An account of the Last Supper of Christ with his disciples is given by
the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
In St. Matthew’s Gospel (Matt. xxvi. 26-30) are recorded the words of
Jesus in giving bread and wine on that occasion to his disciples, but
no expression occurs intimating that this feast was hereafter to be
commemorated. In St. Mark (Mark xiv. 22-25) the same words are recorded,
and still with no intimation that the occasion was to be remembered.
St. Luke (Luke xxii. 19), after relating the breaking of the bread, has
these words: “This do in remembrance of me.” In St. John, although other
occurrences of the same evening are related, this whole transaction is
passed over without notice.
Now observe the facts. Two of the Evangelists, namely, Matthew and
John, were of the twelve disciples, and were present on that occasion.
Neither of them drops the slightest intimation of any intention on
the part of Jesus to set up anything permanent. John especially, the
beloved disciple, who has recorded with minuteness the conversation and
the transactions of that memorable evening, has quite omitted such a
notice. Neither does it appear to have come to the knowledge of Mark,
who, though not an eye-witness, relates the other facts. This material
fact, that the occasion was to be remembered, is found in Luke alone,
who was not present. There is no reason, however, that we know, for
rejecting the account of Luke. I doubt not, the expression was used by
Jesus. I shall presently consider its meaning. I have only brought these
accounts together, that you may judge whether it is likely that a solemn
institution, to be continued to the end of time by all mankind, as they
should come, nation after nation, within the influence of the Christian
religion, would have been established in this slight manner—in a manner
so slight, that the intention of commemorating it should not appear, from
their narrative, to have caught the ear or dwelt in the mind of the only
two among the twelve who wrote down what happened.
Still we must suppose that the expression, “This do in remembrance of
me,” had come to the ear of Luke from some disciple who was present. What
did it really signify? It is a prophetic and an affectionate expression.
Jesus is a Jew, sitting with his countrymen, celebrating their national
feast. He thinks of his own impending death, and wishes the minds of
his disciples to be prepared for it. “When hereafter,” he says to them,
“you shall keep the Passover, it will have an altered aspect to your
eyes. It is now a historical covenant of God with the Jewish nation.
Hereafter it will remind you of a new covenant sealed with my blood. In
years to come, as long as your people shall come up to Jerusalem to keep
this feast, the connection which has subsisted between us will give a
new meaning in your eyes to the national festival, as the anniversary of
my death.” I see natural feeling and beauty in the use of such language
from Jesus, a friend to his friends; I can readily imagine that he was
willing and desirous, when his disciples met, his memory should hallow
their intercourse; but I cannot bring myself to believe that in the use
of such an expression he looked beyond the living generation, beyond the
abolition of the festival he was celebrating, and the scattering of the
nation, and meant to impose a memorial feast upon the whole world.
Without presuming to fix precisely the purpose in the mind of Jesus, you
will see that many opinions may be entertained of his intention, all
consistent with the opinion that he did not design a perpetual ordinance.
He may have foreseen that his disciples would meet to remember him, and
that with good effect. It may have crossed his mind that this would
be easily continued a hundred or a thousand years,—as men more easily
transmit a form than a virtue,—and yet have been altogether out of his
purpose to fasten it upon men in all times and all countries.
But though the words, “Do this in remembrance of me,” do not occur in
Matthew, Mark or John, and although it should be granted us that, taken
alone, they do not necessarily import so much as is usually thought,
yet many persons are apt to imagine that the very striking and personal
manner in which the eating and drinking is described, indicates a
striking and formal purpose to found a festival. And I admit that this
impression might probably be left upon the mind of one who read only the
passages under consideration in the New Testament. But this impression
is removed by reading any narrative of the mode in which the ancient
or the modern Jews have kept the Passover. It is then perceived that
the leading circumstances in the Gospels are only a faithful account
of that ceremony. Jesus did not celebrate the Passover, and afterwards
the Supper, but the Supper was the Passover. He did with his disciples
exactly what every master of a family in Jerusalem was doing at the same
hour with his household. It appears that the Jews ate the lamb and the
unleavened bread and drank wine after a prescribed manner. It was the
custom for the master of the feast to break the bread and to bless it,
using this formula, which the Talmudists have preserved to us, “Blessed
be Thou, O Lord, our God, who givest us the fruit of the vine,”—and then
to give the cup to all. Among the modern Jews, who in their dispersion
retain the Passover, a hymn is also sung after this ceremony, specifying
the twelve great works done by God for the deliverance of their fathers
out of Egypt.
