ty. How gloomy and disconfolate would life be if we had no certain knowledge, derived from the father of lights, of our origin, our duties, and our deftination! Jefus, by opening Heaven to our view, and pointing out the way of falvation, hath fhed on our condition in this world its richest confolations. If we are truly fenfible of the natural infirmity of the human mind, and the manifold errors to which it is prone, we will recognize with joy the day fpring from on high that hath vifited us, to give light to them that fit in darknefs and the fhadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.* In commemorating, therefore, this last act of the miniftry of Chrift upon earth, we will thankfully remember him who hath revealed to us the only living and true God, unknown to the Gentile nations-who hath enlightened before us the valley of the fhadow of death, that land of darkness and of horrors to the guilty, and hath brought intimately home to the bofoms of his people the affured hopes of everlasting life. Oh! bleffed teacher! how little does the arrogance of human reafon, or the thoughtleff

*Luke i. 78, 79.

nefs of human folly understand the infinite obligations which we owe to thee! O light of the world! fhine into our hearts! open them to receive the precious, the confoling rays of divine truth! We remember, we adore thee who, feeming to be extinguished forever in the darkness of thy last hour, didit only veil thy glory for a moment in order to lift it again upon the world with greater splendor!

This ordinance ferves, in the last place, to call to the remembrance of the fincere communicant the most precious relation which he suftains to us of our Saviour. For this end come he into the world, and for this end did he fubmit to fuffer, that he might fave his people from their fins. He is cur Mediator, our Advocate with the Father, and the atonement for our tranfgreffions. He holds in his hands the gifts of the holy-spirit, and the rewards of eternal life. How precious to a foul conscious of her impurity, and lamenting her diflance from God, is a divine interceffor to lead her to his eternal throne, and to cover her imperfections before the prefence of his holiness! With what tranfports of grati

B b

tude will she look up from the brink of defpair, to which fhe had been urged by her crimes, to her bleffed Redeemer who has all power in Heaven and on earth to fave, and whose almighty merits have opened to her the gates of everlafting peace !— In these interesting relations does Jefus appear at the head of his own table celebrating the mystery of his own death. Believers! in these emblems behold your Saviour! The united views of repentance and of faith, of contrition and of hope will give an unspeakable value to the memorials of our redemption. To Christ you owe all. In vain are altars and victims, thousands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers of oil to purchafe heaven-in vain the tears and anguish of the perifhing finner to obtain forgivenessin vain are all the works of righteoufnefs which we have done to juftify us before God. -His death is the perfect, the meritorious, the only facrifice for fin, and the only title. to falvation. How dear to you, then, will be these fymbols and pledges of redeeming mercy that recall to your memory, by the livelieft figures, a relation fo precious and important.

Come then, my beloved brethren, disciples of fo dear, and fo glorious a mafler, obey his laft command, fulfil his dying requeft. Can you, indeed, require the force of a command, or the authority of a requefl, to urge you to the difcharge of a delightful duty? Will you not prefs to your lips, and to your hearts the precious memorials of your heavenly friend? While you moiften them with a tender grief for the unutterable afflictions by which his love was perfected, will you not fhed over them the tears of your gratitude for the ineflimable bleflings of which at that moment, he made you the heirs? Meditate on his amiable character, and his divine perfections-with a melancholy pleafure retrace the unparallelled fcenes of his laft hour-indulge a holy and a lawful tranfport while you dwell on the ineffable proofs of his love, and liften again to the leffons of heavenly wifdom that flow from his lips.

This holy table is likewife an altar on which you offer fervent vows to your

your

rifen and triumphant Redeemer who is now

Hebrews ii. 10-59

afcended far above all principalities and powers, and every name that is named in Heaven and on earth, to hold for you the glorious inheritance which he purchafed with his blood.-Over these precious memorials, and with hearts glowing with the fentiments of duty and of zeal, you are called to profefs eternal fidelity to him who hath loved us to the death, and who now and ever liveth to make interceffion for us. Powerful is the authority of God which commands our obedience, but infinitely more powerful are the voluntary chains of love that hold us in his fervice. The love of Chrift conftraineth us, becaufe we thus judge that, if one died for all then were all dead, and that he died for all that they who live fhould not henceforth live to themfelves but to him who died for them, and who rofe again. Sweet are its contraits; and from their sweetness ariles their torce. Entering into the inmolt principles of the mind, and mingling, as it were, with all its effence, they form a tie eternal as our being, and indiffoluble but with the ioul itself. Approach this holy facrifice, therefore, to rekindle at it the facred fervours of divine love-to offer your pure vows to Heaven on the fame altar on which the Son of God