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in science, and, let its enemies know it, resistless, in might. Britons, value your privileges, guard your constitution, and protect your king; add the sensibilities of love, to the duties of loyalty, and pray with fervent supplication, that his remaining course may be like that of the summer sun, when he sets at last, slowly and serenely in the west, amid the blessings of a grateful world.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE LORD'S SUPPER.

This do in remembrance of me. Luke xxii. 19.

THE foundation of all religion, is the love and fear of God. His will is the rule of our conduct; it is generally evident from the nature of his laws, that they are holy and intended for our benefit. It is always to be concluded that they are so, from the consideration of his purity, wisdom, and goodness. But whatever we may know concerning them, they demand our obedience. He is the fountain and the measure of truth and good. He is the sovereign lawgiver. The perfection and happiness of his reasonable creatures, depend upon their conformity to his will.

Our holy religion, by its doctrines and precepts, marks out to us, one plain line of duty, it presents it more largely to our view

and impresses it more forcibly upon our minds by its sacraments, leading us by these visible signs, and affecting ceremonies, from the font to the altar, from the altar to the grave.

We may discern, that the celebration of the holy communion, is conducive to our welfare. It is an act of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; it is an act of obedience to his commands; it is an act of worship offered in the manner prescribed by him; it is a renewal of our baptismal profession and promise. All these religious acts improve the heart, disposing it to perseverance, and leading it to perfection in righteousness.

This sacrament is a lively representation of the most affecting instance of the love of God to man. It has therefore a peculiar tendency to cherish and confirm our reverential gratitude, our humble confidence in his mercy, our trust in his promises, and our desire to please him.

The Lord's supper was appointed by the divine author of our salvation, for the

communication of his spiritual blessings. It is like the waters of Jordan to the afflicted Syrian; it is a means of giving health and vigour to a degenerate nature. God grants his benefits, temporal and spiritual, by the chosen methods of his providence. He hath not given us the necessaries and conveniencies of the present life, without the concurrence of our art and labour. We know, instructed by the experience of ages, that the wheat and the barley will not spring, where it has not been sown; and that the tree which is not duly planted, and fostered, will die, or not bear the desired fruit. And why? because God in his good pleasure hath so ordained. He might have made the bread corn, and the fruit tree to grow of itself, as he does the grass of the meadow, and the trees of the forest; he might have provided for all men, as he did for the Israelites, and fed them with the bread of heaven. But he has taught us to raise this sustenance and comfort for ourourselves. He has caused life and the satisfactions of it, to depend upon our prudence and activity. He shews us by the course of nature, the means of preservation; and were we to neglect them, the certain consequen

He has

ces would be famine and death. His procedure is the same with respect to our salvation, and the blessings of a life to come. made known the conditions, he has declared the means," whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." And the return of summer and winter, of seed time and harvest, while the earth remaineth, is not more certain, than the everlasting fruit of our labours, in this state of trial. We see indeed the course of this world, we know it by experi ence; the events of a world to come are objects of faith and expectation. But the revolution of a few years, will shew the reader, and I trust, to his eternal comfort, the reality of what he now believes. It will convince him, that no mark of reverence to the Almighty, will pass unnoticed, no act of obedience unrewarded, whether it be offered in conformity to the unchangeable rule of moral righteousness, or to any special publication of his will.

Moral virtues and positive institutions stand upon this common ground, that they are declared to be the will of God. This declaration continuing, they can never cease to

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