tant truth, that, by the devout participation of them, we preserve our communion with the church, for which the Redeemer shed his blood; and thus become interested in the inestimable and eternal blessings of that covenant of mercy which God hath promulgated to a guilty world. When we firmly believe that the power of God accompanies the due administration of his ordinances; that through them alone we can become united to the Redeemer, and interested in the renovating and saving efficacy of his atonement and grace, the devout participation of the Holy Eucharist will appear indispensably necessary to our salvation. Its high and awful import, as a channel of divine mercy and grace, powerfully impressed upon our minds, will tend to quicken and exalt our reverence, our penitence, our faith, our gratitude and love. Turn then, O my soul, to the consideration of the humble, but, through the grace and blessing of God, powerful means, which he hath instituted for thy salvation!

That the truths of religion should be commemorated, and its blessings conveyed by external rites, is perfectly agreeable to the nature of man. His senses are the principal inlets of his knowledge; and through them the most powerful, lively, and permanent impressions are made on his mind. There is no truth which the consideration of human nature, and the testimony of daily experience more strongly

establishes, than that man is swayed infinitely more by his passions than by his reason. By the impressive power of external rites and emblems, you gain access to his passions; you awaken, you rouse, you guide and control them. So powerful is the influence of external rites on the mind, that men in all ages have had recourse to them to perpetuate the memory of great achievements, and to convey, impress, and preserve the sentiments of religion. The nature of man, therefore, required that the important truths of religion should be impressed on the mind by external emblems and rites. By these figurative institutions, spiritual and abstract truths, which are so difficult of apprehension, are clearly and powerfully conveyed; the understanding is enlightened; the imagination and the feelings, those powerful springs of human action, are quickened and roused. Ordinances and rites, instituted by God himself, as memorials of those exalted displays of mercy by which our redemption was effected, powerfully serve to confirm our faith, to enliven our gratitude, to excite and cherish our ardent love. They keep up the constant and lively remembrance of the wonderful mercy and grace of God, and exhibit in the most strong and affecting manner, the glorious achievements by which our blessed Redeemer triumphed over the adversaries of our salvation.

Wonder not then, O my soul, that the infinitely wise Creator of the universe should con

descend in all his dispensations to the world to consult the nature of man, and to institute ordinances as memorials of his love, and channels of his mercy and grace! Even in that exalted state of primitive purity and perfection, where the ever blessed Jehovah vouchsafed to hold immediate converse with the favoured parents of our race, figurative emblems were instituted to remind them of their duty, to convey and recal to them their glorious priwileges and hopes. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil constantly recalled to them the obligation of obedience to the infinite and sovereign Author of their being, and of all their mercies; and powerfully impressed on their awakened remembrance the awful penalty of contemning the commands of their almighty Lawgiver and Judge. The tree of life, to which they had constant access, was the seal and pledge of that immortality which was to be the glorious reward of their obedience. After the fall had involved them in the lamentable curse of transgression, had stripped them of their exalted purity and glory, and rendered them obnoxious to the wrath of God, the hope of mercy was lighted up in their minds by the institution of sacrifices, which their offended God made the channels to his favour. While the shedding of the blood of beasts on the altar awakened in the soul of fallen man the recollection of his guilt which required expiation, it carried forward his joy

ful view to the promised victim, the infinite efficacy of whose blood would wash away the foul stain of sin. When, in the farther unfolding of that plan of redemption which was to be finally consummated in the glorious promulgation of the gospel, God chose a particular family and nation to be the repositories of. his will, and the heirs of his promises; the rite of circumcision was instituted to be both a lively memorial of duty and a pledge of the divine favour. Take a view of the Jewish law, and you will find that its numerous, significant, and splendid rites were the instituted means by which the people of Israel maintained their communion with God, gratefully commemorated the deliverances which his Almighty arm wrought for them, and laid their claim to his blessing and everlasting favour. When He, the glorious seed of the woman, whose promised appearance kindled the first gleam of hope which illumined the souls of the wretched parents of our race after their rebellion against God-He, whose joyful day the fathers beheld and were glad when He, to whom all the prophets and the law bore witness, appeared, to complete the work of redemption, by the shedding of his blood; the same plan of Divine Providence which had distinguished the preceding dispensations was still preserved. Through the channel of rites and ordinances were the mercy and grace of God to be conveyed; by them were the glo

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rious achievements to be commemorated by which our redemption was effected. A church was instituted, which was to be the repository of the laws, of the mercy and grace of God.Destined to be everlasting in its duration, it was the promise of the Divine Founder of the church, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it. Officers were appointed to rule it; to administer its ordinances; to conduct its worship; to enact its laws; to execute its discipline-and, with them, successively deriving their power from him, the Redeemer promised to be "alway, even to the end of the world." Into this church, the

body" which derives life, strength, and salvation from Christ its head, baptism was instituted as the sacred rite of admission. In this regenerating ordinance, fallen man is born again from a state of condemnation into a state of grace; he obtains a title to the presence of the Holy Spirit, to the forgiveness of sins, to all those precious and immortal blessings which the blood of Christ purchased. The humble christian, who, by actual repentance, by lively faith, and holy obedience, fulfils his baptismal engagements, is invested in the holy rite of confirmation with all those spiritual privileges and blessings which baptism conditionally conferred, with the manifold and strengthening gifts of the Holy Ghost. * In the hallowed worship of the sanctuary, he maintains that

Acts viii. 17.