VI.

SACRAMENTAL GRACE.

"You would advise me, then, not to go to Confirmation at all?" said B.

"I did not say that," said the Parson. "I would advise you to lay aside those unchristian feelings with respect to your brother, who, I admit, has sinned grievously against you. When you have done this I would advise you to go but till you have done this I would advise you not to go."

:

"You think, then," said B., musing, "that such a feeling in my mind would be an obstacle to the reception of Divine grace? You imagine that when I kneel before the Bishop, and receive the imposition of his hands, I should retain only the outward sign, having lost the accompanying grace, because these feelings which you call unchristian will have placed a bar against the reception of it."

"I fear much worse than that," said the Parson gravely. "Were the danger no greater than that of merely not receiving a blessing; were there no chance of loss, no peril of damnation involved in it, I should not feel justified in advising you or any one else to stay away, for in that case the very worst that you could experience would be to gain nothing; and I should have no right to cut you off from the faintest possibility of a blessing. But I fear much worse than that. You cannot prevent the reception of Divine grace if you seek it in the ordinance which GOD has appointed for conveying it. Whether you receive that grace to your soul's health, or to your soul's damnation, is another question. Receive it you must; and I think, under your circumstances, it would be a savour of death.'"

B. looked up, startled and confused. This aspect of the case was entirely new to him, and the magnitude of his sin presented itself far more vividly to his mind when

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SACRAMENTAL GRACE.

thus placed in immediate apposition with the tremendous punishment which it involved.

"You think that there is no alternative ?" said he. "You think that it must be either life or death ?”

"No," said the Parson; "I will not go so far as that. That would interfere with the doctrine of repentance on the one hand, and the possibility of the falling from grace on the other. But I will say thus much, it will be either eminently to your benefit, or eminently to your loss. It is very possible that the same act may be to your loss and your neighbour's benefit. Suppose that, contrary to the advice of your physician, you went to Madeira for change of air, because you heard that the air of that country was salutary, and knew that it had wrought a great cure in some friend of yours. It is very possible that this might be quite true, and yet that this very air might be extremely injurious to yourself personally, because your constitution was not prepared to receive it. But, whether beneficial or injurious, breathe it you must. The act of going to the country would determine that. The act is voluntary on your part, you may go or stay; but if you go, the voluntary part ceases-breathe you must. You receive something; that something has saved your friend, that something kills you. This is the danger of going heedlessly to Confirmation.

"What do you imagine would be the effect of eating the LORD's Supper unworthily ?" continued the Parson, after a pause.

"It is quite certain what it would be," said B. "S. Paul tells us that we should eat our own damnation."

"Then you must eat something more than the outward and visible sign when you eat it unworthily," said the Parson. "Bread and wine would never produce your damnation. What does produce your damnation is the inward and spiritual grace perverted by your obstinate resistance. It is your attempt, so to speak, of making CHRIST, now become one with you, a partaker in your sin, which adds so immeasurably to your guilt. Your danger lies, therefore, in receiving-there could be no danger if you received nothing."

SACRAMENTAL GRACE.

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"But you are speaking of the LORD's Supper," said B., "not of Confirmation; and though I certainly wished to be confirmed, I had no idea of receiving the Holy Communion-those very feelings which we have been talking about would have prevented me. I did not understand the danger to its full extent, no doubt, nor see it in the terrible light in which you have placed it; but I have seen quite enough of it to keep me away from the LORD'S Table."

"Do you imagine, then," said the Parson, "that there is one doctrine for the LORD's Supper, and another for Confirmation, that you think you could go safely to the one with feelings which would keep you from the other ?" "They are not both alike Sacraments," said B.

They are not both alike Sacraments of the Gospel," said the Parson. "Of Baptism our LORD has said definitely, 'except a man be born of water and of the HOLY GHOST he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.' Of the LORD's Supper, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.' These two, therefore, the Church pronounces authoritatively to be necessary to salvation, which is more than she dare assert of any of the other ordinances of religion, because in their case she has received no authority to do So. Still, every act of our religion has a sacramental character, that is to say, being adapted to a creature composed of body and soul, it is necessarily an outward visible sign of an inward spiritual grace.' If you perform the outward sign visibly, you receive whatever inward grace the sign typifies and represents. Separate these two component parts and there is nothing sacramental. Were it not so, who could tell whether he did or did not belong to the kingdom of heaven; whether he was or was not one with CHRIST? Now, the kingdom of CHRIST CONsidered as a means of grace, consists of two Sacraments, and of several ordinances either Apostolic or Ecclesiastical; these are of different degrees of value, no doubt, but all partake more or less of the sacramental character. There is, therefore, only ONE sacramental doctrine, which applies equally to them all. By receiving any one of them unworthily,

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WHO SHOULD BE EXCLUDED.

you do not lose, you pervert, whatever grace it conveys. That which conveys life to another, conveys death to you; or, that which conveys gain to another conveys loss to you. This is as true of the LORD's Prayer as it is of the LORD's Supper, and, therefore, that which you admit would be your destruction in the Holy Communion, would be your very great detriment, to say the least of it, in Confirmation."

"What must I do, then ?" said B., after a long pause. "Do!" said the Parson; "first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.' Put the matter into my hands, and I will see what can be done. I have great hopes of effecting a reconciliation, but if I fail in this, I shall treat the matter precisely as I would in the case of the Holy Communion. If he is not willing to make reparation for the errors which he has done, and you, notwithstanding, profess yourself ready to make reparation for the wrongs done on your part (for I need not tell you that when two men quarrel each does wrong to the other,) then I should admit you and exclude him. If you will not do this, I shall exclude you both; and that, observe, not as a punishment to either of you, but out of consideration for you, 'lest the things which should have been for your wealth, be unto you an occasion of falling.'"

THE OUTWARD VISIBLE SIGN, AND THE INWARD SPIRITUAL GRACE.

THE theory of the Church is, that salvation is absolutely of free grace; that nothing is our own; but that GOD gives freely, requires us to work honestly with that which we have received freely, and then judges us according to the use to which we have put His free gifts. By this theory man's independent work is entirely precluded, and therefore, with the Church, repentance, faith, prayer, are Christian graces like any other Christian graces. They like all others, are given freely, and when given are to be cultivated.

The Calvinistic or Evangelical theory, is that regeneration of necessity comes after faith and repentance and prayer; which implies that a certain amount of faith and repentance must be achieved by unregenerate man, which in some subsequent time is rewarded by the grace of regeneration. God's grace with them therefore practically is not free; but is earned as it were, by the prayer or the faith which precedes regeneration.

When the Church calls upon a man, whom she pronounces regenerate, to do works meet for repentance, she merely calls upon him to "stir up the grace that is in him," that free grace which she considers him to have received when he was baptized or regenerated.

But when the Calvinist or Evangelical preacher calls upon the very same man for the very same works, he calls upon him for human works done in his own strength, because, according to his theory, the man whom he is addressing is as yet in an unregenerate state, and, not having as yet received the grace of GoD, must work, if he work at all, without it.

K