CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE.

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."-PSALM XXIII. 5.

THE table here spoken of is that spiritual table, the food on which is that bread of life which hath come down from heaven. The enemies in whose presence it is spread, are the various elements of that fear of death, through which we were all our lifetime subject to bondage. The transition of thought is from the sense of freedom from fear in walking through the valley of the shadow of death, expressed in the previous verse, to the recognition of the source of that freedom in our participation in the eternal life given to us in the Son of God. And the form of the language has reference to the manner of that participation, viz., our eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

I propose to consider, as what the experience here expressed by the Psalmist brings before us, the practical conception of our salvation, that it is wrought out in our feeding upon Christ; and I shall do so with special reference to John vi. 27-58, because of

the great fulness of that record of our Lord's own personal teaching on this subject. The passage is indeed one which I believe generally arrests attention; and which, even whilst it is felt to be imperfectly understood, is still vividly remembered; our Lord's earnestness and urgency giving the impression of fundamental importance in that which is taught ; while the form of expression which he employs, is not only solemn, but in some sense mysterious; or at least, what makes a peculiar demand for spiritual intelligence. The difficulty experienced by those to whom the words were originally addressed, and the way in which our Lord met their murmuring, rather by reiteration of the statement at which they stumbled than by explanation, contributes to this feeling of mystery and difficulty; which is yet further strengthened by the character of what was offered to them for guidance, viz., the intimation of the impossibility of understanding what was told to them, otherwise than by being taught of God. Yet, however difficult may be the attempt to form definite conceptions of the practical demand made upon us, in such expressions as, "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;" and however great the solemnity with which that demand is invested, when our Lord adds, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me," the conviction that we are called to the study of our Lord's words is inevitable, if we reflect upon this, that they make a requirement, which must be understood in order to

be complied with, and compliance with which involves no less momentous an issue than eternal life. We cannot therefore put from us the inquiry, "What is it to eat the flesh and to drink the blood of Christ ?" Nay, we cannot doubt that we are authorized to seek spiritual light as to the bearing upon our own relation to our Lord, of the words, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." And, if we receive our Lord's words to the murmuring Jews, which were both rebuke and guidance, we shall be saved from murmuring, and receive the guidance which we need. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him."" It is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me."

But before proceeding to the direct consideration of what is here taught as to the manner of our participation in the life given to us in the Son of God, I feel it right to consider the claims of another interpretation given to this passage. In understanding it, as in common with Protestants in general I do, as having reference to the life of faith, I feel so borne out, not only by the character of the passage as a whole, but even by the choice of words in such expressions as, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent," and "I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst," that I would not feel any call to stop to

notice the interpretation to which I refer, but that it derives an adventitious interest at this moment, from its harmonizing with a mental tendency recently manifested within the Protestant portion of the Church, and which, as a tendency to Romanism, has engaged much, though I fear as yet but superficial, attention. Perhaps I should rather say, that I notice the interpretation in question, for the sake of the opportunity of saying something to you that may be helpful to you in reference to that tendency.

The other interpretation of the passage before us, which I am thus induced to notice is, that it is of the ordinance of the Lord's Supper that the Lord here speaks, that his discourse is, in some sense, prophetical, and that his object is to declare the important place and function which that ordinance was to have in his future Church. This is the interpretation adopted by the Church of Rome. It is also adopted by those, or at least by some of those, who have recently manifested what has been regarded as a tendency to Romanism.

I believe the relation of the passage which they would thus interpret, and of the Lord's Supper, to each other, to be simply this, that they both refer to the same spiritual reality, that ordinance setting forth in act, what this passage sets forth in word. They both declare the manner of the life which is by the faith of the Son of God, using our experience of the conscious process of eating and drinking to illustrate the selfappropriating movements of the will in receiving and in feeding upon the spiritual food, which is our Lord's broken body and shed blood; thus helping us to

conceive of the intimacy of our union with Christ, and of the literal truth of the expression, "partaking in him," through our knowledge of the consubstantiating of the food which we eat with the body which it nourishes. By both, I say, are we thus taught, and of our profitable meditation of the one, and of our worthy participation of the other, the fruit is one and the same; living obedience to the guidance which the Lord's words bestow; living conformity with the meaning of the symbolical act, in which, at his command, we have engaged.

Apart from the arbitrary assumption of the interpretation in question, there is no doubt that the natural understanding of the passage before us, and the light shed on the ordinance of the Lord's Supper by all the passages which unequivocally refer to it, concur in favour of this view, and justify me in saying, that this passage and that ordinance are related to each other only as both shedding light on the life of faith; and this, as the assumption of that other interpretation is arbitrary, may be held conclusive against it.

But I cannot so pass on from it; because, as appears to me, it is not merely an erroneous interpretation, but is one involving very serious and very evil results.

Assume the correctness of this interpretation, and then our Lord's expressions, contracted in meaning from that largeness in which they were parallel to the words, "I am the vine, ye are the branches," "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light