J. A. Trench.
Article 42 of 55 from 'Truth for Believers' Volume 2.
When we consider what the Lord's Supper is as presented to us in the Word, first of all in the Gospels, and especially Luke, as the expression of hearts that love Him recalling Him to remembrance in that which told out all the depth of His love to us, we want no other proof of the deep dishonour done to Him by partaking of it on any principle such as that of the Church of England, which makes it an ordinance for the parish or the world. When the Assembly was formed, as at Pentecost, it is given its place by the introduction of not only 1 Corinthians 11 but 1 Corinthians 10 — too often passed over. It is first of all the communion or fellowship of His death and involves that we have accepted His death as the end of all we are as by nature children of wrath. His death has been thus our happy deliverance, not only from the judgment of God, but from the dominion of sin. Then verse 17 we are shown that in partaking of the one loaf we express that we are one body, i.e. united to Christ in glory, and to all who are His, by the Spirit given to dwell within us.
This distinguishes the Lord's table from that of a sect, such as any of these systems of men, who thereby express their membership of their denomination whatever it may be. Thus what was given us to express that all who are Christ's are one, has been turned into the formal denial of that unity, and made the symbol of their disunity and shame.
Then in the Supper, chapter 11, we get the additional feature, that in partaking of it we announce His death, till He come, as those that miss Him in the world that cast Him out of it. Could anything be more false then to the calling of the Christian than to partake of it with the open worldling or unbeliever? 2 Timothy 2:19-22, surely gives us the path of one that would be true to the Lord in such circumstances, i.e. to purge myself by separating myself from all that has come into what professes to be God's house, to His dishonour: that is the first step. Then verse 22, watch myself lest the enemy mock my path of outward separation from evil by the ungirded loin, and thirdly, seek out any similarly in separation from evil to follow what is suited to His name and nature with them. Jeremiah 15:16-17, is a great strengthening to the man of God under such circumstances. First, "Thy words were found," etc., and then, "I sat not in the assembly of the mockers. … I sat alone, because of thy hand," and verse 17.