The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent | Page 6

committed some deadly sin, and had not been reconciled
to God, should leave church before the Consecration, after the reading
of the Gospel. Now suppose some good old bishop of that day were to
rise from the dead, and come into this church, what would he
see?--Directly the sermon is over,--a rush of almost all in the church,
men, women, and children, running out of the door, and only three or
four, or at most a dozen, remaining to partake of the Lord's Body. That
is what he would see. Now, what would he say?--He would lift up his
hands in horror, and say, "What is this? All these notorious sinners! All
these open profligates! All these burdened with mortal sin, cutting them
off from the grace of God! Take me back to my grave, I do not want to
see any more of such horrible days."
But if I happened to be present, I would say to him. "You are jumping
to conclusions too rashly. Times are altered. It is not the criminals and
profligates who go out of church before the Consecration of the Blessed
Sacrament, and are unworthy to eat of the Lord's Body, it is those who
cannot make up their minds to do exactly what the Lord commanded; it
is those who are half-hearted, who wish to serve God, but do not want
to serve Him very much." Then, I doubt not, the old bishop would turn
upon me with a wrathful face, and say, "Let me go back to my grave!
This is worse! A thousand times worse! The whole Christian world has
grown cold of heart, and dead of faith, if all with one consent begin to
make excuse, and say, 'I cannot come.' I had rather they were either hot
or cold, but because they are neither hot nor cold--away! I cannot bear
to look at their faces! Let me go back to my grave."
III. I know what is passing in your minds as well as if you had got glass
skulls. And this is what I see that not a few of you are thinking. "Ha!
there is the Parson at it again! always hammering away at Communion.
Can he not leave us alone? Let him talk to us of other matters; let him
preach to us some real stinging gospel truth, and make us wince.
Anything but this eternal preaching about coming to Communion."
Now I will tell you why I preach about this, and hammer, hammer, at it.

Because it is good stinging gospel truth, and the grumbling that is
going on is because your consciences really are wincing at what I say.
Listen:--other folks talked like you in olden times. When the children
of Israel came out of Egypt, God in mercy sent them Bread from
Heaven, the manna, to feed them on their way through the wilderness.
What said the people in return for the blessing? Were they very grateful?
Were they very eager to gather up the Angels' food? By no means, they
sat grumbling in their tents and said, "Our soul is dried away; there is
nothing beside this manna before our eyes." Put into modern language
that is, "Our souls have dried up for want of preaching of free
justification, and no good at all in keeping the law; we don't want any
of your Sacramental teaching, no Communion for us, we can do very
well without that, our soul abhorreth this light food, as for this Holy
Communion, there is nothing but that preached to us, year in, year out."
Well! If this Sacramental teaching be not God's own blessed Gospel,
there is no meaning in words. Listen to this! I never said anything so
strong, and this is what Christ Himself spake:--"I am the Bread of Life.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. I am the
living bread which came down from heaven, if any man eat of this
bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is My flesh,
which I give for the life of the world." "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have
no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath
eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat
indeed, and My blood is drink indeed."
Now--mark you. When Jesus said this, many of His disciples said,
"This is a hard saying"--and, from that time they went back, and
walked no more with Him. It is so still, it will be so always. Just as
many of the old Israelites loathed the manna and said, "Our souls are
dried away;