And now, having shown from Scripture who ought to be at the breaking of bread, we shall proceed to consider who ought _not_. On this point Scripture is equally explicit: in a word, then, none should be there who are not members of the true Church of God. The same law which commanded _all_ the congregation of Israel to eat the passover, commanded all uncircumcised strangers _not_ to eat; and now that Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, none can keep the feast, (which is to extend throughout this entire dispensation,) nor break the bread nor drink the wine in true remembrance of Him, save those who know the cleansing and healing virtues of His precious blood. To eat and drink without this knowledge, is to eat and drink unworthily--to eat and drink judgment; like the woman in Num. v. who drank the water of jealousy, to make the condemnation more manifest and awfully solemn.
Now it is in this that Christendom's guilt is specially manifest. In taking the Lord's Supper, the professing Church has, like Judas, put her hand on the table with Christ and betrayed Him; she has eaten with Him, and at the same time lifted up her heel against Him. What will be her end? Just like the end of Judas. "He, then, having received the sop, _went immediately out_: and"--the Holy Ghost adds, in awful solemnity--"IT WAS NIGHT." Terrible night! The strongest expression of divine love only elicited the strongest expression of human hatred. So will it be with the false professing Church collectively, and each false professor individually; and all those who, though baptized in the name of Christ, and sitting down at the table of Christ, have nevertheless been His betrayers, will find themselves at last thrust out into outer darkness--involved in a night which shall never see the beams of the morning--plunged in a gulf of endless and ineffable woe; and though they may be able to say to the Lord, "We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets," yet His solemn, heartrending reply will be, while He shuts the door against them, "Depart from Me! I never knew you." O reader, think of this, I pray you; and if you be yet in your sins, defile not the Lord's table by your presence; but instead of going thither as a hypocrite, repair to Calvary as a poor ruined and guilty sinner, and there receive pardon and cleansing from Him who died to save just such as you are.
IV. Having now considered, through the Lord's mercy, the nature of the Lord's Supper; the circumstances under which it was instituted; and the persons for whom it was designed; I would only add a word as to what Scripture teaches us about the time and manner of its celebration.
Although the Lord's Supper was not _first_ instituted on the first day of the week, yet the twenty-fourth of Luke and the twentieth of Acts are quite sufficient to prove, to a mind subject to the Word, that that is the day on which the ordinance should specially be observed. The Lord broke bread with His disciples on "the first day of the week" (Luke xxiv. 30); and "on the first day of the week the disciples came together to break bread" (Acts xx. 7). These scriptures are quite sufficient to prove that it is not once a month, nor once in three months, nor once in six months, that disciples should come together to break bread, but once a week at least, and that upon the first day of the week. Nor can we have any difficulty in seeing that there is a moral fitness in the first day of the week for the celebration of the Lord's Supper: it is the resurrection day--the Church's day, in contrast with the seventh, which was Israel's day; and as, in the institution of the ordinance, the Lord led His disciples away from Jewish things altogether, (by refusing to drink of the fruit of the vine--the passover cup,--and then instituting another ordinance) so, in the day on which that ordinance was to be celebrated, we observe the same contrast between heavenly and earthly things. It is in the power of resurrection that we can rightly show the Lord's death. When the conflict was over, Melchizedek brought forth bread and wine, and blessed Abram, in the name of the Lord. Thus, too, our Melchizedek, when all the conflict was over and the victory gained, came forth in resurrection with bread and wine, to strengthen and cheer the hearts of His people, and to breathe upon them that peace which He had so dearly purchased.