Jesus invites his saints

Jesus invites his saints. Isaac Watts* (1674-1748). From Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707), Book III, ‘Prepared for the holy Ordinance of the Lord’s Supper.’ It has the title, ‘Communion with Christ, and with Saints; 1 Cor.10.16,17.’ The text is not a direct paraphrase, although stanza 5 lines 1-2 come close to ‘For we being many are one bread, and one body…’ (verse 17a). Bernard Manning* described Watts as setting out in stanza 3 ‘the high Sacramental doctrine of the Savoy Confession’ in which ‘The Lord’s Supper is more than a memorial’ (1942, p. 104). The bread and wine are only metaphorically the flesh and blood of Christ, and yet the real presence could not be more strongly affirmed. The...