declared it lawful, and sin not to pay it. This argument has now done its work. It has proved the apostle a fool; the word of God a contradiction; and the same act to be, at the same time, and under the same circumstances, both sin and duty, and yet neither one nor the other.

2. Were the argument, in itself, a good one, it would do no service, but much harm, to the cause which it is brought to aid. The sacramental fasts and thanksgivings, you allege, are either duty or sin. That they are duty, will not be granted. Then, says the terrible dilemma, they are sin. And what then? Why, my practice, and the practice of my forefathers, in this particular, has all along been sinful. Ay there's the rub. That the practice of others who differ from you is sinful, you can readily admit, and perhaps warmly contend. But that such a charge should be laid at your own door, you cannot endure: and at the very idea of extending it to your fathers, your displeasure kindles, and you exclaim, "Shall those Godly men, the Bostons, the Moncrieffs, the Erskines, and the multitude of the faithful both in the church of Scotland, and in the Secefsion, who have uniformly kept the fast and thanksgiving days, be accused of conniving at a corruption of the Lord's worship? Away with such an unworthy reflection!"

But recollect, my friend. The position, that these days must be either sin or duty, is not mine; it is your own. As you never can prove them to be duty, the consequence of your principle is, that both yourself and others have sinned in observing them. It is only your own argument recoiling with the weight of a millstone upon yourself.

But taking it for granted that they cannot be sinful, as your pious ancestors observed them; and contending that they must be duty, you pronounce the omifsion of them to be sin; for that is not a duty which may be innocently neglected. Now this renders the matter unspeakably worse..

For, in order to remove an imputation from your forefathers, you throw it upon all the holy men of God who have lived in every age of the Christian church, till a little more than a century ago; and in every part of the globe, excepting the spots of Great Britain and Ireland. For they never observed the sacramental fasts and thanksgivings on which you insist. If you are resolved, then, to adhere to the principle of their being either sin or duty, you have your choice whether you will own the sin to have been in your fathers skirts, or will charge it on the whole church beside, with the apostles of Christ Jesus at their head.

This argument, therefore, embarrasses none but those who use it; and as for the others, they ought never to be heard out of the mouth of a protestant; far lefs of any who have embraced the Westminster confefsion and catechisms. With what eyes do men read these admirable composures? or with what conscience avow them as containing their own faith? Could a stranger believe that the identical pretexts on which they vindicate their sacramental fasts and thanksgivings, are enumerated in a part of this very system, which they profefs to receive as founded on the word of God; and are there marked with the most unqualifiedreprobation? Yet such is the fact! among the sins forbidden in the second commandment, as explained in the larger catechism, are "all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or

ANY OTHER PRETENCE WHATSOEVER.

Let us never forget, Christian brethren, that our notions of propriety, or the examples of men, though they seem to be pillars, have nothing to do in modelling Jenovan's worship.

*Quest. 109.
M

A jealous God, he will curse innovations, and overwhelm their apologists with the terror of that challenge, "Who hath REQUIRED this at your hands."

Considering, therefore, that our sacramental fasts and thanksgivings have no divine warrant

that they are strangers in the church—that they are inconsistent with our profession-that they establish an unscriptural term of communion-that they tend to destroy the principle of public fasting and thanksgiving-to create a pernicious distinction between the sacraments— to cherish legal tempers in devotional exercisesand that they stand in the way of that great duty, the duty of frequently shewing forth the death of our Redeemer-does it not become you, Christian brethren, to make a solemn pause; and to search whether, in this matter, there be not with you, even with you, sins [against the Lord your God+?

* Is. i. 12.

† 2 Chron. xxviii. 10.

LETTER IX.

Benefits of Scriptural Communion.

CHRISTIAN BRETHREN,

THOSE Who confound the idea of change with that of innovation; or whose convictions are overpowered by their fears, view the proposal for frequent communion as pregnant with alarming consequences. Their apprehensions, however sincere, are certainly illfounded. On the contrary, we have reason to anticipate, from this very measure, the most desirable and salutary effects.

1. We shall enjoy the consolation of having performed a duty much and long neglected.

In the hour of retirement and reflection, an exercised believer can hardly persuade himself, in the face of all the considerations which have been set before him, that one or two communions in the year, correspond with the will of Christ; with the end of his memorial; or with his own profefsion. His heart, in spite of apologies, will smite him; it will tell him, that a Saviour's death merits not such forgetfulness; nor will all the week-day pageantry silence its murmurs. Unable to shew a clear warrant for