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made on the fortifications round Oporto, by the troops of Don Miguel; but in both they were repulsed. A third attack was thought to be probable, and the same result was anticipated. Don Pedro's army was receiving some reinforcements from Britain. There had been another naval encounter, and one vessel of Don Miguel's fleet was said to have been sunk. By sea, as well as by land, the result of the contest was still dubious. If the publick papers have not again deceived us, Madam Buonaparte, the mother of Napoleon, is now actually dead; and has left the larger part of her most enormous fortune, to her son Joseph. If he spends it in our country, in promoting and patronizing institutions and enterprises of publick utility, we shall think that it might have been worse disposed of.-The people of Germany appear to be greatly dissatisfied with what their Diet has done, influenced, as we have heretofore stated, by Austria, Prussia, and Russia, to restrain all writings favourable to general freedom, and all pleas for a reform of government, and all censure of any of the measures taken by the governments that exist. The press is muzzled, and professors of universities who have offended by their publications or their known sentiments, are displaced without ceremony. It has been repeatedly stated in the publick papers, that an emigration to the United States of fifty thousand Germans was in contemplation, with a view of forming a state by themselves, to be afterwards received into the American Union. It may be so, but we doubt it. The Cholera was said to be raging in the north of Germany.-Belgium and Holland have not yet settled their controversy. The king of Holland obstinately refuses to accede to the terms agreed on by the London Conference. He wishes to retain the citadel of Antwerp, and to restrain the free navigation of the Scheld. War was considered by some of the journalists as probable. We, however, think not.-Russia, or its emperor, was still engaged in executing barbarous plans to incapacitate Poland for ever again attempting to regain its independence.-Greece was still in confusion, and the opposite parties were in arms, and bloodshed frequently ensued. A National Assembly was convened to endeavour to tranquillize the country, and to form a constitution. It is said that their young king, Otho, appointed by the great powers to reign over Greece, would not ascend the throne while under age, as he is at present.

The armies of Mehemed Ali, the Saladin of modern times, are still successful. It appears that Aleppo has fallen before his son Ibrahim, without resistance, or with none that was formidable. The great captain of the Turkish Sultan, Hussein Pacha, with a few of his subordinate officers, have made their escape, and gone we know not whither; but the Sultan's Palestine army seems to be annihilated. To what extent Ibrahim will pursue his conquests time will make manifest, but at present nothing hinders his going where he pleases. The Mohammedan power is destroying itself, and the prophecies of holy writ, in regard to its downfall, seem to be rapidly fulfilling.

In Southern America, every thing is still unsettled; and till the influence of Popery is destroyed, or greatly diminished, we see not how freedom and peace can be united, in that interesting portion of our continent. The last accounts from Rio Janeiro, represent the party of the late Emperor Don Pedro, and that which drove him from his empire, as not only still in existence, but as each powerful, and struggling for the supremacy. A general civil war will probably ensue, and the result remains to be seen. The republicks are all in a state of agitation; and the United States are at present in very bad odour, both with Mexico and Buenos Ayres.

Our own country seems to be in a perilous situation. The question-who is to be our next president? is apparently decided; and it is now the manifest duty and interest of the parties that have been in conflict on this question, to lay aside their hostility, and unitedly labour and pray for the peace and prosperity of their common country. But the excitement has been so great, and the different parts of our government are so unharmonious, and the nullification party in South Carolina, with a decided majority of the people on its side, is so bent on violent measures-that taken altogether, our pros pects seem to be truly alarming. It is surely incumbent on every real patriot to use all his influence in soothing, and not in irritating the publick mind; and the special present duty of every real Christian, it certainly is, to implore that God, who has so often and so remarkably interposed in our behalf, still to spare and bless us; to turn us as a people unto himself, and to turn his displeasure from us..

The Cholera has nearly disappeared from those parts of our country which it first invaded. But it is travelling west and south, and in some places is exceedingly malignant and destructive. In New Orleans it appears to be united with our old scourge, the yellow fever; and the last accounts of the mortality there are truly appalling. May a merciful God soon interpose, remove his chastising rod, and sanctify the awful visitation which he has seen meet to inflict.

THE

CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.

DECEMBER, 1832.

Religious Communications.

LECTURES ON THE SHORTER CATE

CHISM OF THE WESTMINSTER AS-
SEMBLY OF DIVINES-ADDRESSED

TO YOUTH.

LECTURE LXXIII.

The Lord's supper, which is to be the subject of the ensuing lecture, is, according to our catechism," a sacrament, wherein by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ's appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourish ment and growth in grace."