But still it may be asked, Why did Jesus make expressions so
extraordinary and emphatic as these—“This is my body which is broken
for you. Take; eat. This is my blood which is shed for you. Drink
it”?—I reply they are not extraordinary expressions from him. They were
familiar in his mouth. He always taught by parables and symbols. It was
the national way of teaching, and was largely used by him. Remember the
readiness which he always showed to spiritualize every occurrence. He
stopped and wrote on the sand. He admonished his disciples respecting the
leaven of the Pharisees. He instructed the woman of Samaria respecting
living water. He permitted himself to be anointed, declaring that it
was for his interment. He washed the feet of his disciples. These are
admitted to be symbolical actions and expressions. Here, in like manner,
he calls the bread his body, and bids the disciples eat. He had used
the same expression repeatedly before. The reason why St. John does not
repeat his words on this occasion seems to be that he had reported a
similar discourse of Jesus to the people of Capernaum more at length
already (John vi. 27-60). He there tells the Jews, “Except ye eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” And
when the Jews on that occasion complained that they did not comprehend
what he meant, he added for their better understanding, and as if for
our understanding, that we might not think his body was to be actually
eaten, that he only meant we should live by his commandment. He closed
his discourse with these explanatory expressions: “The flesh profiteth
nothing; the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are
life.”
Whilst I am upon this topic, I cannot help remarking that it is not a
little singular that we should have preserved this rite and insisted
upon perpetuating one symbolical act of Christ whilst we have totally
neglected all others,—particularly one other which had at least an equal
claim to our observance. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and told
them that, as he had washed their feet, they ought to wash one another’s
feet; for he had given them an example, that they should do as he had
done to them. I ask any person who believes the Supper to have been
designed by Jesus to be commemorated forever, to go and read the account
of it in the other Gospels, and then compare with it the account of this
transaction in St. John, and tell me if this be not much more explicitly
authorized than the Supper. It only differs in this, that we have found
the Supper used in New England and the washing of the feet not. But if
we had found it an established rite in our churches, on grounds of mere
authority, it would have been impossible to have argued against it. That
rite is used by the Church of Rome, and by the Sandemanians. It has been
very properly dropped by other Christians. Why? For two reasons: (1)
because it was a local custom, and unsuitable in western countries; and
(2) because it was typical, and all understood that humility is the thing
signified. But the Passover was local too, and does not concern us, and
its bread and wine were typical, and do not help us to understand the
redemption which they signified. These views of the original account of
the Lord’s Supper lead me to esteem it an occasion full of solemn and
prophetic interest, but never intended by Jesus to be the foundation of a
perpetual institution.
It appears, however, in Christian history that the disciples had very
early taken advantage of these impressive words of Christ to hold
religious meetings, where they broke bread and drank wine as symbols. I
look upon this fact as very natural in the circumstances of the Church.
The disciples lived together; they threw all their property into a
common stock; they were bound together by the memory of Christ, and
nothing could be more natural than that this eventful evening should be
affectionately remembered by them; that they, Jews like Jesus, should
adopt his expressions and his types, and furthermore, that what was
done with peculiar propriety by them, his personal friends, with less
propriety should come to be extended to their companions also. In this
way religious feasts grew up among the early Christians. They were
readily adopted by the Jewish converts, who were familiar with religious
feasts, and also by the Pagan converts, whose idolatrous worship had
been made up of sacred festivals, and who very readily abused these
to gross riot, as appears from the censures of St. Paul. Many persons
consider this fact, the observance of such a memorial feast by the early
disciples, decisive of the question whether it ought to be observed by
us. There was good reason for his personal friends to remember their
friend and repeat his words. It was only too probable that among the
half-converted Pagans and Jews, any rite, any form, would find favor,
whilst yet unable to comprehend the spiritual character of Christianity.
The circumstance, however, that St. Paul adopts these views, has seemed
to many persons conclusive in favor of the institution. I am of opinion
that it is wholly upon the Epistle to the Corinthians, and not upon the
Gospels, that the ordinance stands. Upon this matter of St. Paul’s view
of the Supper, a few important considerations must be stated.
The end which he has in view, in the eleventh chapter of the first
Epistle, is not to enjoin upon his friends to observe the Supper, but
to censure their abuse of it. We quote the passage nowadays as if it
enjoined attendance upon the Supper; but he wrote it merely to chide
them for drunkenness. To make their enormity plainer, he goes back to
the origin of this religious feast to show what sort of feast that was,
out of which this riot of theirs came, and so relates the transactions
of the Last Supper. “I have received of the Lord,” he says, “that which
I delivered to you.” By this expression it is often thought that a
miraculous communication is implied; but certainly without good reason,
if it is remembered that St. Paul was living in the lifetime of all
the apostles who could give him an account of the transaction; and it
is contrary to all reason to suppose that God should work a miracle to
convey information that could so easily be got by natural means. So that
the import of the expression is that he had received the story of an
eye-witness such as we also possess.
