your private meditations. Having brought to a close our more particular inquiry with respect to Baptism, I shall proceed, in my next Lecture, to a similar investigation of the benefits annexed to a participation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

LECTURE VI.

MATT. xxvi. 26.

Take, eat; this is my body.

IN conformity with the plan originally laid down, I now proceed to an inquiry into the benefits annexed to the reception of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, so far as they are deducible from a consideration of the nature of the rite itself, and the language of the New Testament concerning it. This, though it will be conducted in a similar manner, will not detain us so long in its prosecution, as that in which we have been already engaged with respect to Baptism; the number of texts, clearly applicable to the Lord's Supper, being few in comparison with those in which Baptism is alluded to.

In admitting this comparative scantiness of materials, as supplied by direct texts bearing upon the subject of investigation, let it not however be supposed, that we are

putting to hazard any essential part of Christian doctrine. It has been already observed, in reference to both sacraments, that actions, being in their own nature significant, in great measure explain themselves; and we may add, that the more remarkable the action, the greater will be the force with which its natural or conventional significancy, if any can be fairly and undoubtedly affixed to it, will operate and declare itself. And the action constituting the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, being, when viewed in connection with the words and circumstances of institution, most remarkable and significant, it needed perhaps, even less than Baptism, the assistance of additional declarations, explanatory of the purport of the rite.

But further, if we turn our thoughts back upon the former part of this inquiry, we may remember, that scarcely one of the texts, which were brought to bear upon the doctrine of Baptism, was originally intended as an explanation of the rite; they were almost all incidental notices of an observance, the general meaning of which was

evidently supposed to be familiar to those, to whom they were addressed. The number of texts occurring in the New Testament relative to it, arises not from the wish, or the necessity, of explanation on the subject of the sacrament itself, but from the circumstance of the history contained in the Acts being a history of proselytism, and the apostolical Epistles being addressed to new made converts to the faith. Hence the repeated calls in the one, both upon Jew and Gentile, to be baptized, as the well understood mode of admission to the church of Christ; and hence also the mention, where it occurs, of the motives to be baptized, grounded, from the necessity of the case, on the benefits to be derived from Baptism. Hence too in the other, the constant reference to the benefits, of which the baptized persons had been made partakers, or to which they had secured a claim, as the great inducement to a life of Christian holiness: supplying us with a great variety of texts, in which allusion is made to the sacrament, on a participation in which that claim was established. But the case of the

Lord's Supper is a little different. While the outward part of the rite is by nature not less significant, and, combined with the circumstances which give it a conventional meaning, perhaps even more so than that of Baptism; the incidental references to it are much fewer, and of a very different character. There is not, either in the Acts or the whole range of the Epistles, a single direct exhortation to partake of it; while there is, we know, at least one very important warning against its abuse, and rectification of errors, which had found their way into its administration. The converts were exhorted to be baptized, as the indispensable method of admission into the Christian society. It was concluded, that, when baptized, they would conform to the religion which they had adopted; and in the natural course of things become partakers in a rite, like the Lord's Supper, appointed for the perpetual use and benefit of the members of the church.

In the character of the incidental notices of the two sacraments, indeed, we may trace yet further a corresponding difference, aris