Let not

Let them

of realizing to themselves the spiritual mysteries set before them is gone from them, and that dryness of spirit has taken the place of that burning desire with which they had hoped to seek their Lord? Brethren, I suppose there are no earnest frequenters of the Lord's Sacrament who have not at times experienced such a state of heart as this, and, in proportion to their earnestness, felt it to be to them a sore and heavy trial, and have even doubted whether they were right in drawing near. such persons, however, be impatient. believe that it may be the very means by which their Lord would test the strength of their faith in the reality and power of His Sacrament, by withdrawing those gracious influences by which He stirs the depths of their affections, and depriving them of that sensible sweetness by which, in His compassion, He refreshes our inmost souls. Only, brethren, let us ever be on our guard, lest some secret sin, some unchastened desire after the world, in any one of its manifold shapes, be the cause of this coldness of heart. Let us try and search our hearts, lest some evil temper, some indulgence in pride or selfishness, be setting itself up between us and our Lord, hiding Him practically from us, and so drying up the very springs of a vivid faith and an ardent love. But, above all, let us never fail to pray and long for this desire. God alone can impart it to us. His spirit alone, moving over our souls, can chase away the darkness, and give us such an insight into spiritual realities as

shall make us long for them. Let us cherish, and prize, and act up to whatever promptings from within have yet been vouchsafed to us, remembering that the more we desire this blessed Sacrament, the more it will profit us; for it is the very characteristic of this Holy Ordinance that it increases the graces we bring to it; it improves and adds to that which we possess. We must bring faith along with us, and God will increase our faith; we must come with charity, and we shall go away with more; we must come with truly penitential hearts, and to him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly; he shall be a better penitent when he hath eaten the Sacrifice that was slain for our sins and died in the body, that we might live in the Spirit and die no more.

God grant that by love and obedience, and reverent meditation on this most precious gift of the Sacrament, we may one and all be brought to enter the secrets of its blessedness, and, by a personal experience of its inward power and efficacy, be led to desire it with a more fervent and constant desire.

SERMON XVI.

The Christian Passover.

ST. LUKE xxii. 15.

"With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."

O

N Sunday last, my brethren, we meditated upon

the deep significance of that yearning desire which filled the Lord's heart on the evening before His death, and found expression in the words of the text. In our enquiry as to the cause of that feeling, in connexion with the time and circumstances of its utterance, we found that though an anxious longing for the solace and refreshment of a farewell meeting with His loved disciples, may have well contributed towards that intense desire, that yet we must look deeper for an adequate explanation of it; that no mere reference to any personal gratification, however pure and consistent with our Lord's true humanity, would account for the utterance of such words. Taking, then, a wider view, we considered that the disciples to whom the words were spoken, and whose companionship was so especially dear to our Lord at that time, were regarded by Him in His divine foreknowledge, not only as the faith

ful friends who were about to lament His loss, but as the representatives of the Church which He was establishing, and which they were to build up; as the germ of that great company for whom He was to shed His blood; as members of that body which was to be nourished by the fruits of His Passion. Our Lord's desire, then, would refer to the Church at large as well as to the disciples individually, and to some benefit which should result to both one and the other; and that benefit we found to consist in the institution of that Blessed Sacrament, whereby He desired not only to comfort and strengthen the disciples, but to apply the fruits of His Incarnation to His whole Church. Types and shadows were ready to vanish away; the offerings of the Law had lost their meaning, and the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb was no longer needed, now that the true Paschal Lamb was about to be offered. But the Lord came not "to destroy, but to fulfil the Law;" and though the Passover as a Jewish sacrificial fast commemorative of a temporal bondage, and typical of spiritual redemption, can no longer have place in the Christian dispensation; yet shall it not be destroyed, but exalted; not cast aside, but transfigured; the Lord in His tender love would give not the type, but the reality; not a mere carnal, material sacrifice, but a pure unbloody offering,-the Christian sacrifice of His Body and of His Blood. Thus, in the great and mysterious gift of His Sacrament, we found an adequate explanation of our Lord's yearning

desire to eat the Passover with His disciples before He suffered; we found that tender love and solicitude for the welfare of His Church were at the root of that earnest longing; and that the gift of His Sacrament was the expression of it in visible act.

But, my brethren, if we would enter into the full significance of this ardent longing expressed in the words of the text, we must endeavour to realize the full blessedness of that gift which resulted from it. On Sunday last I could but suggest to you that the very fact of our Lord's desiring so ardently to bestow it upon His Church, should prove to us that it can be no mere sign or memorial; and was forced to content myself with a.mere enumeration of some of its most striking features. To-day I would desire to lead you to meditate on the nature of the Sacrament as a fulfilment of the Jewish Passover; and to dwell on one or two points, which should enable us to appreciate most fully the love and compassion which moved our Lord to say,-" With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."

Now, brethren, when we consider the history of the institution of the Passover, we doubtless find that according to its primary intention, it was to serve as a standing memorial of God's goodness, in the deliverance of His people from a cruel bondage. It was to be observed as an ordinance for ever, and to be explained as the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, "Who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the