SERMON LXI.

The Celebration of the Memory of Jefus in the Holy Supper, a Matter of vaft Importance.

GOD,

we are met together in thy houfe, for the purpose of refreshing our remembrance of thy love and the love of thy fon by meditation and by the participation of the holy fupper, and for publicly and unitedly paying thee the just tribute of our thanks. How important, how holy, how foothing to us fhould this memorial be! How aftonishing the proofs of thy condefcenfion and grace of which it reminds us, how great the hope and affurance both for the present and for the future which it affords us! O God, what great things haft thou not done for us, for us guilty finners! For our fakes thou fparedft not thy only begotten fon, but gaveft him up for us. Thou fentest him from heaven to us, to give us light, confolation, energy to good, to level for us the paths of virtue and happiness, to affure us of thy gracious difpofitions towards us, and to reclaim us to thee and to the moft bleffed communion with thee.

Thou

Thou causedft him to die for us, that we might live and be eternally happy. And now thou wilt be our father, acknowledge us for thy children, and hereafter, if we do thy will, render us partakers in the glory of thy fon, our faviour and lord now exalted over all. How great the joy, the gratitude, the refentment of love to thee, our infinite benefactor, how great the zeal to obey thy commandments, with which the memorial of these marvels of thy condefcenfion and grace fhould inspire us! Oh that we were never unmindful of them, that we never contemplated them with indifferent and infenfible hearts, oh that we might even now ponder them with a seriousnefs confiftent with our duty and our falvation! Bless then in this view the meditations in which we are about to engage. Empower them to enlighten our minds, and communicate to us just conceptions of what we have here to do, that we may discharge our obligations rationally and agreeably to thy holy will, may worthily partake of the communion of thy fon and thereby promote our fanctification and improvement. We afk it of thee in the name of that our faviour and redeemer, who has taught us thus to pray: Our father, &c.

I CORINTH. xi. 23, 24, 25.

The lord Jefus, the fame night in which he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and faid, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. After the fame manner alfo he took the cup, when he had fupped; faying: This cup is the new teftament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

SIMPLICITY, or fimpleness, is justly held to be

a fure fign of truth, my pious hearers. If a propofition results either immediately from the first principles of all rational thought, or from what I am taught by fenfation and probability: if I have no need of any other or however of any far fetched argument for its explication or its demonftration, and if it be comprehenfible and luminous to every man of found reafon: I run lefs hazard of erring in regard to that propofition, than if I cannot deduce it except by a long feries of concatenated refults, or cannot apprehend it without an extraordinary ap plication of mind. What may be affirmed concerning truth in general, my dear friends, is of force likewife particularly in reference to the doctrines of religion and chriftianity fo much the rather, as they are defigned not fo much to exercise the reflection and ingenuity of the learned, as to the inftruction, the pacification and improvement of all claffes and conditions of mankind. The more fimple and comprehenfible therefore any doctrine of religion

and

and chriftianity is, the more it harmonizes with what we are taught by found fenfe and daily experience, the more certainly inay we be affured of its veracity. This is the cafe with the doctrine concerning the holy fupper, which to day is to employ our attention. When we hear Jefus at the inftitution of it exprefsly and repeatedly fay: Do this in remembrance of me; if with unprejudiced minds we maturely weigh what he and his apoftles tell us on this head, and at the fame time pay more respect to what we gather from found fenfe and the rules of probability, than to what fome of the learned have faid upon the fubject: we fhall clearly perceive, that here is nothing elfe but a religious rite intended to preferve and perpetuate the memory of Jefus and his death amongst his confeffors. The more natural and fimple this idea of the holy fup. per is, the more furely fhould we have adhered to it had not the tafte for what is natural and fimple in religion been too foon loft. To this want of tafte for reverend fimplicity, and the preference on the other hand given to the artificial, the difficult, the incomprehenfible, we are to impute the feveral falfe or obfcure and imperfect notions, which have been formed on this fubject. Perhaps we ourfelves, my friends, may not be entirely free from thefe erroneous conceptions. Perhaps fome may fill have but extremely confufed ideas concerning the holy fupper. Perhaps fome of us may regard it as fomething mysterious, or look in it for objects

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which it does not contain, and thus fail of perceiv ing the important defign of it. Perhaps fome may be now faying to themfelves: If the facred fupper be only an emblem of the crucified body and the effufion of the blood of Jefus, if it be only a repast commemorative of his death, what is the peculiar purport of its inftitution? What views could our faviour have had in it, which might not have been as well attained without it? May not his memory be as well preserved and renewed without this fo lemnity as by it? May I not daily, may I not as often as I please, turn my thoughts on him, on his doctrine, on his fufferings and death, and thereby confirm myself in faith, in righteousness and in hope? To repel thefe objections, and in fo doing to fettle your judgment and to render your devotion the more rational and enlightened and of course the more efficacious and permanent, is the main design of my prefent difcourfe. I fhall to that end. in the first place fhew you, that the holy fupper was and still is the beft and fureft means, of preferving the memory of Jefus, of his death and his refurrection among mankind; and then to our more immediate edification display the importance of this remembrance, or point out how vaft the consequence that it be preserved amongst mankind.

A few brief remarks will make it plainly apparent, that the inftitution of the holy fupper, and the continued ufe of it, was and ftill is the best and fureft means of preferving the memory

of