fort but in an assurance of God's pardon and favour. Consider it as a renewal of our covenant with GOD, and a solemn pleading for the merits of Christ, before him; and who, that is conscious of his manifold breaches of that covenant, and sensible how great need he has to lay hold on the merits of Christ, can be indifferent whether he join with his fellow christians in this divine office? Finally consider the happy effects of a due and religious use of this holy ordinance, as it gives fresh noùrishment to the soul, and is the means of conveying into our heart, new supplies of spiritual strength; and surely, none who do in earnest labour against sin, and at the same time feel their own weakness and corruption, can need much persua sion, to use the proper means of obtain ing strength from God, to support and quicken them in their spiritual welfare. These, and the like considerations of spiritual comfort and benefit, must of course make it the desire and delight of serious christians, to partake of this holy ordi nance. And that others who are not so strongly affected and influenced by those motives of spiritual comfort and benefit,

Frequent communion enjoined and supposed in scripture.

may not think themselves at liberty to partake or not partake of it, as they please; they are to remember that it is an express command of our Saviour CHRIST, and, which is more, his dying command, that every christian do join in this solemn memorial of his death and passion. For so we read in the gospel, Luke xxii. 9. that immediately after he had administered it to his disciples, he added, This do in remembrance of me; and in St. Paul, who declares 1 Cor.xi. 23. that he delivers nothing but what he had received from Christ, we read, that our Saviour did not only add those words after the administration of the bread, but did yet more expressly add,af.. ter the administration of the cup, This do ye,as oft as ye drink it,in remembrance of me; For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come; that is, till his second coming to judge the world. By which precept the communion of Christ's body and blood, as represented by bread and wine in this Holy Sacrament, is made the standing memorial of his death and sufferings, in all christian assemblies, to the end of the world.

tised in the

And so, it is plain, the desciples and first Christians understood it, and praeand in their practice made it first ages of not only a part of religious Christianity. worship, but a constant part of the service of the Lord's day? as we gather from that general account, Acts ii. 42, of their continuing stedfastly in breaking of bread and in prayers; and a more particular declaration of it, Acts xx. 7. Upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread with the testimony of Justin Martyr (an ancient father, who lived near the age of the Apostles,) concerning the practice of the christians in his time, "That their custom was,to meet together "on the Lord's day, and after certain "portions of scripture read and expound"ed to them, to join in prayer, and in "the Sacrament." Like to which is the forementioned account that Pliny, who was Governor of Bithynia, gave of the christians in that Province. "That upon a set solemn day (which was very probably the Lord's day) they were "wont to meet together, and obliged "themselves by a Sacrament, or solemn "oath, not to commit anv wickedness,

"&c." Not that our Saviour or his apostles had made it an express command to celebrate the Holy Communion every Lord's day; but such was the fervent zeal of those early times for their dying Lord, and so great a reproach is it to the general neglect and lukewarmness of our age!

advantages

to Christians

Communion.

But besides the express command of Christ, and the spiritual beneThe many fits which the participation of which accrue the body and blood conveys from frequent to every sincere receiver in a supernatural way; a further inducement and obligation to frequent communion, is that in a natural way, it is the immediate means and occasion of stirring up in our hearts many Godly thoughts and considerations, which ex ceedingly tend to arm us against sin,and to improve and establish us in the ways of Godliness.

For instance ;

brance of our

1. Remem- 1. The cares and pursuits Christianity, of this world, however inno cent in themselves, are apt to withdraw men's thoughts from the things of the next life, and to bring them by degrees to an habitual forgetfulness

even of their christianity, and of the relation they bear, and the obligations they owe to the author and founder of our religion, the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Holy Sacrament being a service peculiar to Christians, and that by which they are chiefly distinguished from men of all other religions, keeps up in their minds a lively sense of their christian profession, and of the relation and union that is between them and Christ their Head. Not only the Jews but the Mahometans and Heathens, worship God, and offer up prayers and praises to the being from whom they received their blessings. But the service peculiar to Christians (that which leads them to a clear and lively view of the founder of their religion, and that by which they chiefly declare and profess themselves Christians)isthe she w ing or setting forth the sufferings ofChrist for the sins of the world,by joining in the communion of his body and blood. In. somuch, that in the early ages of Christi. anity, an habitual abstaining from this Holy Sacrament, would have been judg. ed a renouncing of christianity itself; as, no doubt, the frequent attendance on it, is an excellent means to conform and es..