SERMON V.

JOHN vi. 51.

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 WILL GIVE FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD.

It is the occasional object of our present assembling together, to make a collection in behalf of the sick poor of this parish and congregation, which you have been accustomed to entrust to the disposal of your minister, whom God hath set over you. The collection having this object was first made in the year 1817; and so liberal was your bounty, and so liberal has been the bounty of private friends, persons of the congregation, that I have not found it necessary to apply to you more than once since; and on one occasion, when I had given notice for a collection, I withdrew it, because I found the funds still remaining in my hand ample; and I then gave you warning that if I should

ever feel occasion I would call upon you again, nothing doubting that you would answer my call. The occasion has now come. The fund provided, and which has lasted eleven years, is now exhausted. And I therefore redeem my pledge by calling upon you again; just stating to you that, whilst the principal object of this fund is to relieve the poor of this parish and congregation in a state of sickness, I have not confined my attention simply and entirely to that state of the poor, but, as I have seen a propriety in administering relief, so I have ventured in the spirit of this call to administer it, sometimes in the form of food, sometimes in the form of clothing, sometimes in the form of a small gift of money.

Now it had been my intention, I honestly assure you, to aim at exciting your benevolence by choosing a subject which might particularly bear upon such an application. I had intended to take such a text as this, "I was sick, and ye visited me:" but the subject which I opened last Sunday morning has appeared to me so important, and it has seemed so desirable that it should be presented to you without a break, that I have judged it advisable rather to pursue the order which I had already commenced, and to finish that most interesting and important subject before I seek to turn your attention to any other. I cannot doubt that this subject will in its course suggest such arguments as may seem necessary for the furtherance of this other subordinate object also;-subordinate, I say; for every

subject is subordinate to the great word of the ministry, that of which your souls stand in need.

I cannot allow that any call of charity, as it is usually denominated, is worthy to be named with the general call of the ministry of Jesus Christ. In addressing the call of that ministry to you, I supply you with every argument which can be necessary for the love of the brethren. And it is unto the love of the brethren, in one exercise of that love, that I am calling you, when I solicit your bounty, that I may have at my disposal that which shall assist me in relieving the necessities of Christ's, which is God's, poor.

Without further preface then, I shall endeavour in the Lord to pursue the great subject which I first opened to you on the festival of the nativity, and which I resumed on the last Lord's day morning; having it, as I confess, especially in my view to set before you the great subject of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, unto which subject I consider that the words I have read to you, and the whole argument put forth by the Lord Jesus Christ in this chapter, have a direct and unquestionable allusion and reference.

Then let me just restate to you the propositions or assertions. Remember, when I set out propositions and assertions, it is not that I want to make myself a great lord over you, or a great philosopher with his disciples after him; but I put forth the truth in distinct propositions and assertions, because I account it the best method of bringing persons to see what the truth is,

and to be satisfied that the things stated are the truth; therefore it is that I deal in propositions and assertions. And by way of illustration I would just remark to you that this was the very method by which the Reformation was brought about and carried on in the sixteenth century. It was by propositions distinctly and simply stating the truth,-those propositions being maintained, -concise, elaborate, and in some instances lengthened arguments being attached to each,-it was thus that persons were brought out of error into the broad light and confession of the faith of Christ. Why then, the propositions which I set before you in my last Sermon, and some of which I did little more than name, were these. That the eating of the bread which came down from heaven, the eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of the Son of man, stands in the taking into our minds of a correct notion and conception concerning the Lord Jesus Christ as God's Christ,—that is, in his risen form, in the form of risen manhood,whereby we come to a just notion and conception respecting the God and Father, whose glory is seen, as the scriptures speak, "in the face of Jesus Christ." My second proposition was, that we ought all so to eat the bread which came down from heaven, so to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man. My third proposition was, that the natural man, meaning the man that has not God in him, cannot so eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, cannot so eat the bread which came down from heaven. My

fourth proposition was, that there are some who do so eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, who do so eat the bread which came down from heaven. My fifth proposition was, that in so doing they do no hurt to the bread which came down from heaven, to the Son of man in his risen form. My sixth proposition was, that all the baptized, and only the baptized, ought to come to the Lord's table, where in an especial and peculiar manner we do eat the bread which came down from heaven, we do eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man. My seventh proposition was, that all the baptized who turn their back upon the Lord's table, when that table is spread, are guilty of a dereliction of their profession,-they act unbelief whilst they are professors of faith in Christ Jesus. These were my propositions, so far as I recollect them. And I opened the two first with some minuteness, and advanced a little way in the third, and stated the rest. This, if I recollect, was the course and achievement of my last Sermon to which I have referred. Now therefore I shall not judge it necessary to enter again into the consideration of the first proposition, which respects the fact how we eat the bread which came down from heaven, but I shall say a word upon the second, and then proceed as concisely as I can through the rest. For, whilst it is manifest that this is a subject which might fill a volume, and might occupy therefore many discourses, I have it close at my heart that the chief matter with which I would engage your