Second Sunday After Pentecost.
The Blessed Eucharist.
"A certain man made a great supper and invited many." — Luke xiv. 16.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. Choicest gift. II. Scriptural figures. III. Comparisons.
I. Protestant unbelief: i. Heresy. 2. Catholic doctrine. 3. Meaning of parable.
II. Doctrine proved : 1. Scripture. 2. Teaching and practice of Fathers. 3. Character of doctrine's friends and enemies.
III. Causes of infidelity: 1. Pride and avarice. 2. Conceit. 3. Sensuality.
Per. : Exhortation to approach Lord's banquet-board.
SERMON.
Brethren, God has endowed and enriched His Church with many and singular prerogatives, but the greatest of them all, the most precious gift she has or could have received from His hands, is the adorable Sacrament of the Lord's body and blood. Compared with that, all the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Old Law seem empty and valueless. " Beggarly elements," St. Paul calls them. " For if," he says, " the blood of goats and of oxen served to sanctify the defiled unto the cleansing of the flesh, how much more does the blood of Christ cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God." As the shadow is to the reality, so was the Synagogue to the Christian Church, so the manna of the desert to the heavenly bread Christ gives, so the water that gushed forth from the rock stricken by Moses to the blood that flows from the Saviour's transfixed side. The
