whose goodness towards the sons of men is perfectly disinterested! The exertions of divine Providence in our behalf tend solely to our own welfare; nor can any thing we do in return contribute, in the smallest degree, to the augmentation of the happiness of the almighty Benefactor. This, unquestionably, ought to be sufficient to exact from us the most profound veneration, the most fervent gratitude, and implicit obedience to his sacred laws.

David, after having enumerated the tender mercies of God, is penetrated with the strongest sense of devotion. "My mouth (he exclaims) shall speak the praise of the Lord; and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever." Such was the tribute which the royal Psalmist thought due to the Deity for the creation and preservation of man. The debt is accumulated to us in an infinite proportion; for, while we are bounden to the same return for the same benefits voluntarily couferred upon us, a grander obligation is superadded to that, for the " means of grace," and for "the hope of glory." Were the mercies of the Lord limited to the tenure of our present existence, great and glorious as they are, the human mind would be clouded by the consciousness that a very few years must exclude us for ever from the participation of them : but since the gracious rays of life and immortality have dissipated the gloom that hung upon futurity; since, by the propitiatory sacrifice of the Son of God, death is disarmed of his sting, and the grave deprived of its victory, divine goodness hath received its perfect consummation.

If gratitude, praise, and adoration, therefore, be due to the Author of our being for those blessings

which we enjoy at present; it is no less our highest interest so to use them in this previous state of trial, that we may finally exchange them for those purer and incorruptible treasures reserved for the righteous in the kingdom of heaven.

Which that we may all do, may that God, who created and preserves us, grant, through the merits and mediation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

113.

SERMON XXII.

I CORINTHIANS, CHAPTER XI. VERSE 29.

He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself.

THE celebration of the sacrament is generally acknowledged by the Christian church to be the highest act of devotion, and the most solemn part of positive religion; and has therefore most engaged the attention of those who either profess to teach the way to happiness, or endeavour to learn it; and, like all other subjects, frequently discussed by men of various interests, dispositions, and capacities, has given rise to various opinions widely different from each other.

Such is the weakness of mankind, that one error, whether admitted or detected, is very often the cause of another. Those who reject any opinion, however justly, are commonly incited by their zeal to condemn every position in which they discover any affinity with the tenets which they oppose, of which they have been long accustomed to show the falsehood and the danger, and therefore imagine themselves nearer to truth and safety, in proportion as they recede from them. For this reason it sometimes happens that, in passionate contests and disputations long continued, each controvertist succeeds in the confutation of his adversary's positions, and each fails in the establishment of his own.

In this manner have writers of different persuasions treated on the worthiness required of those who partake of the Lord's supper; a quality not only necessary to procure the favour of God, and to give efficacy to the institution, but so strictly enjoined in the words of the text, that to approach the holy table without it, is to pervert the means of salvation, and to turn prayer into sin.

The ardour and vehemence with which those are condemned who eat and drink unworthily, have filled the melancholy, the timorous, and the humble, with unnecessary terrors, which have been sometimes so much increased by the injudicious zeal of writers erroneously pious, that they have conceived the danger of attempting to obey this precept of our Saviour more formidable than that of neglecting it, and have spent the greatest part of their lives in the omission of a duty of the highest importance; or, being equally terrified on either hand, have lived in an anguish and perplexity, under a constant sense of the necessity of doing what they cannot, in their opinion, do in an acceptable manner, and which of course they shall either do or omit at the utmost hazard of eternal happiness.

Such exalted piety, such unshaken virtue, such an uniform ardour of divine affections, and such a constant practice of religious duties have been represented as so indispensably necessary to a worthy reception of this sacrament, as few men have been able to discover in those whom they most esteem for their purity of life, and which no man's conscience will, perhaps, suffer him to find in himself; and therefore, those who know themselves not to have arrived at such elevated excellence, who

struggle with passions which they cannot wholly conquer, and bewail infirmities which yet they perceive to adhere to them, are frighted from an act of devotion, of which they have been taught to believe, that it is so scarcely to be performed worthily by an embodied spirit, that it requires the holiness of angels, and the uncontaminated raptures of paradise. Thus it appeared, that, instead of being excited to ardent desires of perfection, and unwearied endeavours after the utmost height of sanctity, not only the sensual and the profligate were hardened in their wickedness, by conceiving a life of piety too hard to be borne, but the diffident and scrupulous were terrified into despair, considered vigilance and caution as unavailing fatigues, remitted their ardour, relaxed their diligence, and ceased to pursue what they could no longer hope to attain.

To remove these doubts, and disperse these apprehensions, doctrines of very different tendency have been industriously promoted; lower degrees of piety have been declared sufficient, and the dangers of reception have been extenuated; nor have any arts of interpretation been untried, or any conjecture which sagacity or learning could produce, been forgotten, to assign to the words of the text a sense less to be dreaded by the unworthy communicant. But by these opinions, imprudently inculcated, many have been misled to consider the sacrament as little more than a cursory act of devotion; the exhortations of the apostle have lost their efficacy; and the terrors of the Lord, with which he enforces them, have no longer repressed the licentiousness of the profligate or disturbed the indolence of the supine; religion has sunk into