JANUARY 5TH, 1850.—Question 92. What is a sacrament?
A. A sacrament is an holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.
Q. Who shall be saved? No answer. Mr. C. Believers.
Q. Who did not go into the promised land? A. Those that did not believe. Mr. C. Just so; those that believed not; no other sin would keep them out. Q. What is the sin that will damn us?
A. Unbelief. Q. What is the sin that troubles the world least?
No answer. Mr. C. Well, unbelief. It never took a sigh from their spirit, a drop from their eye, or an hour’s sleep from their head; and it is the sin that will keep them out of happiness, and crown their damnation. What is the sin against the Holy Ghost but this one come to a height? Q. Why will those be saved that believe in Christ? No right answer. Mr. C. Because this is the way the Lord hath appointed. Some will be putting the blame on God that they cannot believe. It would be better for you to be at the footstool of God’s throne, pleading for mercy, and asking Himself, “Have I believed yet?”—unless you just want to go to hell.
Mr. C. Why did some believe? Was it not because they were set apart for that purpose from eternity, and faith was appointed to be given them in time? Some were appointed for faith, and others are hardened. Now, these are weighty points, and we ought to be considering them.
Are not Christ and his benefits given at the same time? A new heart, the image that the creature lost, etc. Faith is set forth in the Scriptures as the eye. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” If you get a view of Christ by faith, it will bring influences to your soul, as the sun puts its own stamp on the creation. This is the appointment of God. “We, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Q. What is the meaning of the word “sacrament”? Is it written in Scripture? A. No. Mr. C. We read of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, circumcision, and the passover. Sacrament is a Latin word, meaning a sacred or holy thing. It was used in old times to mean the oath between soldiers and their kings, by which they were entering into covenant with one another; and so the divines took it to express the nature of this ordinance. Q. In the sacrament is not the creature enlisting himself to the Lord? A. Yes. Mr. C. You will see this at the day of judgment—that those who were baptised and took the Supper were enlisted to Christ. Q. What will happen to those who go over to the enemy’s side? A. They will be punished. Q. What kind of punishment will they get? A. Death. Mr. C. Yes, death by the law; they will be footstools for devils. The creature that takes the Supper of the Lord seals his enlisting to Christ; and is it not a shame to the Lord’s soldiers to be seen on the enemy’s side, without word about soul, God, or eternity? You, who take the sacrament of the Supper, confirm the oath your parents took on.
When a soldier enlists, it is with all his will. Who bade you go to the Lord’s table? Was it against your will you went? If it was against his will that a person enlisted, will he not desert? And if you did not give your heart unto the Lord, your heart will be after your lusts, though the shame of the world keeps you from indulging them. Some will change their coat, when they get their own company in public-houses—they will break the Sabbath, etc., after being at the Lord’s table and getting baptism, and so desert Christ’s cause.
A drop of grace in the ground of the soul, though only as a grain of mustard seed, will gain the will to Christ by His Word and Spirit, and it will be seen at the day of judgment that you have not been a reproach to Christ—that you have fulfilled your vows. But those who have not this drop of grace will betray Christ when they get an opportunity, and it will be seen so at the day of judgment. Those who enter the Lord’s way without counting the cost will repent it. You will be remembering your flesh pots you had in your natural state, your old companions, etc. But if any man come after Jesus, let him count the cost. Let him see that there is a principle of grace in the soul, and that he is at the feet of Christ. See to this. If many would do this, they would not be a reproach in the way of the Lord. You should be at the feet of Christ in the dust till you would be sure you have a principle of grace in your soul, ere you come out in public, and if there is a drop of grace, Christ will keep life to that drop as long as there is cost in Himself, so that it will never fail. He will not own or support anything but the drop of grace, and where there is a covenant between the soul and Christ, He will hold cost to that soul. O be giving yourself over to the Lord, and so fulfilling what your parents promised for you. O be praying. Often was your father praying for you, and perhaps his prayers are yet in before the throne. You know that petitions to the Queen may be years on the table of the Houses of Parliament. When your father died, you and he were separated from one another, but his petitions may be in for you. O be you praying that they may be fulfilled.
