Epistle to the Ephesians is among the most spiritual of the inspired writings, throwing open, in an uncommon degree, the very recesses of the Gospel, and presenting such heights of christian doctrine as, after all our soarings, still lose themselves in the clouds. And it has been justly pointed out, as singularly worthy of observation, that it was to men who had burnt their books on curious arts that an epistle was indited, so replete with what is most wonderful, most beautiful, most profound, in christianity. If you will allow us the expression, it was like repaying them in kind. The Ephesians had abandoned the mysteries of sorcery and astrology at the bidding of the Apostle they had renounced unhallowed modes of prying into the secrets of the invisible world; and they were recompensed by being led to the innermost shrines of truth, and permitted to behold glories which were veiled from common gaze. They gave up the astrology, which is busied with stars that shall be quenched, and lo, "the Sun of righteousness" rose on them with extraordinary effulgence; they renounced the magic which would con jure up strange forms, and a rod, like that of Moses, was stretched forth, peopling the whole universe with images of splendor; they abjured the necromancy, which sought to extort from the dead revelations of the future, and the very grave became luminous, and its ashes glowed for them with immortality. Learn ye from this, that ye cannot give up any thing for God, and be losers by the surrender. The loss is always far more than made up, and, perhaps, often by the communication of something which resembles, whilst it immeasurably excels, what you part with. Never stay, then, to compute the cost: the Ephesians do not seem to have computed it before they burnt their books, though they computed it after— and then, not in regret, but only to display the triumph of the Gospel. Let the cost be " fifty thousand pieces of silver:" hesitate not to make the sacrifice for God, and you shall find yourselves a hundred-fold recompensed: like the Ephesians, if you forsake magic, because God hath forbidden it, ye shall be initiated into mysteries which the Holy Spirit alone can reveal. SERMON IV. THE PARTING HYMN. "And when they had sung an hymn they went out into the Mount of Olives."-Matthew xxvi. 30. These words refer, as you are proba- does not give any account of the institubly all aware, to the conclusion of our tion of the Sacrament of the Lord's Lord's last supper with his disciples, Supper, but he records sundry most imwhen, having instituted a sacrament portant discourses which Christ deliverwhich was to take the place of the Pass-ed at this time to his afflicted disciples. over, he went forth to meet the suffer- It is probable that a portion of these ings through which the world should discourses was uttered immediately after be redeemed. The evangelist St. John the institution of the Sacrament, and VOL. II. 5 before our Lord quitted the chamber in which he had supped with his followers. The remainder are generally thought to have been delivered on the Mount of Olives, to which Christ first went, as is stated in our text, and from which, as the night advanced, he retired with Peter, and James, and John, to Gethsemane, that he might undergo mysterious agony, and meet in dread conflict the powers of darkness. But, to whatever times and places we may affix the several discourses preserved by St. John, there is every reason to think that our text relates the last thing which occurred in the room where the supper had been eaten; that, so soon as the hymn, or psalm, had been sung, our Lord left the room, that he might give himself to the enemies who thirsted for his blood. Opportunity may have been afterwards found of fortifying still further the minds of the disciples; but we are to consider that the singing of the hymn was the last thing done at Christ's last supper, and that, this having been done, the blessed Redeemer, as one who knew that his hour was come, forthwith departed to suffer and to die. And what was the hymn, or psalm, chanted at so fearful and melancholy a moment? There is no reason to think that our Lord swerved from the custom of the Jews; he had commemorated the Passover as it was then wont to be commemorated by his countrymen; and we may justly, therefore, conclude that he sung what they were used to sing in finishing the solemn celebration. When the Passover was instituted, on the eventful night of the destruction of the firstborn of the Egyptians, various forms and practices were enjoined, as you find related in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Exodus. But in after-times, especially in those of our Savior, when traditions had come to their height, numerous circumstances were added to the celebration, so that the original rites formed but a small part of what were practised by the Jews. And learned men have well observed that the New Testament, in several places, refers to certain of these additional circumstances, leaving us to infer that Christ commemorated the Passover as it was then ordinarily commemorated, without rejecting such customs as could not distinctly plead the authority of the law. Thus, for example, at the first Passover in Egypt, the