But there is a material circumstance which diminishes our confidence in
the correctness of the Apostle’s view; and that is, the observation that
his mind had not escaped the prevalent error of the primitive Church,
the belief, namely, that the second coming of Christ would shortly occur,
until which time, he tells them, this feast was to be kept. Elsewhere he
tells them that at that time the world would be burnt up with fire, and
a new government established, in which the Saints would sit on thrones;
so slow were the disciples, during the life and after the ascension of
Christ, to receive the idea which we receive, that his second coming was
a spiritual kingdom, the dominion of his religion in the hearts of men,
to be extended gradually over the whole world. In this manner we may see
clearly enough how this ancient ordinance got its footing among the early
Christians, and this single expectation of a speedy reappearance of a
temporal Messiah, which kept its influence even over so spiritual a man
as St. Paul, would naturally tend to preserve the use of the rite when
once established.
We arrive, then, at this conclusion: first, that it does not appear,
from a careful examination of the account of the Last Supper in the
Evangelists, that it was designed by Jesus to be perpetual; secondly,
that it does not appear that the opinion of St. Paul, all things
considered, ought to alter our opinion derived from the Evangelists.
One general remark before quitting this branch of this subject. We ought
to be cautious in taking even the best ascertained opinions and practices
of the primitive Church for our own. If it could be satisfactorily shown
that they esteemed it authorized and to be transmitted forever, that
does not settle the question for us. We know how inveterately they were
attached to their Jewish prejudices, and how often even the influence of
Christ failed to enlarge their views. On every other subject succeeding
times have learned to form a judgment more in accordance with the spirit
of Christianity than was the practice of the early ages.
II. But it is said: “Admit that the rite was not designed to be
perpetual. What harm doth it? Here it stands, generally accepted, under
some form, by the Christian world, the undoubted occasion of much good;
is it not better it should remain?” This is the question of expediency.
I proceed to state a few objections that in my judgment lie against its
use in its present form.
1. If the view which I have taken of the history of the institution be
correct, then the claim of authority should be dropped in administering
it. You say, every time you celebrate the rite, that Jesus enjoined it;
and the whole language you use conveys that impression. But if you read
the New Testament as I do, you do not believe he did.
2. It has seemed to me that the use of this ordinance tends to produce
confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God. It is the
old objection to the doctrine of the Trinity,—that the true worship
was transferred from God to Christ, or that such confusion was
introduced into the soul that an undivided worship was given nowhere.
Is not that the effect of the Lord’s Supper? I appeal now to the
convictions of communicants, and ask such persons whether they have
not been occasionally conscious of a painful confusion of thought
between the worship due to God and the commemoration due to Christ.
For the service does not stand upon the basis of a voluntary act, but
is imposed by authority. It is an expression of gratitude to Christ,
enjoined by Christ. There is an endeavor to keep Jesus in mind, whilst
yet the prayers are addressed to God. I fear it is the effect of this
ordinance to clothe Jesus with an authority which he never claimed and
which distracts the mind of the worshipper. I know our opinions differ
much respecting the nature and offices of Christ, and the degree of
veneration to which he is entitled. I am so much a Unitarian as this:
that I believe the human mind can admit but one God, and that every
effort to pay religious homage to more than one being goes to take away
all right ideas. I appeal, brethren, to your individual experience. In
the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a
silent wish that he may approve you, or add one moment to your life,—do
you not, in the very act, necessarily exclude all other beings from your
thought? In that act, the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no
more present to your mind than your brother or your child.[1]
But is not Jesus called in Scripture the Mediator? He is the mediator
in that only sense in which possibly any being can mediate between God
and man,—that is, an instructor of man. He teaches us how to become
like God. And a true disciple of Jesus will receive the light he gives
most thankfully; but the thanks he offers, and which an exalted being
will accept, are not compliments, commemorations, but the use of that
instruction.
3. Passing other objections, I come to this, that the use of the
elements, however suitable to the people and the modes of thought in the
East, where it originated, is foreign and unsuited to affect us. Whatever
long usage and strong association may have done in some individuals to
deaden this repulsion, I apprehend that their use is rather tolerated
than loved by any of us. We are not accustomed to express our thoughts or
emotions by symbolical actions. Most men find the bread and wine no aid
to devotion, and to some it is a painful impediment. To eat bread is one
thing; to love the precepts of Christ and resolve to obey them is quite
another.[2]
The statement of this objection leads me to say that I think this
difficulty, wherever it is felt, to be entitled to the greatest weight.
It is alone a sufficient objection to the ordinance. It is my own
objection. This mode of commemorating Christ is not suitable to me.
That is reason enough why I should abandon it. If I believed it was
enjoined by Jesus on his disciples, and that he even contemplated making
permanent this mode of commemoration, every way agreeable to an Eastern
mind, and yet on trial it was disagreeable to my own feelings, I should
not adopt it. I should choose other ways which, as more effectual upon
me, he would approve more. For I choose that my remembrances of him
should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified
friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign
of respect, as men do those whom they fear. A passage read from his
discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting
which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design
of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.
