have we drawn nearer to futurity without confternation and affright, and fraught with hope continued our race to the mark? So many advantages and felicities, my dearest friends, which christianity infallibly procures to its genuine confeffors. So many advantages and felicities which Jefus, even in the lowest abasement and amidst the most poignant fufferings in full measure enjoyed, and which likewise cannot be foreign to us, if we are animated and governed by his fpirit. Thrice happy we, if we have experienced them even during the year now rapidly drawing to its end! Thus will it alfo in this refpect not be loft to us. Then have we enjoyed in it real, abiding felicity and thereby capacitated ourselves for ftill greater felicity in the future. And this, my pious hearers, is the serious examination to which we would incite you at the termination of the present year into the state of your chriftianity and its influence on your behaviour and on your happiness. These are the confiderations, that fhould lead us in our reflections, if we are defirous of deciding, whether we have lived as perfons, in whom Chrift liveth, have diftinguished ourselves, by christian wisdom and virtue, by chriftian usefulness, by christian contentment and felicity from others. Can we venture to deliver this teftimony of ourfelves, my christian brethren, we may likewife venture boldly to approach the table of our lord, and there make a folemn confeffion of our christian difpofitions and hopes. Yes, here will we publicly and focially focially rejoice in the benefits of chriftianity and its bleffed effects and fruits. Here will we praise God, the father, and his fon, Jefus Chrift, for every good, pious fentiment, by which we have been actuated during the present year, for every good, pious act that we have performed in it, for every refined fatiffaction that we have enjoyed, and for every advance we have made on the path of wisdom and virtue. For, without the aid of christianity, without the influence of the divine doctrine and the fublime temper of our lord, we should not have had these good fentiments, not have performed these good actions, not enjoyed thefe refined fatisfactions, and not have fo proceeded onwards to perfection. Without the aid of christianity we should probably have been the despicable slaves of error and superstition, slaves of low paffions and cupidities, wretched, hopeless mortals. Yes, to him, our deliverer, who has fet us at liberty, and through whom we are become wife, good, contented people, to him will we here with united hearts prefent the offering of joy and gratitude, which he has so just a right to expect from us, his redeemed. Here will we however likewife bind and encourage ourselves to a continually faithfuller ufe of that christianity, the power and felicity whereof we have fo fignally experienced. Yes, let us unanimoufly declare: Chrift, whofe merits in behalf of us and of the whole human race we here extoll, whose disciples and followers we here profess to be, fhall VOL. II. M M fhall conftantly live in us. His spirit and his temper fhall be uniformly the vital principle of our's; his precepts and his example fhall be the rule of our whole deportment. To him, the captain of our falvation, will we steadily look, in his footsteps with ever increasing alacrity tread, be ever endeavouring to gain a closer refemblance to him and by greater affimilation with him be continually more qualified for the happiness which he has prepared for us in his heavenly kingdom. So fhall we both here and hereafter have communion with him, and in his communion be for ever bleffed. Amen. Communion. SERMON LXIII. Caution against Thoughtleffnefs during our Attendance at the holy Supper. GOD, who though infinitely exalted above us and all created beings, yet lookest down upon us as thy children and knowest and approvest every good defire of our hearts, we are met together in thy house, to celebrate the memorial of thy love and the love of thy fon, Jefus Chrift, publicly and focially to thank thee for the greatest of all bounties, to fill our minds with fuch fentiments of gratitude, of reciprocal love and of obedience as may render this solemnity falutary and reviving to us. What an honour, what a happiness for us, that we can raise ourfelves in thought to thee, the Eternal and Infinite, that we can revere thee as our father, that we can have communion with thee and with thy dear fon! Oh might we all fo employ this honour and this happinefs, as is adequate to their exalted worth! Oh might the hearts of us all be fo actuated and pervaded by fincerity, ferioufness, devotion, fervour, as to render us truly qualified for the lofty occupation in which we now purpose to engage! Father of fpirits, in whom we live and think and are, do thou thyfelf infufe into our fpirit, fo oft overborne by fenfe, MM 2 fenfe, new ftrength and vigour to foar aloft above all that is terreftrial and vifible, to converfe alone with thee, its creator and father, and with Jefus Chrift its deliverer, and that in fuch manner as becomes weak, finful, guilty creatures, but creatures by thee highly favoured and called to never ending happinefs. Bless to that end the confiderations we shall now enter upon. Let us perceive the truth of them, not resist their influence but willingly and incontinently comply with their demands. We pray thee for these gifts and graces in the name of thy fon Jefus, and trufting in his promises, addrefs thee further as Our father, &c. I CORINTH. xi. 20, 21, 22. When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's fupper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own fupper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houfes to eat and to drink in? or defpife ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What fhall I fay to you? fhall I praise you in this? I praife you not. EGARDING the celebration of our religious REGARDING rites in general and in keeping the ordinance of the holy fupper in particular there are principally two aberrations into which we are liable to fall. One is fuperftition, the other thoughtleffness. The former, fuperftition, induces us to expect more from a religious rite, than we are reasonably warranted to expect, or to afcribe powers and efficacies to it which |