strict injunction had been, that they should eat it "with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, their staves in their hands, and in haste." The posture enjoined and practised corresponded accurately with their condition, that of men about to be thrust forth from the country, and to enter on a toilsome and difficult march. But afterwards the Jews altered the posture, that it might answer better to their altered circumstances. At their common meals the Jews either sat, as we do, with their bodies erect, or reclined on couches, with the left elbow on the table. But on the Passover night they considered themselves obliged to use the recumbent position, because it marked, as they thought, their freedom and composure. Now it is evident, that in this our Lord conformed to the custom of the Jews: the beloved disciple, John, leant on his bosom during the repast, from which we infer, at once, that Christ and his Apostles reclined in the eating the Passover. To give another instance. The eating of unleavened bread at this time was enjoined by a special and express command, which you find in the Book of Exodus; but nothing is there said as to the use of wine at the Passover. Subsequently, however, the drinking wine at the Passover came to be considered as indispensable as the eating the unleavened bread We find it expressly stated by the Rabbinical writers, that "the poorest man in Israel was bound to drink off four cups of wine this night, yea, though he lived of the alms-basket." Now it is very clear that our Lord and his disciples made use of wine at the Passover: nay, Christ may be said to have given a direct sanction to what might have been regarded as the innovation of tradition; for he took the cup which men had introduced into the paschal supper, and consecrated it in perpetual memorial of his own precious blood. In like manner, with regard to the singing of a psalm or hymn-there is nothing said in the Book of Exodus as to the concluding the paschal supper with any such act, yet the custom was introduced in process of time, and the Jews made a point of singing the hundred and thirteenth and the five following Psalms, Psalms which are said to have been selected, not only because and instruction in righteousness, that the sacred historian, having given us the account of the last supper, was directed to record of Christ and his Apostles, that "when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives." containing, in the general, high and emi- | Scripture, it were not for our admonition nent memorials of God's goodness and deliverance unto Israel, but because they record these five great things," the coming out of Egypt, the dividing of the sea, the giving of the law, the resurrection of the dead, and the lot of Messias." These psalms were repeated, or chanted, on other occasions besides that of the Passover-as at the feast of Pentecost, and on the eight days of the feast of Dedication. But at no time was their use more strictly observed than on the night of the Passover, though they were not then all sung at once, but rather dispersed over the service; only so that, when the last cup of wine was filled, the concluding psalms were sung; and thus the solemnities terminated with the chant, "Thou art my God, and I will praise thee; thou art my God, I will exalt thee. O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever." As we are expressly told that Christ concluded the Passover with a psalm or hymn, we cannot well doubt, that, having conformed in other respects to the existing customs of the Jews, he conformed also in this; and that, consequently, the words which he sung with his disciples were the words then ordinarily used in the solemn commemoration of the deliverance from Egypt. We shall assume this through the remainder of our discourse; so that if, over and above the fact of a hymn having been sung, we have occasion to refer to the subject-matter of the hymn, we shall turn to the psalms which constituted what the Jews called the Hallel, from the repetition of the word "Hallelujah," and seek in them for the expressions which were woven into the anthem of our Lord and his Apostles. There are many truths which present themselves to the mind, when it duly ponders the simple statement of the text. Our foregoing remarks, bearing merely on the fact that Christ conformed to the innovations of the Jews, will only help us to the making one use, though an important one, of the passage. We shall find, however, as we proceed, that what we may have been used to pass by, as the bare announcement of a fact but little interesting to ourselves, is fraught with rich and varied instruction. Let us then employ ourselves without anticipating any further the lessons to be extracted, in considering whether, as with all other Now the first important truth on which we would speak, as enforced or illustrated by the passage under review, is that to which our introductory remarks have all tended, that our blessed Lord, by conforming to certain customs of the Jews in the eating of the Passover, gave his sanction to ceremonies which may not be able to plead a divine institution. We have shown you that it was not only in the singing of psalms, but in many other