assured. Christ was incarnate and lived and died and rose again for the whole human race. "We thus judge that when One died for all, then all died," and so when One rose, all were raised up with Him. And yet these blessings have a peculiar meaning to those who have been by baptism brought into the redeemed and regenerated community, the Church of God. These gifts of grace are ours. We have no right to cast them away. We have not even to labour for them, we have only to enter into them and to possess them. And so shall we learn the lesson of dying to self and the world and living to God, of crucifying the old man that the new man may arise within us; so that we may be able to enter into that experience of the Apostle when he says: "I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. ii. 20). LECTURE II. THE REVEREND G. MCCLELLAN FISKE, D.D., Rector of S. Stephen's Church, Providence, R. I. THE LORD'S SUPPER. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. IN approaching this august subject, gentlemen, on which I have been invited to address you, let me, first of all, affirm my sincere intention to speak in filial submission to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. And may the Holy Spirit guide and keep from error both in faith and life each one of us, who draws near to contemplate the venerable Sacrament of the Altar. For that Sacrament is the most conspicuous practical feature of the Church. It is the highest act of worship. It is admittedly the most solemn ministration pertaining to the individual religious life, and it is, as Dean Church * suggests, * "Oxford Movement," p. 56. "the foundation of ecclesiastical discipline and authority." Believing then that the Church has a reliable tradition concerning this great Sacrament, we will examine three distinguishing features of this tradition, viz: I. The Sacrifice. II. The Real Presence. III. The Communion. I. Worship is the instinct of a rational creature. It is the confession of his sense of the distance between himself and his Creator. He records his experience of the contrast in the outcry, ‚* "O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord 'Thou art my God,' my goods are nothing unto Thee." He must fall down and adore. Worship being the motion of a loving heart and an admiring mind in the presence of the Heart of hearts and the Mind of minds expresses itself in sacrifice. Who does not understand the feeling which exclaims, “What can we give to one we love?" The best things which we have must attest our homage, and then we must give ourselves. The Magi not only opened their treasures and offered precious gifts, but they fell down and worshipped. They would give not only gold and myrrh and incense, but they would give themselves. This is the primary account of sacrifice. It is * Ps. xvi. 2. |