inftance of his love, in giving his body to be crucified, and his blood to be shed for us.

But I do not fee in what sense the Lord's fupper can, with propriety, be called a feal of the new covenant, or that the fcriptures will authorize what I take to be generally understood by it. It is poffible, that when divines call the Lord's fupper a feal of the new covenant, they may mean, that it was intended as an affurance on God's part, that he would actually confer all the bleffings promifed by Chrift in the gofpel.

There is no doubt but that God will confer thefe bleffings, and fully confirm every thing that our Lord has affured us he will do. Of this he has given us ample af furance, in that he hath raised him from the dead. As the apostle Paul fays, Rom.

i.

4. He was declared to be the Son of God with power, by the refurrection from the dead; and Peter fays, 1 Pet. i. 4. That the God and father of our Lord Jefus Chrift has begotten us again to a lively hope, by

the

the refurrection of Jefus Chrift from the dead: and many other texts might be produced to the fame purpose.

The refurrection of Chrift, therefore, was properly the feal of the new covenant. That this rite of the Lord's fupper was intended to be that affurance, I fee no evidence whatever. Do this in remembrance of me (which words were expressly defigned to inform us concerning the nature and use of the institution) do not convey that idea; and the words, This cup is the New Teftament in my blood, appear to me to have been added, in order to express on what account we are to remember him, viz. as having, by his death, accomplished the scheme of our falvation. If it were true, that the death of Christ was the seal of the covenant of grace, the Lord's fupper could only be the memorial of the feal, and not the feal itself.

When God appointed the rain-bow to be a token, or affurance, that he would no more destroy the world by a flood, this

ufe of it was declared in the cleareft and ftrongest manner, Gen. ix. 12. And God faid, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations. I do fet my bow in the cloud, and it fhall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth, &c.

Alfo at the inftitution of the rite of circumcifion, the Divine Being, after reciting all the promises of the Abrahamic covenant, fays to that patriarch, This is my covenant, which ye shall keep between me and you, and thy feed after thee; every man child among you fhall be circumcifed

and it fhall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. Gen. xvii. 10, 11. Appointments of tokens fimilar to these occur in various other parts of the Jewish history, but we find nothing like this in the institution of the Lord's fupper.

It may be faid, that the Divine Being feals, or confirms to us the bleffings of the gofpel, while we are partaking of the Lord's

Lord's supper, or in consequence of our partaking of it. In other words, that, by means of this rite, God, by his especial prefence, applies the benefits of the gofpel, giving the worthy communicants an affurance and foretafte of the blessings of it. This I take to be the meaning of the authors of the Affembly's catechism, when they say that in the facraments, "Chrift, and the benefits of the new co

venant, are, by fenfible figns, repre"fented, fealed, and applied to be "lievers;" and that, in the Lord's fupper," the worthy receivers are by faith "made partakers of his body and blood, "with all its benefits, to their spiritual "nourishment and growth in grace."

But this, I apprehend, is much more than the fcriptures or experience will warrant, and the expectation of any thing of this kind I call enthufiaftic, and fure to be disappointed. Eating bread and drinking wine in remembrance of Christ, doth not convey any fuch meaning. Indeed, if it were fact, that all the benefits of the new

covenant were actually fealed and applied, as well as reprefented to worthy communicants, in the act, or in confequence of the act of communion, they would have fuch an affurance of the pardon of their sins, and of their title to heaven, as I imagine, few perfons will pretend to; and I imagine that few perfons would believe them, if they fhould pretend to it.

Some perfons may chufe to make use of the language above-mentioned in a qualified fenfe, meaning, that their faith in Chrift, and all chriftian virtues, are rem dered much more lively by the peculiar prefence of the fpirit of God in this ordinance. I am far from denying the influence of the spirit of God upon the minds of men, according to fome eftablifhed law, or rule, (that we may not fuppofe it to be, in the proper sense of the word, miraculous) but I fee not a fhadow of authority, from the fcriptures, for expecting this prefence at the Lord's fupper, more than in any other chriftian ordinance.

The