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CHAPTER VII.'

OF THOSE THAT COME UNWORTHILY.

"MANY are called-but few are chosen." It is the will of God, for the vindication doubtless of his own truth and honor, that the doctrine the most offensive to the natural heart, and the most proudly resisted by the world, is that which it is most continually destined both to witness and to verify: the worshippers of Christ are the few and not the many. Wherever the cross is exhibited, it is the few and not the many, that with a broken and a contrite heart bow down before it; wherever, and however the Gospel invitation is proclaimed, it is the few and not the many that with a true and living faith accept the promises and enter into rest. "For strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Few was the church of God when it floated over the waters of a drowning world; fewest of any people when he fetched it out of Egypt to be a separated nation to himself-and fewer still when all but three fell down before the golden image Nebuchadnezzar the king set up. Few were they when the Messiah came unto his own, and his own received him not: when Jesus

with all his miracles, his power, his wisdom and his goodness, could gain but some hundreds to his side, and administered his first sacrament to only twelve. And since the Holy Ghost the Comforter has come, with all the out-pouring of his gracious Spirit, the spreading of his word and increase of his grace-what are we to say? Churches are opened, and the many of our population stay at home-the Holy Sacrament is administered, and the many of our Christian congregations go away.

And yet-even yet-"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind." Few, as from the multitudinous ocean of this sinful world, the Gospel net draws in-small as the Christian Church is amid the shoals of scepticism and idolatry-the awful fact is so-it is God's abiding pleasure that it should be so-they are not all Israel that are of Israel-the bad fish are in the net-the tares are in the field-the goats are in the fold-there is a Judas seated at the table. God's time of final separation is not come"Let them grow together until the harvest." He who from all eternity has known his own, has named but one test by which to try and prove them-"Believest thou in me;" often a secret between the soul and God; nay, sometimes God's alone, for He knows many a child whose stricken spirit does not know itself. Men would not have it so-men are wiser, and would

discriminate; they would go in at once and rout them out: and hoping to exclude all but the elect of God, they make tests that God has never made, by which to try and know them. Subscribe these doctrines, join this particular church; we must know, and you must know that you are chosen of God, before we admit you to the communion of his saints. Yet when all is done, and we, poor leaders of the blind, are satisfied, your profession may be false, we may be mistaken, and you be lost ones.

I cannot express too strongly what I think of the wisdom of our church, in the very point on which it has been impugned; the freeness of her administration. The wisdom, I repeat, with which she addresses herself to all who shall be religiously and devoutly disposed, that do mind to come to the holy communion of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ; reminds them of the dignity of that holy mystery, and the great peril of the unworthy receiving of it; warns the impenitent and unbelieving not to come; and then addressing the communicants by such a description as can alone entitle them to draw near-"Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins," &c. leaves to themselves the peril of a false profession. A false profession it most truly is, if any one who ought to have been excluded, can proceed with the appointed words; if, not repenting, not believing, not purposing or wishing to amend, the bold, unfit com

municant ventures to draw near upon such a bidding, and pronounce the words appointed for his use.

"If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." You then who are coming and do constantly or occasionally come to the table of the Lord, consider well what the profession is you are required to make: consider, that when you have made it, and the church has accepted it, and God has heard it, it may be a false profession. "And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man that had not on a wedding garment." The Master did not blame his servants for the incautious admission of his unworthy guest, for he had bidden them to gather together all that could be found, as many as would, and bring them to the feast; the graceless intruder bore the condemnation. "Bind him hand and foot and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; for many are called, but few are chosen." "After he had received the sop,. Satan entered into him." The moment when the superstitious, self-righteous or impenitent soul has satisfied and dulled itself by the performance of a religious duty, may not perhaps be the time at which the forbearing and most pitiful God will give the word of final separation; but it is the very opportunity for Satan to take more full possession of his own, and harden the heart in unbelief and sin. And

if he was present, as we see he was, at that most holy feast, where Jesus and the chosen twelve sat down alone, can we select a company so pure, or shut the door so close, or leave so few within, that he will not be one?

The benefit of the communion is limited to a number-to the faithful. It is said to be received in taking the elements, not derived from them; and limited to the condition of the recipient. "The benefit is great, if with a truly penitent heart and lively faith we receive the holy sacrament: for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood; then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us; we are one with Christ and Christ with us." The church does not, I apprehend, mean to say that the act of eating and drinking the elements, either occasions us or entitles us to dwell in Christ; neither makes us to be, nor proves us to be one with him. The worthy or unworthy partaking of them is an evidence, but not a cause of those different states of mind to one of which the benefits are limited. This cannot, I think, be better illustrated than in the material symbols through which it is exhibited. God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the commonest things of this world to illustrate the most mysterious. Meat and drink are the most frequent emblems of the divine operations within the soul," My body is meat indeed, my blood is drink indeed." "Whoso shall drink of the