they are not seldom a mockery of the Holy One of Israel *.

But this is not all. Our custom at the communion may operate as a prohibition to fasting and thanksgiving on their proper occasons. The providence of God may call to them, but the supper is in prospect, and they must be deferred till then. On the other hand, the supper may be scarcely over, before a necefsity for them occurs, and then, they cannot be attended to, because we have just beer engaged in them. This is no fiction: it has actually happened, and that not once or twice, And it deserves any other name than reverence to God's institutions; for it is saying, upon the matter, “We will have our own way; we will fast when he does not require us; and we will not fast when he does." Can we lift our eyes to heaven and look for a blessing, while we are guilty of such preposterous and headstrong disobedience?

*The excellent CHARNOCK observes, that, in his days, "the commonness of fasts had driven true humiliation almost out of doors." WORKS, vol. ii. p. 756.

If it be asked, why commonness should be more unfriendly to fasting than to communicating? the reason is, that the one is in its place, and the other out of it. CHARNOCK'S contemporaries did as we do at our communions-appoint public fasts without a providential call. Thus circumstanced, their effect is a serious comment upon the doctrine of the two preceding pages they turned "true humiliation almost out of doors."Let us think and take warning.

6. Our numerous services about the holy supper, create a pernicious distinction between the sacraments.

Being seals of the same covenant; representing the same blefsings; and ordained by the same authority; one would suppose that they are to be approached with equal reverence and equal preparation. Yet we must have a public fast before, and a public thanksgiving after the one; while nobody dreams of either in connection with the other. Who taught us to make this difference? It is not in the word of God. From Genesis to the Revelation, not a passage can be alleged for public fastings and thanksgivings at the administration of the supper, which is not equally friendly to them at the administration of baptism. It does not arise from the nature of these ordinances; the approach to God in both, is equally near, and equally solemn*.

Christian reader, do we not lament the ignorant and sinful conduct of many professors

* If any should argue that these exercises are proper in one case, and not in the other, because the members of the congregation at large, are in the one engaged, and in the other, only a very few at most, they are requested to solve the problem, How many communicants are requisite to a public fast? If this be a duty at all, the number of communicants is of no importance. It is as necessary in a communion of two, as of ten thousand.

towards the sacraments? They refuse to glo rify Jesus by commemorating his death, but are offended if they be not allowed to present their children in baptism. They startle at the thought of the one, but rush without concern to the other. Whence proceeds the profanation? From various causes, no doubt. But it merits consideration, whether we have not materially contributed to it by our unscriptural appendages to the holy supper. These, by throwing around it an air of superior sacrednefs and awe, have depreciated baptism in the eyes of men, and have led them to view it as lefs serious in itself, and lefs dangerous to be sported with. They suppose much to be requisite for the former, and little, if any thing, for the latter. Hence they demand the one with great confidence; and when questioned about their neglect of the other, tell you they are unprepared.

While this distinction emboldens the carelefs, it disheartens the feeble-minded. Not a few who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, are afraid to touch the cymbols of his body and blood. They would go to his table; but when they think of attempting it, their courage fails: the spirit of bondage bows them down; and instead of feeling like children drawing nigh to a most compafsionate father,

they feel like criminals dragged to the tribunal of a judge. Why this unhappiness? Beyond dispute, in part from the trappings which have been hung round the table of love, and from the unwarranted manner in which even good men have permitted themselves to speak of it. Between both, it has been made an object of dread. Its tender persuasions; its rich consolations, have been too little regarded: aud even to believers it has been arrayed in terrors, and fenced with thunder. Nay, Christian reader, we have exalted one sacrament at the expence of the other; we have thrown a stumbling block before a carnal world; and have countenanced a ruinous departure from equal, and vigorous discipline.

7. Let not the afsertion be deemed too hardy, that our manner of celebrating the supper is unfriendly to pure and evangelical de

votion.

Ordinances are desirable, not on their own account, but as means by which communion with Christ Jesus is promoted, and his covenant-mercies enjoyed. Believers know that they grow in grace, in proportion as they live by faith upon their divine Redeemer: and that nothing is more fatal to their peace, nor casts them down more rapidly from holy attainments, than a legal dependance on duties.

Now the question is certainly worth asking, and worth answering, whether the pomp of our communions does not bear strong marks of legality, and has not a strong tendency to engender and nurture it in the minds of men? Else, why this pomp at all? Why not the same simplicity here as in other ordinances? The grace of Jesus is quite as sufficient for this as for those. But the language of our supernumerary days of worship is, that however sufficient it may be, it is not so free as on other occasions. Nor is the opinion of their legal tendency mere surmise. Would to God it were! Every one who is not grofsly ignorant of himself will own the pronenefs of corruption to rest in frames, duties, any thing but the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and especially, to idolize whatever has "a shew of will-worship and humility." That this hath been the fruit of our additions to the scriptural mode of celebrating the Lord's supper, daily facts make but too apparent. What means this religious parade, when that blefsed exercise draws near? Whence this unusual sternnefs? These sudden austerities? Whence that mortified air which vanishes like a phantom, and never returns but with a returning communion? Why do so many plead for infrequent communion, on the pretext that they cannot otherwise be suitably