The sacrament we now consider is called the Lord's supper, because it was instituted at the close of the Jewish passover, which was always celebrated in the evening. It does not appear, however, that the time of the day at which the celebration takes place is important; farther than that it be that part which is most convenient to the communicants. It is probable that in the primitive church there was scarcely an hour of the four and twenty, at which this holy ordinance was not sometimes administered-occasionally, to avoid interruption or persecution, at a late hour of the night, or just before the dawn of the morning.

Ch. Adv.-Vol. X.

In some periods of the church there have been warm controversies, and even at present there are some Christian sects that are disposed to be exceedingly strenuous, in relation to the mere circumstantials of this sacred rite: whether the bodily attitude in which it should be received, should be kneeling, sitting, standing, or a recumbent posture; whether the kind of bread that is used, should be leavened or unleavened; whether the wine that is employed should be in colour red or white; whether all the communicants should be seated at a table, or whether any other table is necessary than that on which the sacred symbols are placed; and whether the officiating minister should himself hand the sacred symbols to each individual communicant, or whether this may be done by deacons and lay elders, or by communicants themselves, passing the bread and wine from one to another. There has also been a difference of opinion as to the frequency with which this sacrament should be celebrated. I would by no means say that all these circumstantials stand exactly on the same footing. So far as any of them are superstitious, or uncommanded, and yet are treated as of divine obligation, they are certainly, in that view of them, not to be admitted.

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The denomination to which we belong are in the habit of partaking of the holy communion in a sitting posture, thinking, that as this ordinance was originally celebrated in the posture then used at a common meal, it is most proper that the posture which is now in use at a common meal should be observed; and they object to kneeling, as being without precept or example in the New Testament; and also because it is of Popish origin, and connected with worshipping the consecrated elements, in the belief that after consecration, they become the real body and blood of Christ. Our church likewise think, that as the bread and wine in common use were employed by our Lord in the original institution of this sacrament, such of these elements as are now in common use in any particular part of the church, may there be freely employed without scruple. It is held by us as essential, that a regularly ordained minister of the gospel should administer this ordinance, but that it is immaterial by whom the bread and wine are conveyed from one communicant to another; although where elders or deacons can perform this service, it is deemed most proper that it should be done by them. As to the frequency with which this sacrament should be dispensed, the usage is different in different churches of our denomination. In some, the celebration takes place but once or twice in a year; in others it is quarterly, and in others monthly. The circumstances of churches ought certainly to have some regard in ordering this important concern; but in general it ought to be more frequent than twice in a year. There is indeed no precept in the New Testament on the subject; but in the primitive church the celebration, if not weekly, was very frequent. In some parts of our church, all the communicants go to tables pre

pared for the purpose; in other parts, no other table is used but that on which the bread and wine are placed; and still in other parts, some sit at tables, and others in adjoining seats or pews. These last mentioned usages appear to me quite unimportant: otherwise than as education or habit, and the association of ideas which they create, are deserving of some regard. That the communicants should, in all cases, be separated from the mass of a congregation, and appear as a company by themselves, is in my judgment highly expedient and useful. It exhibits the separation which now exists between the church and the world, and is a striking emblem of the separation that will take place in the final judgment.

But let me admonish you, my young friends, not only in relation to the subject now before us, but in regard to many other things in religion, to keep up a distinction in your own minds, between circumstantials and essentials. All circumstantials are not to be considered as either indifferent or unimportant; and in choosing for ourselves, we should adopt those which appear the best, or the least exceptionable. Yet in our difference from others, we ought always to consider whether that difference relates to essentials or only to unessentials. In the matter under consideration, for example, I know of no protestant evangelical denomination, among whom the sacrament of the supper is so defectively and erroneously administered, as wholly to pervert it, or entirely to destroy its great design and its precious benefits. But in the corrupt Romish church, I am of the opinion that the doctrine of transubstantiation, the worshipping of the elements, and the entire refusal of one of those elements to all but ecclesiastics, must be considered as destroying essentially the

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very nature and design of this sacred institution.

Let us now attend to that part of the answer before us, in which we are reminded that the ordinance under consideration owes its institution" to Christ's appointment." He only, as the Lord and head of the church, had a right to abolish the Jewish passover, and to put in its place the commemorative supper of his own death. But as his right to do this was supreme and unquestionable, the appointment becomes obligatory on his disciples to the end of time. There is no intimation whatever, that this was to be only a temporary institution; on the contrary, the apostle Paul (1 Cor. xi. 26,) states that the reason given by the divine Saviour himself, for the perpetuity of this sacrament was "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come."*

It is an interesting and affect ing consideration that the point of time at which our blessed Lord instituted this sacrament, was that which immediately preceded his last inconceivable sufferings; when he had in near and distinct view his awful agony in the garden of Gethsemane, and the whole train of outward and inward distresses, which were to terminate in his

