blotted out past sins, and placed us in the presence of a reconciled God. The Lord's Supper was then offered for our continual support, to be unto us a perpetual means of grace, that we might be able "to follow on to know the Lord," to hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end, and endure the painful trials of the wilderness. In the Baptismal service accordingly, we are called to die with Christ, to rise with him, to be like him. In the Communion service, we are invited to feed on Christ, to dwell with him, to be one with him. In the former we behold the Divine seed, the essential elements, the ensured progress of our inward Christianity; in the latter we may experience the nourishment of that seed, and its radication in the heart. The Baptismal service is grand, solemn, and awakening; the office of the Lord's Supper is at once sublime, pathetic, and inexpressibly delightful to the well prepared recipient. The one authoritatively points out the way in which we should go; the other guides, supports, and cheers us in that way. In a word, the one impressively teaches the first principles of the doctrine of Christ; whilst the other, with a gentle but powerful attraction, draws us on to perfection.

Besides what has been already stated, the desire of the Church to induce her members to communicate frequently, is further shown by her pathetical exhortation before the Communion, and the Rubric after it; her teaching them in the Catechism that this sacrament, as well as the other of Baptism, is "generally necessary to salvation," and carefully informing them of the qualifications requisite for their due participation; her regulation at the end of the Office of Confirmation, that "none shall be admitted to the holy communion until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready (that is, at a competent age and instructed in the

Catechism,) and desirous to be confirmed," evidently regarding their admission to this holy right as a great Christian privilege, and intimating that when they shall have been confirmed, they are to be admitted; and her particularly recommending the receiving of this sacrament to persons under circumstances of peculiar solemnity, namely, at the first opportunity after marriage, and after childbirth respectively; and her providing a particular office for administering it to the sick.

The Communion service consists of three parts; the Ante-communion, or preparation to the communion, a great part of which is read in the daily service; the actual celebration of the holy mystery; the Postcommunion, containing the prayers and thanksgivings after the elements have been received.

As many as intend to be partakers of the communion are "enjoined to signify their names to the curate" on some previous day, in order that if there be any among them not duly qualified, he may persuade them to abstain for some time, or in case of their refusal, to repel them. The following are considered unqualified: persons unconfirmed,-under Church censures,-under frenzy,-or whose lives notoriously and flagitiously contradict their Christian profession.

It is affirmed by some of the dissenters that our Church admits indiscriminately all persons to the communion, and thus sanctions profanation of it; but her Twenty-ninth Article, her Rubric above-mentioned, and her solemn and startling admonition when notice of the intended celebration of the ordinance is given, exhibit, on the contrary, the greatest solicitude to maintain its sacred character, and guard against any abuse. To these precautions of the Church may be added, that her ministers by frequent addresses from

the pulpit, provide that their congregations shall well understand who are invited, and who are forbidden, to come to the Lord's table: after this the matter lies between them and God, and if they come unprepared, the guilt is upon their own heads. The Church pretends not to the "discerning of spirits," and therefore, when the evidence of the outward life is sufficiently satisfactory, she conceives that she would be usurping God's prerogative, if she attempted to decide upon the inward spiritual condition. If she exercised an authority upon the evidence (the doubtful and most deceptive evidence) of frames and feelings, she might, by forbidding approach to the table, "break the bruised reed," and "make sad those whom God had not made sad;" and by licensing an approach, she might sustain a delusive profession, and foster a spirit of successful hypocrisy. In the happy expression of the author of Essays on the Church, she "endorses no man's pretensions." She knows well that in this world no certain line, no line of which eternity will prove the perfect accuracy, can be drawn between the converted and the unconverted. We may hope and believe well of those who walk consistently, but we cannot pronounce decisively; and, on the other hand, we may be very doubtful of the state of individuals, who, to the eye of God, have the root of the matter in them, and are Christians indeed, although the manifestation of their faith is as yet but very indistinct. We can lay down no test, which of itself can be deemed perfectly conclusive as to the determination of a man's actual condition before God. The Church, acting upon this principle of not presuming to pass judgment upon an individual's state, except when the broad evidence of palpable ungodliness enables her to say, "By their fruit we may know them," may indeed run the risk of admitting the unconverted to the table; but, upon the

other hand, she avoids the greater danger of informing a man that she believes him to be converted, and thus, rocking him to a sleep of false security, if his profession should be without inward holiness.

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The system of the dissenters themselves exhibits grievously evils of this nature. They attempt to put the Church into the condition she was in apostolic days, when the hearts of disciples could be read through by the gift of "discerning of spirits." They try to draw a line, without possessing the knowledge needful for its being drawn with accuracy, and after search into character and condition being had, they enrol a man among the faithful, the approved of the Church. If after this act he should prove hypocrite, has not his Church contributed to deceive him? We content ourselves with telling communicants what they should be, and commanding them to examine themselves whether they are so, and to act upon their convictions. They examine communicants, and announce them tried and found faithful. This system fosters censoriousness, and holds out a bounty to hypocrisy, and on trial has been found to be unavailing; for the admission of dissenters themselves show that there are ways and means of getting within the select and approved circle which speak ill for such discipline. "If," says one of their ministers *, "men of unsanctified dispositions be admitted into the Church, what can be expected from such, in a time of conflicting opinion, but fuel for the flame of contention? The danger is considerably increased when the individuals improperly admitted are persons of property. For the sake of its glittering exterior, many a Church has taken a serpent to its bosom; or to adopt a scriptural allusion, has welcomed an Achan to the camp, for the sake of his Babylonish vest and golden

* JAMES's Church Member's Guide.

wedge." What awful injury must be done to the soul, to the conscience, by thus endorsing such hollow, baseless pretensions! Surely it is better to pass no judgment, than such hardening and deceptive judgments as these.

The Rubric which directs the repelling from this sacrament does not invest each private minister with an improper degree of authority, if it be considered in all its parts, namely, that no person, however notoriously wicked, shall be withheld from the Communion, till he be admonished to withdraw himself; and then should he, on obstinately persisting, be repelled, it is only till such time as the advice of the Ordinary can be had therein, to whom the curate is obliged to give early notice of the matter. Yet it will greatly concern him to act with the utmost care, fidelity, and circumspection, that he do not either deprive any persons of the privilege of Christian communion, or set upon them such a public mark of infamy and disgrace as a repelling from this sacrament is commonly held to be, without a real necessity to justify his conduct therein.

The communion-table was not always so called; the name of Altar was applied to it by Christian writers during the three first centuries; afterwards both names came to be promiscuously used; the one having respect to the oblation, the other to the participation of the Lord's Supper. The name, however, is immaterial, since this sacrament is considered by our Church as a spiritual sacrifice of commemoration, conveying to the soul of the believer the highest benefits of Divine grace.

THE LORD'S PRAYER is a fit introduction to the Communion; for this divine prayer and this holy sacrament had one and the same Author. The primitive Church therefore always used it thus; whence St. Jerome, in the fourth century, applies the words