4. The importance ascribed to this particular ordinance is not consistent
with the spirit of Christianity. The general object and effect of the
ordinance is unexceptionable. It has been, and is, I doubt not, the
occasion of indefinite good; but an importance is given by Christians
to it which never can belong to any form. My friends, the Apostle
well assures us that “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” I am not so
foolish as to declaim against forms. Forms are as essential as bodies;
but to exalt particular forms, to adhere to one form a moment after it
is outgrown, is unreasonable, and it is alien to the spirit of Christ.
If I understand the distinction of Christianity, the reason why it is
to be preferred over all other systems and is divine is this, that it
is a moral system; that it presents men with truths which are their own
reason, and enjoins practices that are their own justification; that if
miracles may be said to have been its evidence to the first Christians,
they are not its evidence to us, but the doctrines themselves; that
every practice is Christian which praises itself, and every practice
unchristian which condemns itself. I am not engaged to Christianity by
decent forms, or saving ordinances; it is not usage, it is not what I do
not understand, that binds me to it,—let these be the sandy foundations
of falsehoods. What I revere and obey in it is its reality, its boundless
charity, its deep interior life, the rest it gives to mind, the echo
it returns to my thoughts, the perfect accord it makes with my reason
through all its representation of God and His Providence; and the
persuasion and courage that come out thence to lead me upward and onward.
Freedom is the essence of this faith. It has for its object simply to
make men good and wise. Its institutions then should be as flexible as
the wants of men. That form out of which the life and suitableness have
departed should be as worthless in its eyes as the dead leaves that are
falling around us.
And therefore, although for the satisfaction of others I have labored
to show by the history that this rite was not intended to be perpetual;
although I have gone back to weigh the expressions of Paul, I feel that
here is the true point of view. In the midst of considerations as to
what Paul thought, and why he so thought, I cannot help feeling that it
is time misspent to argue to or from his convictions, or those of Luke
and John, respecting any form. I seem to lose the substance in seeking
the shadow. That for which Paul lived and died so gloriously; that for
which Jesus gave himself to be crucified; the end that animated the
thousand martyrs and heroes who have followed his steps, was to redeem
us from a formal religion, and teach us to seek our well-being in the
formation of the soul. The whole world was full of idols and ordinances.
The Jewish was a religion of forms; it was all body, it had no life, and
the Almighty God was pleased to qualify and send forth a man to teach
men that they must serve him with the heart; that only that life was
religious which was thoroughly good; that sacrifice was smoke, and forms
were shadows. This man lived and died true to this purpose; and now, with
his blessed word and life before us, Christians must contend that it
is a matter of vital importance,—really a duty, to commemorate him by a
certain form, whether that form be agreeable to their understandings or
not. Is not this to make vain the gift of God? Is not this to turn back
the hand on the dial? Is not this to make men,—to make ourselves,—forget
that not forms, but duties; not names, but righteousness and love are
enjoined; and that in the eye of God there is no other measure of the
value of any one form than the measure of its use?
There remain some practical objections to the ordinance, into which I
shall not now enter. There is one on which I had intended to say a few
words; I mean the unfavorable relation in which it places that numerous
class of persons who abstain from it merely from disinclination to the
rite.
Influenced by these considerations, I have proposed to the brethren of
the Church to drop the use of the elements and the claim of authority in
the administration of this ordinance, and have suggested a mode in which
a meeting for the same purpose might be held, free of objection.
My brethren have considered my views with patience and candor, and
have recommended, unanimously, an adherence to the present form. I have
therefore been compelled to consider whether it becomes me to administer
it. I am clearly of opinion I ought not. This discourse has already been
so far extended that I can only say that the reason of my determination
is shortly this: It is my desire, in the office of a Christian minister,
to do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart. Having said this,
I have said all. I have no hostility to this institution; I am only
stating my want of sympathy with it. Neither should I ever have obtruded
this opinion upon other people, had I not been called by my office to
administer it. That is the end of my opposition, that I am not interested
in it. I am content that it stand to the end of the world, if it please
men and please Heaven, and I shall rejoice in all the good it produces.
As it is the prevailing opinion and feeling in our religious community
that it is an indispensable part of the pastoral office to administer
this ordinance, I am about to resign into your hands that office which
you have confided to me. It has many duties for which I am feebly
qualified. It has some which it will always be my delight to discharge
according to my ability, wherever I exist. And whilst the recollection of
its claims oppresses me with a sense of my unworthiness, I am consoled by
the hope that no time and no change can deprive me of the satisfaction of
pursuing and exercising its highest functions.[3]