the sacrament will not do our souls the slightest good, if we do not receive it with repentance and faith. The Lord's supper is not a converting or justifying ordinance, and those who come to it unconverted and unjustified, will go away no better than they came, but rather worse. It is an ordinance for believers, and not for unbelievers, for the living and not for the dead. It is meant to sus- tain life, but not to impart it — -to strengthen and increase grace, but not to give it — to help faith to grow, but not to sow or plant it. Let these things sink down into our hearts, and never be forgotten.
Are we alive unto God ? This is the great question. If we are, let us go to the Lord's supper, and receive it thankfully, and never turn our backs on the Lord's table. If we do not go, we commit a great sin.
Are we yet dead in sin and worldliness ? If we are, we have no business at the communion. We are on the broad way that leadeth to destruction. We must repent. We must be born again. We must be joined to Christ by faith. Then, and not till then, we are fit to be communicants.*
* There are two expressions in the passage now expounded, which deserve a special notice. One is, the " fruit of the vine." The other is " the kingdom of God."
1. The words, "fruit of the vine," applied by our Lord to the cup of wine which He had just been giving to His disciples, in the insti- tution of the Lord's supper, appear entirely to overthrow the Eomish doctrine of transubstautiation. The wine, it appears, did not really and literally become Christ's blood, as the Eoman Catholics say. Our Lord himself speaks of it as the juice of grapes, " the fruit of the vine/1 It is clear therefore, that when He said of that cup of wine before. " this is my blood," He meant nothing more than this, " this repre- sents— is an emblem of — my blood." 9
2 The words, " kingdom of God," applied by our Lord to a time