THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST. 1. Use of the words in St. John's Gospel . II. Use of the words in the Synoptic Gospels. 1. The Body, the essence of Christ's character 2 The Body, the Christian community 3. The Blood of Christ the innermost essence of Christ's character CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS. CHAPTER I. BAPTISM. Baptism in tolic age. WHAT was Baptism in the Apostolic age? It coincided with a vast religious change both of individuals and of nations. Multitudes of men and women were seized with one common impulse, and abandoned, by the irresist- the Aposible conviction of a day, an hour, a moment, their former habits, friends, associates, to be enrolled in a new society under the banner of a new faith. That new society was intended to be a society of "brothers;" bound by ties closer than any earthly brotherhood, filled with life and energy such as fall to the lot of none but the most ardent enthusiasts, yet tempered by a moderation and a wisdom such as enthusiasts have rarely possessed. It was moreover a society swayed by the presence of men whose words even now cause the heart to burn, and by the recent recollections of One, whom "not seeing they loved with love unspeakable." Into this society. they passed by an act as natural as it was expressive. The plunge into the bath of purification, long known among the Jewish nation as the symbol of a change of life, had been revived with a fresh energy by the Essenes, and it received a definite signification and impulse from the austere prophet who derived his name from the ordinance.* This rite was retained as the pledge of entrance into a new and universal communion. In that early age the scene of the transaction was either some deep wayside spring or well, as for the Ethiopian, or some rushing river, as the Jordan, or some vast reser * For John the Baptist, see Lectures on the Jewish Church, iii. 399. |