Ver. 27.-Sacramental unworthiness. The special thought here is the evil of looking at the Lord's Supper as if it were a mere eating and drinking time. It is. a. symbolic time; it is a spiritually feasting time. It is a time when the wants and demands of the body are to be put wholly aside. It is a. soul-time. He eats. unworthily who stays with any bodily partaking of mere emblems, and fails to fill his soul with living bread-with him who is the" Bread of life." The following points arc so simple and suggestive that they only need statement :-Wc eat, at the sacrament,. unworthily : l. When we eat without suitable remembrance. "The Son of man knew: cH. XI. 1-34.] THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE COHINTl:IIANS. 395.
our natme far too well (to trust us witbont such helps). He knew that the remem- brance of his sacrifice would fade without perpetual repetition, and without an appeal to the senses; therefore by touch, by taste, by sight, we are reminded in the sacrament that Christianity is not a thing of mere feelin", but a real historical actuality. It sets forth Jesus Christ evidently crucified amoig us" (Robertson). 2. When we eat without spiritual insight, and so fail to recognize the holy mystery of the symbols. 3. When we eat without devout feeling duly nourished by preparatory seasons of quietness, meditation, communion, and prayer. 4. When we eat without thankful love cherished for him who gave his very life for us. 5. When we eat without holy resolves, to which gratitude ought to urge us. Impress the penalty of the unworthy eating. (1) It 'is as if a man were really scorning Christ and putting him to shame. (2) It is a piece of deception, for participation presupposes spiritual relations. The man who eats "unworthily" is guilty, that is, he is amenable to punishment; and spiritual punishments, though they may creep up very slowly and come on very silently, are fearful punishments: they are the hardened heart that cannot feel, the deluded mind that can perish in self-deceptions.-R. T. Ver. 28.-MoralfUnessfor communion. Explain the Scottish custom of" fencing- the tables" at sacra.mental seasons, that is, of guarding the tables from the approach of unworthy persons. There has grown up round the expression, "Let a man examine himself," a kind of self-searching, as a Christian dnty, which could hardly have been in the thought of the apostle. It has come to be considered the right thing that, at stated seasons, the Christian should subject his whole inner life, his thoughts, his views of truth, his frames of mind, and his varied feelings, to examination; testing them by the most familiar and admired models of Christian experience. Many of us know what it is to attempt this painful and difficult work, and perhaps we know also the heavy penalties which follow the attempt; the oppressed moods into which our souls get, the killing outright of all Christian joy, the morbid pleasure found in dwellin~ on the evil phases of our experience, and, above all, the subtle self-trust which it engenders, until we awake to find that we have been led away from simple, chikllike reliance on Christ to an attempted confidence in our own frames and feelings and experiences. St. Paul distinctly enjoins the duty of examining one's self, but if we take his counsel in connection with the circumstances and doings of those to whom his counsel was given, we shall see what was the sphere of self-examination to which he referred. '!'be evils which the apostle deals with are plainly the relics of the old heathen life gaining strength again, such strength as to imperil this most solemn Christian ordinance. There were class rivalries, one pressing before another; the rich were making ostentatious display; the poor were grasping at the best food; sclf- indulgence, gluttony, were so manifest that few could realize the special religious significance of the closing part of the feast, the common sharing of the bread and wine of memodal. St. Paul, having this in mind, urges that a man must examine into his mornls, his habits, his conduct, his relationships, and his duties, and gain a moral fitness for partaking of the bread and of the wine of memorial. We consider- !. THE MORAL LIFE THAT IS IN HARMONY WITH HOLY CoM~IUNION. One important element of the Christian spirit is sensitiveness to the tone, the character, the genius, of Christianity. vV c ought not to have to ask," What is consistent?" \Ve should/eel what is becoming, what is worthy of our vocation. The cultured, spiritually millllcd Christian, who is "transformed by the renewing of his mind," finds himself resistinµ; all wrong,,disliking all that is unlovely, shrinking from everything that is untrue, am\ gathering round him all that is kind and lovely and of good report. His life ho seeks to set sounding through all its notes in full harmony with the key-note of the gospel. But we should sec that our moral life is to be tested by Christianity when that religion is at its highest point of expression, and that we find in the Eucharistic feast. We must test ourselves by the ideal which we imagine as realized at the Lord's table. Then we say: 1. '!'hat there must be a very clearly cut and marked separation from the larger social evils of our time. 2. 'fhere must be a firm stand in relation to the questionable things of our time, the things that seem t.o lie on the bonlcr-lan<l between, 11:ood and evil. 3. There is further required a wise ordering of family relationships~ and an etficient restraining of personal habits. Our communion-times. when the holy ,396 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTIII.ANS. [en. xu. 1-31.