When cost is spoken of, does it not imply that there is difficulty before a person? And when a person is brought under concern, the salvation of the soul is brought under the eye of the soul. The poor of God are lame in their wills and affections, and the soul will get a knowledge of this; they will know the wiles of the enemy, and the holiness and love of Christ. If you tasted of this, His body and blood at the table of the Lord will be sweet to you. Yet soon after it, perhaps, all the devils in hell will be after you. When a soldier is enlisted, does he not get cost, food, and raiment, and does not Christ give Himself as the cost of the soul? Does He not know the eternity that is before it, and the corruption of the nature? Is not a vain thought stronger than the soul? Yet there is a fulness of grace in Christ for all their wants, and it will hold supply to the soul till He crown it with everlasting glory. “My grace is sufficient for thee, and my strength is made perfect in weakness.” As if Christ would say, “My hand in your hand, that as long as there is strength in me, it will be strength for your use.” “Oh!” says Paul, “then I will glory in my infirmities.” O soul, it is a wonderful thing for the soul to be won. Will it do to read about the plenty that is in Christ without experiencing something of it in one’s own soul, something to rest the soul upon?
Q. What way is the soul looking to earn for himself? No answer. Mr. C. That is the way that the natural creature will be at the throne of judgment—his mouth shut. Is it not a wonder the Lord would humble himself so much as to give His oath to His own creatures? Q. Where does He give His oath to His creatures? No answer. Mr. C. O man, you have a soul. If you were as often thinking on these things as you are in the public-house, your soul would be better of it for eternity. Well, it is in the promise. O professors, they will run from parish to parish, and even go to the Lord’s table, and yet no word about the soul. I heard once about a girl that went to it to get some word for her soul, and a word came, “The Lord sheweth pity unto them that fear him,” but she would not take that. Then she got this word, “As I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee,” and she took that and was satisfied. O man, if you go in lukewarm into eternity, it will be an awful eternity you will have.
If you would get some light breaking in on your soul at a throne of grace, in such a word as that “Glorify God in your bodies and spirits, which are His,” it would be melting and softening. But you that do not feel this, you will remain a dry, withered “stockan” there. You are there with grey head that never thought to go to the table of the Lord. You are like a dog at great houses under a chain—kept from it by a chain of slavish fear, that you may live as you list—free from the chain of being a communicant yet under a worse chain of hardness of heart.
Q. How is Christ the Head of the Church? Is it not as you are the head of your family? If your head would be taken off, would you not die? A. Yes. Mr. C. So Christ is the Head from which the Church gets life. Q. What is meant by Christ being the Head of the Church? A. Oh, it is to walk in submission. Mr. C. O man, was not man under the sentence of death by sin, and Christ bought them by His blood, and so he has a right to give directions to His Church and be its Head? Q. Are not the ordinances of Christ holy? A. O yes. Q. Were you yourself at the table of the Lord, James? A. I cannot deny that. Q. What put you there first? A. O, I cannot be sure that it was Himself that put me there. Mr. C. O, be seeking to get that assurance—nothing but effectual calling will fit you for going there.
A woman examined.—Q. As the ordinances are holy, does not holiness flow from them to Christ’s Church? A. Yes. Q. Is it not holy creatures that they belong to? A. Yes. Q. What will make holy creatures? A. Grace. Mr. C. If you get grace you will no longer neglect prayer and live like the swine returning to the mire and like the dog to his vomit. If you get Christ and His benefits applied to your soul, your husband would know it on you. But with many it will not be known on them, Sabbath night or Monday morning, that they were at the means; they will have the same vain conversation—the same “stubban” you had before. It appears there is not much effect following the public ordinances in our day. You will go to Inverness on Sabbath (it was the week of the Communion at Inverness), but it will not be known on you after it. Why? Because you did not meet with the Lord at it. Pity that soul that the Spirit of the Lord is not breaking the seals to the creature. O, it is the breaking of the seals that would pierce and melt the soul. Q. Did you ever get anything at the table? A. No. Were you envying them that got? A. No. Q. Did you not see some that had grace at it, and did you not envy them? No answer. Mr. C. And your day is past, and you did not envy them that got grace! Did you not envy them that had a flock of cattle and sheep? You will not spend eternity without envying them that got grace, if you die in your natural state.
You, that will allow your children to go to bed without prayer, live without thought of soul. The justice of God will follow you. You that got Christ are only fulfilling your baptismal vows. There are some, and if I would ask, “Why did you not go to the Lord’s table?” they would say, “Because I had such a thing to do; I could not do it, if I went to the table.” Their lusts will bring them to hell. Others, again, when they once get to the table, you cannot keep them from it, though they are quite hard and dry. Until we taste once of Christ, we will not have much desire after Him, but those, who get this once, will be poor broken creatures after it—and the table will be empty to you, if you do not get a taste of Christ again. (To be Continued.)