Nothing will save you, if you sin. If you lust after evil
things, as those old Jews did; if you are idolaters, as they were;
if you are profligates, as they were; if you tempt Christ, as they
did; if you murmur against God, as they murmured, you will be
destroyed like them.
Note here two things. First, that St. Paul says that we really
receive Christ in the Holy Communion. He does _not_ say, as some
do, that the Communion is merely a remembrance of Christ's death.
He says that the faithful verily and indeed receive Christ's body
and blood in the Sacrament. He says so, distinctly, plainly,
literally; and if that be not true, his whole argument goes for
nothing, and will not stand. The Jews, he says, drank of the
spiritual Rock which followed them, and that Rock was Christ; and so
he says to you. But that did not save them from the punishment of
their sins, when they went and sinned afresh: neither will it save
you.
But now--What are these strange words which St. Paul uses? These
old Jews drank of the spiritual Rock which followed them, and that
Rock was Christ? Where in the Old Testament do we read of the Rock
following them? We read of Moses striking the rock in Horeb, at the
beginning of their wanderings in the wilderness; but not of its
following them afterwards.
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