same spirit; whether we have to do with friends or enemies, love will exalt affection, or moderate resentment; gentleness, forbearance, and compassion, like oil poured upon stormy waters, will create around us and within us, a peace that passeth all worldly understanding; a foretaste of that heavenly softness and quiet which reigns for ever undisturbed, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." By this spirit, in a word, "faith worketh." The thoughts, words, and works, of a Christian are merely fruits which spring and ripen from this plant which the Lord has planted. "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works," that in renewed and sanctified hearts we should fulfil the law; and "love," as St. Paul declares, "is the fulfilling of the law;" for "love worketh no evil." It will not suffer the man whom it possesses to dishonour God, or to injure a fellow creature.

'd

I will finish these remarks by placing the substance of them in few words before you. Charity, or Christian love, is the spirit

Romans, xiii. 10.

which God gives to all whom he makes his own sons by adoption; without it, we cannot work the works of faith; without it, we are none of his who "so loved the world” that he gave himself for it, "to the end that all who believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Would we have evidence that we are born of God; that we shall not perish with those who know him not; let it be our urgent prayer that the following divine sentences may be written in our hearts; "He that loveth not his brother abideth in death; If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in

e

"If

him."f

e John, iii. 14.

John, ii. 15.

SERMON XVIII.

THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD'S SUPPER.

MATTHEW, xxvi. 26, 27, 28.

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, take, eat, this is my body.

And he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, drink ye all of it;

For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

In these verses from St. Matthew, we have an account of the manner in which our blessed Lord first ordained and gave to his disciples that holy sacrament, the communion of his body and blood; a sacrament of which every Christian ought to partake; of which indeed, he who is truly a Christian,

will partake, unless prevented by actual necessity. As our people, however, continue to show so strong a disinclination to join in an act of public worship so blessed, so peculiar to the faith which saveth us, some simply from want of knowledge, others from a less pardonable cause; more than one discourse may be profitably devoted to the consideration; first, of the nature of the Sacrament of the Lord's supper; secondly, of the various excuses offered by those who refuse to do so; thirdly, of that which is really an unworthy, and therefore a dangerous partaking thereof.

The present discourse will treat of the nature of the Lord's Supper, and of our duty respecting it. To give you a full understanding of the nature and intention of this holy sacrament, I must begin by directing your attention to the earliest part of the Jewish history, as it is written in the twelfth chapter of Exodus. When the Lord, by the hand of his servant Moses, was about to lead Israel his people from their bondage in the land of Egypt, he commanded every family to "kill a lamb without blemish,

and having taken of the blood, to strike it upon the two side posts and upon the door post of the house wherein they should eat it. For" said the Lord, "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first born of the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt; and this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever." Accordingly,

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midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat upon his throne, unto the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon. And there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. But the Israelites upon whose houses the blood of the Lamb was stricken, were passed over, and they escaped out of Egypt from the hand of