are ferved up is called the Lord's Table. It is he that covers it with the heavenly provifion, and invites us to partake, that our fouls may be fatisfied as with marrow and fatnefs. "Come," fays he "eat of my bread, and drink "of the wine which I have mingled. Eat O

friends, drink, yea drink abundantly O be"loved." But we must remember, that it is a fpiritual repaft which is here provided: It is not the body, but the foul that is here fed. The bread and the wine are no more than fymbols of Chrift's body and blood. Our faith must therefore be exercised on Chrift and him crucified, otherwife, we can derive no fpiritual benefit from this ordinance.

It is therefore of the higheft importance, that our commemoration of a fuffering Saviour be attended with suitable affections. We should remember Chrift in this ordinance, with a penitent fenfe of our fins, which were the causes of his death; with an ardent love and gratitude for his dying love to us; with an humble faith and confidence in the merit of his death to procure our acceptance with God, and with

a voluntary dedication of ourselves to him and his fervice for ever. And hence we may learn the character of thofe who are prepared to communicate at this feaft.

They, and only they, are prepared, who are true penitents, fully convinced of their fins, and deeply fenfible of their malignity, efpecially as nailing Chrift to the cross, and thoroughly determined to forfake them. They are fuch as feel the conftraining influence of the love of Chrift, and are determined, through grace affifting them, to live no more to themfelves, but to him that died for them and rofe again. Examine yourselves, and try whether the characters I have now named apply to you. If they do, you need not perplex yourselves with endless doubts and fcruples respecting the qualifications of worthy communicants. Rather be exhorted to lay afide your fears, and humbly approach the table of the Lord, to render unto him the facrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and to receive fresh tokens and pledges of his unchangeable good will and affection towards

you.

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

FENCING TABLES.

DISCOURSE II.

AN

IN opportunity which to fome of us may never occur again, is, in the good providence of God, given us this day, of celebrating the wonders of redeeming love, and of perfonally devoting ourselves to the fervice of our God and Saviour. The numberless instances of his undeferved goodness to us, the guilty children of men, claim this grateful return. If we reflect upon the circumstances in which our blessed Redeemer appointed this folemn ordinance, we must feel ourselves under ftrong obligations to comply with his dying request. He had now finished his public ministry, in the courfe of which he had endured much contradiction from finners. He had juft fo

lemnized his last paffover, and was ready to offer himself up as a public propitiatory facrifice for the fins of the world. It was then, my brethren, even on that night in which he was betrayed, when he was conscious that his enemies lay in wait for him, thirsting for his blood, and that he should foon be forfaken by all his friends, and left alone to encounter all the rage and malice of earth and hell, that he enjoined this ordinance to be obferved. Even in these trying circumftances, our Redeemer was fo mindful of the confolation of his church, that he inftituted this facrament as a pledge of his love, as a memorial of his fufferings and death, and as the means of conveying all the rich and ineftimable bleffings which he purchased by his death, to all true believers and fincere penitents. Can you then refufe to comply with fo reasonable a requeft? Surely my friends, if a dying parent or brother had given you a charge almost with his expiring breath, you could not lightly have acted contrary to it. How much greater regard do you owe to what the bleffed Jefus appointed the

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