particulars, such as the recumbent posture, and the drinking of wine, that the Jews had altered, or added to, the original practice, but that our Savior made no objection to the alteration or addition. He celebrated the Passover just as he found it then used to be celebrated, submitting, so to speak, to tradition and custom. And yet, had there been any thing of a captious spirit, there might perhaps have been matter for doubt or disputation. It might have been urged, with some show of justice, that the innovations were not necessarily in keeping with the character of the ordinance; that the recumbent posture, for example, and the drinking of wine, as betokening, or according with, security and gladness, scarcely suited the commemoration of events which had been marked by hurry, agitation, and alarm. And with regard even to the singing of psalms-if it had been admitted that the occasion was one which would well warrant the praising God with loud anthems, it might still have been asked, Why use these particular psalms? Have we not the Song of Miriam, which, as composed immediately after the deliverance from Egypt, would be far more appropriate? or have we not the song of Moses and would not the song of the leader, through whom the Passover was instituted, and the emancipation achieved, remind us better of what we owe to God, than the words of one who lived long after the recorded events, when we were settled as a nation, and not wanderers in the desert? We think there would have been no difficulty in thus making out, so to speak, a sort of plausible case against the in novations of the Jews in the Passover "Let all things be done decently and in service. Had our Lord been a leader, order." disposed to make ceremonies the occasion of schism, he might have armed himself with very specious objections, and have urged that there were conscientious grounds for separating from the communion of the national church. But it is evident that our blessed Savior acknowledged a power in the church of decreeing rites and ceremonies, and of changing those rites and ceremonies "according (as our thirty-fourth Article expresses it) to the diversities of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word." He did not require that every ceremony should be able to plead a positive command in the Bible, nor that it should prove itself modelled after the original practice. Had he done this, it is manifest that he must have objected to the ceremonies in the celebration of the Passover; for they could not plead a divine institution, and were rather at variance than in accordance with what had been at first appointed or observed. But we may justly conclude that our Lord proceeded on what (were it not for modern cavils) we might call a self-evident principle, that rites and ceremonies are not in themselves any part of the public worship of God; they are nothing but circumstances and customs to be observed in the conducting that worship, and may therefore be enacted and altered as shall seem best to the church. Had the innovations of the Jews interfered, in any measure, with the character of the Passover as a religious ordinance, had they at all opposed its commemorative office, or militated against it as a sacrifice and a sacrament, we cannot doubt that Christ would have entered his protest, that he would never have given the sanction of his example to what would have been a corruption of the worship of God. This, however, is more than can justly be affirmed of any mere rite er ceremony; for rites or ceremonies, so long as they are not against Scripture, must be regarded as indifferent things, neither good in themselves nor bad; and if they are indifferent, they may be omitted, or introduced, or changed, without at all affecting the act of divino worship, and merely in conformity, according to diversity of circumstances, with the rule of the Apostle, Perhaps the Jews, in changing the posture in which the Passover was to be eaten, went as near to an interference with the ordinance itself as any mere rite or ceremony could go; for it might have been urged that a different, if not an untrue, character was given to the ordinance, the aspect of composedness. and rest having been made to take the place of that of haste and agitation. But you are to remember that the circumstances of the Israelites were really changed; the Passover, as to be commemorated in after times, found them in a very altered position from what they had occupied when the Passover was originally instituted; and the new rites, which they introduced, did but correspond to this new position; they interfered neither with the slaying nor with the eating of the lamb; they were only so far different from the old as to indicate what was matter of fact in regard of the Jews, that, as their fathers eat the Passover in a night of disaster and death, themselves were allowed, through the mercy of God, to eat of it in security and gladness. And it can hardly fail to strike you, that, in such an alteration, when distinctly sanctioned by the prac tice of our Lord, we have a precedent for changes which the church may have introduced into the ceremonials of religion. Take, for example, a case which bears close resemblance to that just considered. When