in no Christian countries are believers now exposed to the same danger from the same cause. We meet together, not as chance may lead, on this or that day, but at stated and solemn periods. We assemble not at private houses, as did the primitive Christians, but in places of public worship. We never intermix the food and the drink of a meal with the bread and wine which we receive at the communion-table. Our reverence would be lessened by such a mixture; and with us, as with the Corinthians, there might be now and then some degree of danger that inconsiderate persons would be guilty of the excess imputed to the Corinthians, and thus receive the body and blood of Christ, as they received it, unworthily.

verts.

The history of the Church in subsequent ages does not record, nor even intimate, any example of such intemperance as St. Paul observed in his conPossible however it is, that such cases might occur, though very rarely; and in order to lessen the chance of their recurrence, as well as to avert the misrepresentations of spies and scoffers, the ceremony of mixing water with the wine was originally introduced; and was afterwards by the mere force of custom, retained when the danger had passed by. And here it may not be amiss to inform you, that in later times, when the liturgy of our own Church was first drawn up, a rubric ordering water to be mixed with wine was inserted, and was afterwards omitted in consequence of a subsequent review during the reign of Queen Eli

zabeth. We know from ecclesiastical history the groundless and mischievous calumnies, which were propagated against the primitive Christians upon their celebration of the Lord's Supper; and it well became their prudence, not less than their piety, to protect themselves from every plausible imputation of levity and inebriety, when they met together at the Holy Communion.

Of those calumnies I shall produce one proof from Minutius Felix. The words of Minutius Felix p. 95, are," certè occultis ac nocturnis sacris apposita suspicio."

Be this as it may, the faults of communicants in our own times, if there be any, do not resemble the faults of the Corinthians.

Destitute of any fixed place for religious worship, and alarmed by the suspicions and the clamours of contemptuous Heathens and malicious Jews, the Corinthians were compelled to assemble in private houses, and in the night season; but we celebrate the Lord's Supper in open day, where the slightest impropriety would be seen and disapproved. The rich Corinthians sat apart from their poorer brethren; but we kneel down together, without any studied and offensive distinction of rank, in the same posture, and within the same sanctuary. The Corinthians bestowed no portion of their viands to relieve the hunger of their brethren; we make an offering for their benefit. The Corinthians, when they went to the Lord's Supper, brought with them the materials of a luxurious feast; the bread which

we eat and are desirous of eating, is but a morsel; the wine which we drink, and are desirous of drinking, is scarcely sufficient to allay the slightest degree of thirst.

Now, whatsoever differences may exist upon the nature and end of the Sacrament in the doctrines of Christian communities, and whatsoever variety there may be in their discipline, as to their ceremonious observances in celebrating it, there does not exist one human being who would dare in thought, or deed, to be a glutton or a drunkard when he receives the Lord's Supper. Let me now call your attention to the words of St. Paul. In his first Epistle to the Corinthians, a people of whom you will do well to observe, that they were educated, not as you are, in the early, the uninterrupted, the unfeigned belief of Christianity, but amidst the errors and corruptions of Heathenism; a people so notoriously vicious, that to "act the Corinthian," means in the Greek language to be voluptuous and dissolute in the extreme; a people who, from the untoward influence of their former customs, were, even after their conversion, more liable than you are to commit improprieties and irregularities when they were assembled at the table of the Lord. Perceiving the dangers to which the Corinthians were exposed, St. Paul was fully justified in warning his followers thus earnestly and thus solemnly"As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink of this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty

of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him cat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body."

My brethren, it is to be lamented, as I before said, that the word damnation, which our translators have used in the text, should continue to be retained; and that our congregations should not hear the less terrific, and more correct word, judgment, which in the last version of the Scriptures was placed in the margin of our New Testament; and this is not the only instance in which I have told you, that the marginal reading employed by the good sense and learning of English ecclesiastics is preferable to the reading of the text. Here I must remark to you, that judgment is explained by Archbishop Newcome and by Bishop Pearce-not as punishment in the world to come, but as judgment in this world, and judgment actually and especially inflicted upon the Corinthians. The words of Archbishop Newcome are "temporal judgment;" the words of Bishop Pearce are "the Greek word (pia) here signifies temporal punishment; that is to say, weakness, sickness, and death, as appears from verse the 30th, for this reason, that is, by eating and drinking unworthily, which from the context and the history implies want of reverence, and want, even of sobriety, many among you are weak and infirm, and several are dead." The celebrated Bishop Warburton agrees with the three prelates just now mentioned, in supposing that St. Paul had particularly

in view the events of his own time, and the misconduct of his own converts. "The Corinthians,” says he, "had been guilty of celebrating the Lord's Supper in a very indecent manner, by confounding it with their ordinary repasts, or with convivial doings of their own invention, where charity and sobriety were too frequently violated." The Bishop, you must remember, does not say that the want of previous self-examination constituted the guilt of the Corinthians, but he does say explicitly, and he says only, that their fault was the indiscriminate celebration of the Lord's Supper.

St. Paul certainly knew what really was the case with some of his converts. But who, in our own times, will venture to say, that he has ever seen, or ever heard, of any communicant who has brought punishment upon himself by profaneness and drunkenness at the Lord's Supper? And now, my brethren, let me entreat you to attend to me when I more largely clear up the real import of the word, which is misunderstood by many unlearned hearers, and enforced by many half-learned teachers, as imposing the necessity of a plenary and rigorous examination before we communicate.

Bishop Pearce says, "it is material to observe here, that dokuάge does not seem to relate to any examination of what sins they had been formerly guilty of (such as is usually and commendably made before we receive the Lord's Supper), but the phrase δοκιμαζέτω ἑαυτὸν signifes let him distinguish himself from a guest at a common meal; let him consider that he is not at his own, but at Christ's table: