when He changed water into wine; and
when St. Matthew was converted he entertained our Lord at a feast. At
a feast, too, our Lord allowed the penitent woman to wash with tears
and anoint His feet, and pronounced her forgiveness; and at a feast,
before His passion, He allowed Mary to anoint them with costly
ointment, and to wipe them with her hair. Thus with our Lord, and with
the Patriarchs, a feast was a time of grace; so much so, that He was
said by the Pharisees to come eating and drinking, to be "a winebibber
and gluttonous, a friend of publicans and sinners[4]."
2. And next, in order to make this feasting still more solemn, it had
been usual at all times to precede it by a direct act of religion,--by
a prayer, or blessing, or sacrifice, or by the presence of a priest,
which implied it. Thus, when Melchizedek came out to meet Abraham, and
_bless_ him, "he brought forth bread and wine[5]," to which it is
added, "and he was the priest of the Most High God." Such, too, was
the lamb of the Passover, which was eaten roast with fire, and with
unleavened bread, and bitter herbs, with girded loins and shoes on, and
staff in hand; as the Lord's Passover, being a solemn religious feast,
even if not a sacrifice. And such seems to have been the common notion
of communion with God all the world over, however it was gained; viz.
that we arrived at the possession of His invisible gifts by
participation in His visible, that there was some mysterious connexion
between the seen and the unseen; and that, by setting aside the
choicest of His earthly bounties, as a specimen and representative of
the whole, presenting it to Him for His blessing, and then taking,
eating, and appropriating it, we had the best hope of gaining those
unknown and indefinite gifts which human nature needs. This the
heathen practised towards their idols also; and St. Paul seems to
acknowledge that in that way they did communicate, though most
miserably and fearfully, with those idols, and with the evil spirits
which they represented. "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they
sacrifice to devils, and not to God; and I would not that ye should
hold communion with devils[6]." Here, as before, a feast is spoken of
as the means of communicating with the unseen world, though, when the
feast was idolatrous, it was the fellowship of evil spirits.
3. And next let this be observed, that the descriptions in the Old
Testament of the perfect state of religious privilege, viz. that under
the Gospel which was then to come, are continually made under the image
of a feast, a feast of some special and choice goods of this world,
corn, wine, and the like; goods of this world chosen from the mass as a
specimen of all, as types and means of seeking, and means of obtaining,
the unknown spiritual blessings, which "eye hath not seen nor ear
heard." And these special goods of nature, so set apart, are more
frequently than any thing else, corn or bread, and wine, as the figures
of what was greater, though others are mentioned also. Now the first
of these of which we read is the fruit of the tree of life, the leaves
of which are also mentioned in the prophets. The tree of life was that
tree in the garden of Eden, the eating of which would have made Adam
immortal; a divine gift lay hid in an outward form. The prophet
Ezekiel speaks of it afterwards in the following words, showing that a
similar blessing was in store for the redeemed;--"By the river, upon
the bank thereof, on this side, and on that side, shall grow all trees
for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be
consumed. It shall bring forth new fruits according to his months,
because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary; and the fruit
thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine[7]." Like
to which is St. John's account of the tree of life, "which bare twelve
manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of
the tree were for the healing of the nations[8]." And hence we read in
the Canticles of the apple-tree, and of sitting down under its shadow,
and its fruit being sweet to the taste. Here then in type is signified
the sacred gift of which I am speaking; and yet it has not seemed good
to the gracious Giver literally to select fruit or leaves as the means
of His invisible blessings. He might have spiritually fed us with
such, had He pleased--for man liveth not by bread only, but by the word
of His mouth. His Word might have made the fruit of the tree His
Sacrament, but He has willed otherwise.
The next selection of gifts of the earth which we find in Scripture, is
the very one which He at length fixed on, bread and wine, as in the
history of Melchizedek; and there the record stands as a prophecy of
what was to be: for who is Melchizedek but our Lord and Saviour, and
what is the Bread and Wine but the very feast which He has ordained?
Next the great gift was shadowed out in the description of the promised
land, which was said to flow with milk and honey, and in all those
other precious things of nature which I have already recounted as
belonging to the promised land, oil, butter, corn, wine, and the like.
These all may be considered to refer to the Gospel feast typically,
because they were the rarest and most exquisite of the blessings given
to the Jews, as the Gospel Feast is the most choice and most sacred of
all the blessings given to us Christians; and what is most precious
under the one Dispensation is signified by what is most precious under
the other.
Now let us proceed to the Prophets, and we shall find the like
anticipation of the Gospel Feast.
For instance, you recollect, the prophet Hosea says: "It shall come to
pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens,
and they shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and
the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow her
unto Me in the earth[9]." By Jezreel is meant the Christian Church;
and the Prophet declares in God's name, that the time was to come when
the Church would call upon the corn, wine, and oil, and they would call
on the earth, and the earth on the heavens, and the heavens on God; and
God should answer the heavens, and the heavens should answer the earth,
and the earth should answer the corn, wine, and oil, and they should
answer to the wants of the Church. Now, doubtless, this may be
fulfilled only in a general way; but considering Almighty God has
appointed corn or bread, and wine, to be the special instruments of His
ineffable grace,--He, who sees the end from the beginning, and who
views all things in all their relations at once,--He, when He spoke of
corn and wine, knew that the word would be fulfilled, not generally
only, but even literally in the Gospel.
Again: the prophet Joel says, "It shall come to pass in that day that
the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with
milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a
fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the
valley of Shittim[10]." How strikingly is this fulfilled, if we take
it to apply to what God has given us in the Gospel, in the feast of the
Holy Communion!
Again: the prophet Amos says: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes
him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all
the hills shall melt[11];" that is, with God's marvellous grace,
whereby He gives us gifts new and wonderful.
And the prophet Isaiah: "In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make
unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees; of
fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." And
again: "Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine
enemies, and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the
which thou hast laboured; but they that have gathered it shall eat it,
and praise the Lord, and they that have brought it together shall drink
it in the courts of My holiness." And again: "Behold My servants shall
eat, but ye shall be hungry; behold My servants shall drink, but ye
shall be thirsty[12]."
Again: the prophet Jeremiah says: "They shall come and sing in the
height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord,
for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock
and of the herd; and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they
shall not sorrow any more at all. . . And I will satiate the soul of
the priests with fatness, and My people shall be satisfied with My
goodness, saith the Lord[13]."
And the prophet Zechariah: "How great is His goodness, and how great is
His beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the
maids[14]."
And under a different image, but with the same general sense, the
prophet Malachi: "From the rising of the sun even unto the going down
of the same, My Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every
place incense shall be offered unto My Name, and a pure offering, for
My Name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts[15]."