Rest not, then, I pray you, in the sacramental action, as if that could save you. That is Popery, but it is not Protestantism. It is the ruinous fallacy of erring man, but not the truth of God's Word. You must be baptized in Christ's blood; you must be washed by His Spirit; you must be transformed into His likeness, and "walk in His steps." Seek these blessings. In their possession you shall be Christians indeed. And as to those of you, my Brethren, whose hearts the Holy Ghost has really quickened and sanctified, I pray for you, in the language of the Collect for Christmas Day, that you,

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being regenerate, and made God's children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by the Holy Spirit," growing more and more like Christ, "the Author and Finisher of (your) faith," till you join "the spirits of just men made perfect" in "the kingdom of God!"

SERMON XV.

THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER.

1 COR., x. 16.

"The cup of blessing, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ?"

We have considered the first of the two Christian Sacraments as that ordinance of Christ which stamps with the mark of discipleship all who receive it, brings them within the pale of the visible Church, and admits the faithful to a participation in the promised blessings of the new covenant. You learned, from the doctrine taught by your Church, that, differing fundamentally and vitally from Rome, she places no virtue in the Sacrament itself, but makes all the benefit, derivable from that seal and pledge of the promise, depend entirely upon the faith of the receiver. The Popish tenet, that the water, after its consecration, is mysteriously

changed, and "imprints," by its new quality, an "indelible character" upon the soul of the baptized, is rejected by her as a figment of superstition; and, although she holds that baptism is a means of grace as well as a sign of it, she dissents from the doctrine of the Romish Church, that it is the sole instrumental cause of justification. As a proof of this, I need but refer you to her eleventh Article, which has been already considered. She there states, that justification comes to us by faith in the merit of Christ, or, in other words, by a believing appropriation of the righteousness of Christ offered in the Gospel. And this plain statement, harmonizing with Scripture, is negatived or qualified by nothing that she says elsewhere. She teaches, in her Catechism, that "repentance and faith" are necessary dispositions in all the baptized. In the case of infants, where she scripturally recognizes, as the consequence of believing prayer on the part of those who bring them to the Lord, the communication of a spiritual influence, she supposes that they will afterwards themselves exercise that penitent faith -the development of regeneration-which looks to and rests on Christ: and, as to adults, she supposes that they come to baptism with these feelings already in exercise: she supposes that they have already seen their need of a Saviour, and have embraced Him; and that, consequently, they are already in possession of grace, and already in a state of justification. For instead of saying, in her Article on Baptism, that faith and grace are then first given, she speaks of the one as being then "confirmed,"

and of the other as being "increased." Now, for faith to be confirmed, and for grace to be increased, they must both have existed previously. She, therefore, denies the position of the Church of Rome-now, alas! advocated by unsound divines of our own communion-that justification is only through Baptism. The great error of that fallen Church lies in the unscriptural view that she has of justification. The decrees of Trent bind her to believe that it consists in the infusion of a divine quality. There, at once, she loses sight of the righteousness of Christ, "faith is made void," and hence follow all her absurd and ruinous deductions. Amongst these, she sends her votaries, for "sin after baptism," to penitential works, and inflicts upon them, for the recovery of lost righteousness, punishment both here and hereafter. But we, knowing with St. Peter, St. Paul, and all the Apostles, no means of justification but the merit of Christ imputed to those who believe, and knowing that that means is always effectual in the case of the penitent, bid the baptized, as well as others, approach God through Christ whenever they sin against Him; taking for our warrant in so doing those scriptural words addressed to the baptized: "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins."

My anxiety to show, against those who misrepresent the sentiments of our Church, that, though Rome has innovated in the ancient doctrine concerning Christian Baptism, she remains scripturally

sound, has led me to follow up my discourses on that ordinance with these observations. And now I proceed to the other Sacrament, instituted by Christ for the use of His Church in all ages. It is treated of in the Twenty-eighth Article: which first gives us the true, Scriptural doctrine of that Sacrament, and then condemns the false, unscriptural doctrine of the Church of Rome. As I do not wish to burden your attention, I shall confine myself to-day to the first of these points. The doctrine of our Church, on the Sacrament now before us, is as follows:

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather it is a Sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death, insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ."

Before we proceed to the main point set forth in this Article-the connexion of the Sacrament with the sacrifice of Christ-we may briefly notice, with much profit, what it asserts, that the Supper of the Lord is "a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another."

Sacraments being badges of church-membership, distinguishing the followers of Christ from those who do not belong to His visible body, are bonds of union drawing into one holy fellowship all who "love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." That is a precious truth, acknowledged by the Christians of old, and held by us as an article of belief-" The