principle which justifies one deviation from the simplicity of evangelical worship, will justify a thousand; and it is of small moment in what form the deviation presents itself. An arbitrary connection between duties, is as exceptionable and dangerous as any other; because, independently on its mischief as a precedent, there is no defining its extent. Whenever men afsume this power, they set an engine to work, which, without increasing or diminishing the number of God's institutions, may deface every part of his worship, and render it as ridiculous and contemptible as infidels or devils could wish it.

3. The multiplicity of our week-day services is incompatible with such a frequency of communion as is our indispensible duty.

If just regard were shewn, in this particular to the dying precept of our dear Lord Jesus, and all the extra-days of worship kept up, no congregations either would or should submit to the burden. The tribute of time which would be withdrawn from their ordinary occupations, would be much too great for any who " their bread in the sweat of their brow." This alone might convince that these days cannot be

eat

proach their fellow-servants for laying aside observances which their master never commanded, would refresh their memories by reviewing, now and then, their own professions and quotations.

agreeable to the divine will, for they would render the New Testament worship more oppressive than the Jewish ritual. Yet they may not be touched. And the consequence is exactly what might be expected, the memorial of the love of Jesus is a rare occurrence. These very days have invariably defeated every exertion to bring back the usages of the church to apostolical simplicity. Had it not been for them, communions would have been much more frequent, both in the church of Scotland and in the denominations which have sprung from it. The best of men have lamented, and entreated, and struggled, but all in vain. These observances reprefsed the spirit of generous and scriptural reform. Prejudice took the alarm; steeled her heart against conviction; stopped her ears to expostulation; drowned the voice of reason and scripture in the cry of innovation and defection! The genius of the gospel may be violated; the commands of Christ may be trodden under foot; the monument of his great sacrifice pushed out of sight-but these fast and thanksgiving days, which he never appointed; to which the church, founded by his apostles, was an entire stranger; these must not lose an atom of their importance, or their pomp. And can men have the hardihood to call over this adulterine zeal the

name of Jesus, and palm it on the world for faithfulness to his crofs?

4. Through the accumulation of week-day services, the dispensation of the supper, seldom as it happens, is almost impracticable to any minister without the aid of some of his brethren. :

From their extreme distance, that aid cannot ordinarily be had, but at the price of great personal difficulty, and of leaving their congregations destitute. And is it credible, that Jesus Christ hath imposed on his ministers a labour which usual health and strength are unable to sustain? Is there a text, a line, a word, in the whole Bible, to shew that one part of his family should be deprived of their food, because another part are celebrating their feast? Let none plead necefsity; and the duty of consulting each other's comfort. Convenience, I know, must yield to necefsity. But we must first be sure that the necefsity is real. In the present case, it is obviously one of our own seeking; and the evil is only aggravated by sanctifying it with the name of a providential call. We would shew our wisdom by leaving God's providence in his own hand.

5. Our sacramental fasts and thanksgivings not only destroy, as hath been proved, the sound distinction between ordinary and extraordinary duties, but tend to banish altogether both the

principle and practice of scriptural fasting and thanksgiving.

As to the principle. By wedding these exercises with the sacrament of the supper, you tie down to certain periods, what the Bible has tied down to no periods. You attempt to fix the "times which the father hath put in his own power." You regulate the seasons of fasting and thanksgiving, not, as your directory has wisely done, by providential dispensations, but by human agreements. You lift yourselves up into the throne of God, and determine for him, instead of allowing him to determine for you, when those duties are proper. Now this is directly subversive of their very principle and use. In the common acts of his government, and the stated ordinances of his worship, JEHOVAH hath established a permannnt testimony for his supremacy and our dependence. But to quicken. our sense of his continual agency, of his sovereign rule, and of our accountableness to him, he is pleased occasionally, to make bare his holy arm, and, by special interpositions, to proclaim a present God. This revives our languid sensibility, awakens our slumbering cares, and leads directly either to solemn humiliation, or exceeding joy before him. To join these exercsies statedly, with any stated part of worship, is to disregard the very thing which makes them du

ties at all; to cherish in the rising generation, an ignorance, and to breed in the risen one, an oblivion of their primary end, is to wrest from the ETERNAL, a means which he employs to teach the rebellious that he "sitteth King for ever," and of which he hath reserved the application to himself. In vain do you pretend to explain the nature and occasions of fasting. Mankind will never profit from doctrine which is a visible and perpetual contradiction to prac

tice.

If the principle of extraordinary duties be overlooked, the scriptural performance of them cannot be preserved. Between them and their occasions God hath created a beautiful correspondence, to which man cannot furnish a substitute. If you call us to such duties and divine providence does not, we cannot enter into their spirit, because the occasion of them does not exist. And as you cannot command the latter, you cannot infuse the former. You can hardly expect any thing else than dull formality. And the Lord knoweth that this is too sadly the character of many of our sacramental fasts. Instead of deep meltings of heart, they are little better than dry and saplefs ceremony. Not to mention, that, being fasts in name more than in truth,