sity. Having been familiar with the words of it from your childhood, and having in a manner learnt it by rote, at a time when you were little able to search into the sense of any thing; and being, as is usually the case, very slow to give yourselves the trouble of thinking about any thing which does not excite you by its novelty; you have probably never examined or considered it at all, or, at least, not as it deserves to be examined, or as you might and would have examined it, under different circumstances. But do so now. Take it sentence by sentence, and weigh the meaning of it. And if you will do so with this all along upon your minds, that it is a common service, in which you are to pray both with your brethren and for them, you will soon find beauty, and propriety, and suitableness in it; and excitement, and instruction, and comfort in the use of it, to which at present you may be entire strangers: and you shall

pray with the spirit, and pray with the understanding also.”* And whensoever, by any means, the members of Christ's body shall be brought each to strive for every other, when all are before the footstool of God together, in the manner which has been urged; then, depend

* 1 Cor. xiv. 15.

upon it, the blessing shall not tarry long. The prayer of him who hath prayed for all will be answered. His people will be knit together, as they ought to be, in love. They "all will be one: their Lord in them, and they in him."* And God in all of them will be glorified.

* John xvii. 21.

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SERMON XXII.

LORD'S SUPPER.

1 COR. xi. 26.

For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come."

ALL Christian people profess to rest their whole hope of salvation only on the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. They look for him to come the second time to judge the world in righteousness, and in that day in the which he shall come they hope to stand accepted with Almighty God, and to enter into glory for eternity: but this glory they expect as God's recompense of the travail of his soul for them, and not as the reward of their own good deservings; and they have been taught that it is solely through his advocateship pleading the propitiation which he made for sin upon the cross, that now at

this time they receive grace to be faithful, and are enabled to take any step which they do take in the way of obedience.

Clearly therefore his sufferings, together with the gracious intention of them, ought to be the continual subject of their meditations. It is at once their duty and their interest that it should be so. We see the lamentable fact, however, that duty and interest are wont both of them to be woefully disregarded. We are careful and troubled about many things, but the Lord that bought us with his own blood is forgotten. Some of us appear to have put him out of our minds entirely; whilst even the best of us are so subject to be drawn aside from the contemplation of him, that it never can be superfluous to stir us up by way of remembrance;-therefore"The Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks he brake it, and said, take eat, this is my body which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." * In other words, he instituted the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, * 1 Cor. xi. 23.

to the intent that his professed disciples, to the end of the world, should be perpetually reminded of the sacrifice of his death, and of the benefits to be received thereby for so speaks St. Paul-" As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew forth the Lord's death till he come."

I proceed to speak,

I. First, of the meaning and benefits of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

II. Secondly, of the obligations to frequent attendance upon it.

III. Thirdly, of some excuses commonly alleged by the neglecters of it.

IV. Lastly, of the requisite preparation for it, together with the frame of spirit in which we ought actually to come to it.

I. And first, as to the meaning and benefits of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

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The meaning is made known to us in the text. It is to shew the Lord's death till he come." In the administration of this Sacrament such an act is done as sets forth, declares, and in effect preaches Christ crucified" to the communicants; presenting him by means of a similitude, or typical action, to their minds; so that though at this time he is out of their sight, and they must wait for his actual coming to