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truths fo folemn and affecting; and let all the powers of your nature be engaged in the arduous work of your falvation.

We now press upon the moment that diffolves the interefling relation that has fo long connected us. Speaking to you for the lait time as your inftructor, it is my best, and moft earnest advice, and if they were the laft words I should ever pronounce, I could only utter them with the greater fervency, fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man. Soon death fhall forever ftop my tongue and close your ears, and then fhall we both difcern, in infinitely ftronger lights, their unspeakable importance.-Go, beloved youth! to your feveral destinations in life. May the God of your fathers protect and guide you! My wishes, my prayers, and my hopes fhall follow you. In hearing of your future virtues and fuccefs, I fhall partake of the tender and lively joy of your own parents. But Oh! with pleasures unknown, and worthy only of eternity, fhall I hear from the lips of your final judge this bleffed and merciful decree if he shall pronounce it on your diligence and fidelity in all the duties of life-" well

done, good and faithful fervants! enter ye into the joys of your Lord!"

To that bleffed end, Almighty God! in thine infinite mercy, bring us all, for the fake of Jefus Christ our Lord!

AMEN!

1

DISCOURSE VII.

THE LORD'S SUPPER A MEMORIAL

OF CHRIST.

I COR. XI. 24.

Do this in remembrance of me.

NATI

ATIONS have endeavoured to perpetuate the memory of great events, or of illuftrious benefactors, and individuals to renew the recollection of beloved friends, or of interefting fcenes by feftivals, by monuments, and by tender memorials. In conformity with cuftoms fo natural, and that have been established among mankind from the beginning of time, it hath pleased God, in the various periods of his church, to record fignal events of his providence, or peculiar difpenfations of his grace by fimilar monuments and inflitutions. His gracious covenant with Abraham was perpetuated by a feal impreffed upon all his

offspring. And the deliverance of his people from the bondage of Egypt was celebrated by a feftival that revived the memory of this illuftrious miracle throughout every age. The chriftian church hath, likewife, its rites, its feafts, and its feals.Baptifm hath fucceeded to circumcifion as a vifible feal of the covenant of grace, and like that, confifts of an emblem of the purity of heart that becomes the disciples of Christ. The Lord's fupper, which we are convened to celebrate, contains the memorial of a much higher falvation than that of Ifrael from Egyptian thraldom. It is a feftival that exhibits in fignificant emblems, whatever religion contains most facred in its own nature, and moft interefting to mankind. Our bleffed Lord, the night on which he was betrayed, inflituted his holy fupper to be a perpetual rite in his church, that, by the presence of fuch lively fymbols, he might recall to the memory of his faithful difciples his love, and his fufferings for them "Do this, faid he, in remembrance of me."

The bread, and the wine employed in this feaft are expreflive images of the great

objects it is defigned to reprefent. As the bread corn is ground beneath the weight of the millstone, fo was he wounded for our tranf greffions, and bruifed for our iniquities. As the wine is preffed from the broken grape, fo hath he been caft into the wine-prefs of divine juftice, and broken for our fins.

Our bleffed Lord, on that night that preceded the confummation of his great facrifice on the cross, chose these emblems, and appointed them to be used as perpetual memorials of his fufferings.*-How interefling was that scene! How tender was that moment, when he met the little, and affectionate family of his difciples for the last time! Endeared to them by his labours, by his dangers, and by the ineffable sweetness of his manners-by the sublime and confolatodoctrines of which he had made them the depofitaries-by his diftinguifhing love in felecting them to be ever near his perfon that they might be the subjects of his divine

ry

* The bread and the wine in this ordinance may be confidered as emblems, likewife, of the ftrength, nourishment, and confolation to be derived from it by a fincere difciple of Chrift. But thefe views of them are not immediately connected with the prefent fubject.

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