for us by others, we in the sacrament of the Lord's supper deliberately ratify. We renew the pledges of faith and the promise of obedience, and make a solemn profession of our acceptance of the terms of salvation. These terms imply repentance of our sins; sincere and hearty resolutions of amendment; thankfulness to God for the assurance that our sincere repentance will be accepted of, through Jesus Christ, in lieu of that perfect and unsinning obedience of which our frail natures are incapable; and a determined purpose of sacrificing every selfish and vindictive passion.

This sacrament affords a salutary aid to human weakness, and by the exercise which it gives to all the benignant affections, is calculated to increase our own happiness, and to render us instrumental in promoting the happiness of society. I hope I shall

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shall be able to render this yet more evident by some farther considerations; but before we proceed so far, it may be proper to take a view of the circumstances which attended the institution of this Divine ordi

nance.

Unable as we are to comprehend the ways of God, or to penetrate the mysterious plans of his Divine government, we need only exercise our reason to perceive, in all that he has unfolded of it, a unity of design, a correspondence, and harmony, by which it is distinguished from all that proceeds from man. In displaying the progress of revelation, I have been at some pains to direct your attention to this circumstance, as thinking it of much importance to religious principle and I am persuaded that an examination of the concluding act of our Saviour's ministry, will

tend

tend to enforce and illustrate all that I have advanced.

Nor shall I make any apology for the casual repetition of observations already made; for though inadmissible in a work of taste and imagination, repetitions are, in a long chain of argument, not only useful, but necessary in giving firmness to the connecting links.

We have seen that the multiplied ceremonies of the Jewish law were intended for a specific purpose, and that they were eminently adapted to answer the end for which they were instituted. In the coming of the Messiah, they were rendered no longer necessary, and were consequently abolished; but as human nature remains the same, and as man in his present imperfect state is incapable of complete abstraction, and stands in need of having his ideas connected and embodied,

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embodied, if I may so express myself, by means of sensible objects, the Divine Goodness provided, in the institution of the sacrament, such an aid as was in every way suitable to

our wants.

By the ceremony of the passover, which was instituted on the eve of their departure from Egypt, the children of Israel were reminded of their having been miraculously rescued from a state of slavery and subjection, and put in possession of the land promised to their fathers.

By the sacrament of the Lord's supper this ceremony was superseded; but however injudiciously it may have been sometimes explained, the correspondence between them is no fanciful illusion. It was evidently in allusion to the pascal lamb, that our Saviour was so often hailed as "the "Lamb of God; the Lamb that

"taketh

"taketh away the sin of the world." As that lamb was slain immediately preceding the event which gave to the descendants of Abraham an assurance of the accomplishment of all that God had foretold and promised, it might with propriety be considered as an emblem of Him whose deathwas so immediately followed by that resurrection to eternal life, which is the accomplishment of every promise, and the seal of every dispensation!

It was in the contemplation of his own immediate sufferings and death, that our Lord dispensed the cup of life to his disciples; giving them at the same time such an explicit intimation of the approaching event, as filled their hearts with sorrow. It was in vain that he then assured them that their sorrow should be turned into joy. In vain that he set before