the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was originally instituted, the Apostles sat or reclined in the receiving it; whereas it is now the appointment of the church that we should kneel to receive it. There has been, that is, much of the same departure from the first practice as in the instance of the Passover. And if by the act of kneeling we offered any adoration to the bread and the wine, as though we supposed them substantially changed into Christ's body and blood, it is evident that the alteration in the ceremony would be an infringement of the Sacrament itself, and that no church would have right to substitute the kneeling for the sitting. But the kneeling at the Communion, as we are expressly taught by the church, is meant only "for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy receivers ;" and the alteration | nouncement had distracted their minds. may therefore be said to be just such as What an unseasonable inoment for singwas made by the Jews in respect of the ing joyous hymns! How natural to Passover an alteration corresponding have said, "This part of the appointed to altered circumstances; when the service is not suited to us now; and, Lord's Supper was instituted, Christ forasmuch as it certainly is not of divine had not died, and the benefits of his institution, we may surely dispense with death, as conveyed through the Sacra- it, when our hearts are so heavy and ment, were but partially, if at all, under- sad." But no! it was the ordinance of stood; but now that Christ hath died, the church: the church had full authoand the Spirit been given to explain and rity to appoint such an ordinance; and apply his finished work, we know that Christ and his Apostles would give their the Lord's Supper is the great instituted testimony to the duty of conformity to means for the communication to our all lawful ordinances, whether in unison souls of the results of his sacrifice; and or not with individual feelings. And on surely, if a reclining posture became this account, as we may venture to bethose who had yet to learn what the lieve-or, if not for this purpose, assurSacrament would do for them, a kneeling edly with this result-though they were may be more appropriate, when the stricken in spirit, disquieted, yea, sorely office of that holy mystery has been more distressed, they would not depart from unfolded. the chamber till they had done all which was enjoined by the church, and thus shown that they acknowledged her authority: it was not until “ "they had sung an hymn," that "they went out into the Mount of Olives." But without insisting further on particular instances, which would only unduly detain us from other and more interesting truths, we venture to take our Lord's conduct, in regard of the ceremonies at the Passover, as establishing the authority of the church to ordain and alter ceremonies and rites, and as strongly condemning those who would make mere ceremonies and rites the excuses for disunion and schism. Our Lord conformed to customs and alterations, for which it would have been impossible to produce divine warrant, and against which it would not have been difficult to advance some specious objections. And we argue, therefore, that the church is not obliged to find chapter and verse for every ceremony which she is pleased to enjoin, as though she had no power of settling points of discipline or order, except so far as she can justify the settlement by an appeal to inspired authority. We argue further, from the instance before us, that the church having appointed what she judges most for the general good, individuals have no right to separate and oppose, because they do not find the appointment precisely congenial with their feelings or circumstances. Look at Christ and his Apostles-they were about to be parted: Christ was just entering upon scenes immeasurably more tremendous than had ever been passed through by any of our race; the Apostles were full of apprehensions and grief, for their Lord had announced his departure, and the an But now let us take another view of this fact. We have just considered the singing of an hymn as inappropriate to the circumstances of Christ and his Apostles; and no doubt there was an apparent unsuitableness which might have been pleaded by those who sought an excuse for disobedience to ecclesias tical rule. Solomon has said, "As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart." And thus the wise man may be considered as having delivered his testimony against the fitness of music and minstrelsy, when there is a weight at the heart, and the spirits are oppressed. But "a greater than Solomon is here ;" and we may perhaps say that it was with the singing of an hymn that Christ prepared himself for his unknown agony. Setting aside all considerations drawn from the ordinances of the church, is it at all strange that our blessed Lord and his disciples should have sung joyous hymns at a moment so full of darkness and dread? For joyous hymns they were in which they joined: music has its melancholy strains as well as its gladdening-the dirge for the funeral as well as the song for the marriage or the banquet: and Christ and his Apostles might have thrown the sadness of their spirits into |