4324. Cc. 35.

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

NATURE OF THE SACRAMENT

OF THE

LORD'S SUPPER,

AND ON THE

PREPARATION

REQUIRED FROM COMMUNICANTS.

Why should not every sincere Christian, by the receiving of this Sacrament,
and renewing his covenant with God, rather hope to be confirmed in goodness,
and to receive farther assistances of God's grace and Holy Spirit to strengthen
him against sin, and to enable him to subdue it, than trouble himself with
fears which are either without ground. or if they are not. are no sufficient reason
to keep any man from the Sacrament? Tillotson, Persuasive to Frequent
Communion.

SECOND EDITION.

OXFORD,

PRINTED BY W. BAXTER,

1852.

MUS

ADVERTISEMENT.

THIS Tract was originally printed for private circulation in 1832, and as the impression has been long exhausted, I once more commit it to the press. At that period there seemed to me to be a tendency to degrade the Sacraments, from "effectual signs of grace," if not to mere "tokens of Christian men's professions," yet to no more than edifying rites. During the intervening twenty years there has been an unexpected reaction, and the current of opinion seems to be setting in a contrary direction. The opus operatum of Rome, as it is technically entitled, is reviving in spirit within our reformed Church, though the XXVth Article declares, that in such only as worthily receive the elements, they have a wholesome operation. Edification, not the confutation of error, is the object of this short Tract. I have not therefore introduced into this new edition any remarks upon writings of this descrip

tion; I would only warn the reader against any theory that affirms an inherent efficacy to Sacraments, which (though it may be undesignedly) ascribes to the recipient a share in meriting or procuring salvation, which from first to last our Church, as a faithful interterpreter of Holy Scripture, resolves wholly into the free grace of Almighty God.

Magdalene Hall,
May 26, 1852.

J. D. M.

FALSE religions have ever been accom

modated to local or national feelings, or to particular climates; and even the preparatory divine dispensation, the national covenant between God and the Israelites, was intentionally limited to that chosen race, and its conditions could not be fully performed except in the Holy Land. But Christianity, which reveals the corrupted nature, and consequently lost condition of the whole human race, and the remedy provided for it by the love of God the Father in the sacrifice of his coequal Son, views us abstractedly from all other considerations as his rational and responsible creatures, ruined through the offence of our progenitor, but capable of restoration to holiness and happiness through the merits of Christ. A religion, which the Apostles were commissioned to proclaim to every creature, must be adapted to man in every climate, under all the modifications of society, under every form of government, and in every stage

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