Now, when our SAVIOUR says, “Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood ye have no life in you,” and it is held that the _baptized_ have life, _though they have not come_ to the table of the LORD; it will needs be granted that eating the flesh and drinking the blood of CHRIST is a thing _previous_ to coming to that holy table: therefore it may be, as no doubt it is, _after_ coming thither also; of course in _other_ places and by the use of _other_ means. JESUS says, therefore, “Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life:” and when He would save them from the delusive idea of eating His carnal body and blood, He tells them “it is the SPIRIT,” that is, the HOLY GHOST taking of the things of CHRIST, and showing them unto us spiritually, “_that quickeneth_,” ministereth life; and then he refers them for the means, not to any contemplated sign or sacrament, but to _His words_ attended by His SPIRIT: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” In them believers have their constant food. The very flesh of CHRIST itself, if they could have it in a literal sense, would profit them nothing; all that is effective being the “ministration of the SPIRIT.” Even in the sacrament, the WORD, thought of, and received by faith of the operation of the HOLY GHOST, is that medium by which the SPIRIT most properly conveys the SAVIOUR to the soul. The bread and wine have no more in them than the character of the most beautiful, significant sign or sacrament of so great a thing: just as the king’s letters, and not his picture, even in the most affecting transactions of his life or death, would really convey the presence of his mind and attributes to his people. It is, however, habitually true of this sacrament, though not so of the other, that it is _A means_ (not THE means) whereby the inward and spiritual _grace signified_ is received by the faithful.