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"Until he come. Nothing can be more unreasonable, than to refer this, (as the Quakers do,) to the time when Christ should come, by his spiritual illumination on their minds, to take them off from carnal ordinances; for, not to insist upon it, that we have at least as much need of the Lord's supper as the primitive Christians had, (not having so many advantages as they, to keep up the memory of Christ in our minds, to quicken us to holiness, and to unite us in love,) it is evident, the grand coming of Christ by the Spirit was, when it was poured out on the day of pentecost; an event, which had happened many years before the date of this epistle."

death on the cross-Even then, his love to his redeemed people, whose law place he had assumed, was so intense, that he postponed, as it were, all attention to himself, that he might provide for their edification and consolation, till his second coming. O, my dear youth! when we think in what circumstances our now glorified Redeemer gave to his disciples, and through them to us, this memorial of his dying love, how ought our love to him to rise and overflow! Did he repeatedly say, "Do this in remembrance of me?" And shall not every heart respond, "Yes, adored Immanuel, we will, in the strength of thy promised grace, remember and obey thee,

while life, and breath, and being last! We will meet at thy hallowed board, and commemorate the triumphs of that 'love' its breadth and length, and depth and height'-on which hang all our hopes of an escape from hell, and an admission into heaven-the heaven whither thou hast gone to prepare a place for all thy faithful followers."

The sacrament of the supper formally and essentially consists, in "showing forth the death of Christ, by giving and receiving bread and wine according to his appointment." Having in my sixty-ninth lecture, when describing the nature of a sacrament, exposed the chief errors and abuses of the Papists, and having in the present lecture said all that I consider necessary in regard to the circumstantials of this holy ordinance, let us now fix our undivided attention on its true design. In its original institution we are told that our Lord gave thanks, and blessed the sacramental symbols, before they were distributed to his disciples. Hence it is evidently indispensable, that in every administration of the Lord's supper the bread and wine be set apart from a common to a holy use, by thanks

giving and prayer-thanksgiving that believe," and with which being

to God, for his ineffable love in the gift of a Saviour to fallen and sinful man; for the great redemption which was effected at so astonishing a price as the bitter sufferings and death of his only begotten and well beloved Son; and for the ample provision made for the edification and consolation

of his people in the institutions of the gospel, and especially in this deeply affecting and unspeakably precious ordinance-prayer for the pardon of sin, through the atonement symbolized in this holy rite; for a blessing on the sensible emblems of the broken body and shed blood of the Redeemer, now set apart to their sacred use; and for the special aid and influence of the Spirit of Christ, to enable his people, even the weakest of his flock, worthily to participate in this memorial of his dying love.

The bread and wine in the eucharist represent the broken body and shed blood of the Lord Jesus, when he offered himself without spot to God, as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice for the sins of his believing people; and when they receive and eat this bread, and drink this wine, they do, in the most solemn manner, avow their sole and entire dependance on what their Redeemer then did for them, for their justification unto eternal life. As bread and wine nourish and cherish the life of the body, so they avow their reliance on what was done in their behalf, by their bleeding and dying Lord, for the life of their souls; and as the sensible emblems become incorporated with their bodies, so they avow their desire to be incorporated into Christ, as members of his mystical body. Thus they show forth his death, as the consummation of that obedience to the law of God, and endurance of its awful penalty, which constitute the finished righteousness that is "unto all, and upon all them

invested, they will stand acquitted in judgment, and be accepted as righteous, even in the sight of that God "before whom the heavens are not clean, and his angels chargeable with folly."

(To be continued.)

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CHARGE delivered to the Audience, at the Ordination of the Missionaries, Messrs. John B. Pinney and Joseph W. Barr, October 12, 1832. In our last number we inserted that part of a prepared address to the audience, at the ordination of the missionaries Pinney and Barr, which, from the previous protracted exercises, was not delivered. We now insert the part which was delivered. We do it because, if a right view has been taken of the subject, many of our readers who did not hear it, have as much interest in it as those who did. is, in fact, and was intended to be, an address, or charge, to those members of the Presbyterian church who believe that heathen missions, as well as those of a domestick kind, ought to be sent forth and sustained by this church, in her distinctive character: and we respectfully solicit for it a careful and candid perusal, from all the members of our communion who take our work. The part heretofore published was so entirely distinct from that which is now given, that there was no difficulty in omitting it when the address was delivered, nor in connecting the introduction, without the appearance of an omission, with what follows in the subsequent pages.

Christian Brethren,-In the usual ordination service of our church, the constitution directs, that "a solemn charge, in the name of God," shall be given; not only "to the newly ordained bishop," but also "to the people, to persevere in the discharge of their

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