Jesus Christian church, we see that the Corinthian Christians in regard to their love-feasts fell into much the same state as Christians of the present day with regard to many sacred things; yes, even as it is with the very name of Christian. The name only was there; and what the name expressed and betokened was wanting, while the very opposite was there. Lovefeast! Yes, justly might those repasts be so styled at which Christians sat together as such, and with which they connected the commemorative observance of the death of Jesus. was love itself; out of love, and love alone, he died. Love, uniting love, should be the badge of his disciples and worshippers; and love is naturally stirred up in every heart which is penetrated with the love of him who died on the cross from love. In cordial brotherly love they sat together, when they ate and drank in remembrance of their first-born brother, who had gone away to his Father and their Father; and the delightful fruits and beneficent expressions of love could not easily have been wanting there. Ah! it must have been a stirring and salutary sight to see those first Christians, All who full of ardent love yet hung upon their Lord, affectionately seated together at such a repast. The provisions were sent by the members of the church. The poor, who could contribute nothing, fared just as well originally as the rich or great. The wealthier brother imparted his superfluity to the poorer brother. The poor brother could not suffer want, so long as the richer brother had a superfluity. There was then no outward distinction. were one; all equal; a circle of brothers and sisters. Love unites and makes equal. And so it ought to have been, and so it should have continued to be; but now at Corinth the rich inan had his expensive food brought for himself, and then ate by himself, unconcerned about the others. The poor were not remembered; and what was yet worse, they went and assembled there together without considering on what particular account they did so, and in what respect this repast which they celebrated must be distinguished from every other. They went to it thoughtlessly, as a banquet of sensuality. They actually brought an offering to sensuality. They sought to please the flesh. And it may be imagined in what frame of mind, in what temper of heart, the Lord's Supper was celebrated after repasts so held. The rich were overladen with meat and drink, and thus unfitted for fine spiritual enjoyment, for tender religious emotion, and incapable of devotion or edification. The poor were hungry, many of them mortified and afflicted, or vexed and embittered by cold neglect or contemptuous disdain. At a festival which, according to its name and substance, its nature and intention, should have brought hearts nearer together, there was frozen division of hearts, and cold estrangement of minds. Yes, it was as mildly and forbearingly expressed as possible, when the apostle said to them with perfect truth, 'I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse.'. It was not the fault of the festival certainly, that they became worse rather than better at every meeting. If every thing had been and continued with them as it should have been and continued, they would certainly always have come together for the better. And it was really a lamentable truth' When ye come together into one 6 place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper.' And in order to represent this to them yet more clearly, in order to make yet more striking the scandalous, profane abuse of a custom so holy, he leads them by a simple relation of the institution of the supper to a knowledge of its true value, and makes them sensible in its full weight of what is meant and expressed by that, eat the Lord's Supper;' and it is necessary that Christians in this country should learn it too. If the Corinthian abuses do not take place in our day, when the supper is no longer celebrated according to the ancient mode, still Christians of our times too often, alas! have occasion to say, 'When ye come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper.' And that this instruction of the apostle is not less important and sacred to us than to the Corinthians, appears at once from the solemn beginning. I have received from the Lord, that which also I delivered unto you. The apostle alludes to the information which he had imparted to them upon the supper of the Lord. What I have imparted to you thereupon, he would say, well merited to be better considered and followed. It did not originate in my head, it was not an affair of my invention or interpretation, nor did I derive it from the assertions or reports of others, nor from written or verbal information. I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.' Hence if others teach anything different respecting it from what I have done, and if they so teach that the consequence of their doctrine is the desecration and disparagement of the holy supper, you ought not in justice to confide in them. It is true, I was not a witness of it any more than they, when our Lord on that last evening before his death instituted this memorial of his love; but it is as well as if I had been there present, and had heard all from his own mouth. From him was that which I delivered unto you, and which I must now repeat, because you have forgotten it, or because it does not seem to be of so much consequence to you as it should be. I give you again, therefore, what I myself received. Let it avail then with us, the same as if the |