my flesh and drinketh my blood, — that is, eats the sacrjimenta' bread and drinks the sacramental wine, — has eternal life." Here is precisely what the natural heart of man likes ! He likes to go to heaven by formally using ordinances. This is the very way in w^iich millions in the Romish Church have made and are making shipwreck of their souls.
(3.) To say that our Lord meant the Lord's supper in the text, is to make a thing absolutely necessary to salvation which Christ never intended to be so. Our Lord commanded us to use the Lord's supper, but He never said that all who did use it would be saved, and all who did not use it would be lost. How many hundreds repent and are converted on their death-beds, far away from ministers and sacraments, and never receive the Lord's sup- per ! And will any one dare to say they are all lost ? A new heart and an interest in Christ's cleansing blood are the two things needful to salvation. We must have the Blood and the Spirit, or we have no life in us. Without them no heaven I But the Scripture never puts between a sinner and salvation an outward ordinance, over which the poor sinner may have no control, and may be unable to receive it, without any fault of his own.
Archbishop Cranmer remarks, in his " Defence of the True Doctrine of the Sacrament," — "The Romanists say that good men eat the body of Christ and drink His blood, only at that time when they receive the sacrament : we say that they eat, drink, and feed on Christ continually, so long as they are mem- bers of His body. — They say that the body of Christ which is in the sacrament, hath its own proper form and quantity; we say that Christ is there sacramentally and spiritually without form or quantity, — They say that the fathers and prophets of the Old Testament did not eat the body nor drink the blood of Christ ; we say that they did eat His body and drink His blood, although He was not yet born or incarnate."
Ferus says, — " We must take hold of Christ's flesh and blood, not with our hands, but with our faith. He therefore that be- lieves that Christ has given up His body for us, and has shed His blood for the remission of our sins, and through this places all his hope and confidence in Christ crucified, that man really eats the body and blood of Christ."
Cardinal Cajetan, quoted by Ford, says,— "To eat the flesh of Christ and to drink His blood is faith in the death of Jesus Christ. So that the sense is this : if ye use not the death of the Son of God, as meat and drink, ye have not the life of the Spirit in you."
The opinion which many hold, that although our Lord did not directly mean the Lord's supper in this text. He did refer to
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it iniirectly, and had it in view, seems to me very vague and unsatisfactory, and only calculated to confuse our minds.— Our Lord is speaking of something which He says is absolutely and indispensably necessary to eternal life. Where is the use of dragging in an ordinance wliich is not absolutely necessary, and insisting that He had it in view ? — The truth of the matter, I believe, lies precisely in the opposite direction. I believe that afterwards, when our Lord appointed the Lord's supper, He had in view the doctrine of this text, and used words intended to remind the disciples of the doctrine. But here, I believe, He was speaking of something far higher and greater than the Lord's supper. — When He spoke of the lesser thing, I have no doubt that He intended to refer to the greater, and to turn the dis- ciples' minds back to it. But when He spoke as He did here of the greater thing, I am quite unable to believe that He intended to refer to the lesser*
If our Lord did really refer to the Lord's supper when He spake of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, it seems im- possible to understand how Roman Catholics can deny the cup to the laity. " Drinking Christ's blood " is distinctly said to be as necessary to eternal life as " eating Christ's body." Yet the Eomish Church will not allow the laity to drink Christ's blood I It is evidently the pressure of this argument which makes some Roman Catholic writers deny that this passage refers to the sacrament. It is a mistake to suppose that they are unanimous on the point.
Rollock starts the question, why our Lord did not plainly tell His hearers that by eating and drinking He meant not a bodily but a spiritual act, — viz., believing. He replies, that in this as in every case, our Lord did not strive so much to make men understand words, as to beget feeling and experimental acquaint- ance with things. When the heart really begins to feel, words are soon understood.
The distinction that Alford and some others draw between the ''flesh" and "blood" in this text, appears to me very doubt- ful. They think that " eating the flesh " refers generally to participation in the benefits of Christ's incarnation and ascen- sion with a human body into heaven ; and that " drinking the blood " refers specially to an interest in the benefits purchased by His death. — I am not satisfied that this is correct. At the 57th verse, our Lord, speaking briefly of the truth just before enunciated, only says, "He that eateth me, even he shall live by me." Surely "eating" there stands for participation in the benefits of Christ's death as well as life !
My own impression is that both " flesh and blood " are men- tioned here by our Lord to make it certain to the Jews that He