Yet the frequency of the communion should not perhaps be such as may tend to prevent preparation, or the impression which such a solemnity, has, when received at occasional intervals. It appears very desirable that it should be administered and received once a month, and on the great festivals of our church. Nor need we fear that such a frequent reception will so abate our reverence in attending as to hinder our profit. The daily practice of prayer and reading the Scriptures has not such an effect. It is observable that the Epistle which gives particular cautions against formality, gives the direction, not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together. Heb. x. 25. Some pious ministers have found monthly communion to be more adapted to the present circumstances of the church, than its more frequent administration.

Supposing the obligation to receive it be plainly proved, and fully admitted, consider farther, that to NEGLECT it, is attended with aggravated guilt and danger.

It is WILFUL AND REPEATED DISOBEDIENCE TO YOUR SAVIOUR. He directs you, and his ministers invite you, to frequent his table. They say again and again, Come: for all things are now ready. But if you are living in the neglect of this ordinance, you greatly resemble those who first rejected the Gospel. They with one consent began to make excuse; and you know that it was said of them, none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. The soul was to be cut off, and the man was to bear his sin, that neglected to eat the passover. Numb. ix. 13. Have you not reason to fear that a neglect of the Lord's Supper will be attended with a similar danger?

It is SEPARATING FROM YOUR CHRISTIAN BRETHREN.

You thus break off communion with your fellowChristians. By such conduct you declare that you wish not to be numbered with the true disciples of Jesus Christ, but would rather have your lot with those who neglect him.

It is A VIRTUAL UNDERVALUING OF YOUR BAPTISM. That was a sign of your admission into the Christian church. The Lord's Supper is the sign of your continuance in it. By neglecting it, you appear to count your baptism a privilege not worth maintaining. This is also done when you come to years of discretion and it is your own voluntary act, even after, through the piety of your parents, you have been baptized. Is it not manifest, that if it had been left to your own choice, you would not have been baptized? Do not go thus far to renounce Christianity. It was a great sin to withdraw from professing it, in times of difficulty and persecution, (Heb. x. 26-31.) when it might seem to admit of some extenuation from the frailty of man, and the fear of such dreadful sufferings as the primitive martyrs underwent; but "by neglecting the Lord's Supper, (the peculiar rite of Christians,) do you not in effect deny the profession that you may have made of Christianity, and deny it, remember, in times of liberty and encouragement?"

It is PUTTING A SLIGHT ON YOUR SAVIOUR'S DEATH. The Lord's Supper is the memorial of his Sacrifice. When you refuse to come, you do in effect declare, I will remember my worldly friends, my pleasures, my private pursuits, or other engagements; but I will not remember my Redeemer in the greatest instance of his love. I will not confess my dying Lord; I will not honour his name; I will not declare

my hope in his cross. I wish to have no concern in his atonement and salvation. Christian reader, can you bear the implications which attach to this neglect? Did Jesus die for you, and will you not obey one of his last, one of his most easy, one of his most delightful precepts! The point is gained. Your heart yields. You will mourn over your past ingratitude, and determine to embrace every opportunity of remembering and publicly confessing a crucified Saviour. You see that not to do so, is in fact to renounce communion with Christ, and to say, "I can spend my time with ease and pleasure, in the scenes of idleness and trifling; but I care not to be with Christ and love not communion with him."

It is INCURRING THE AWFUL DANGER of partaking of the judgments which he will inflict on the ungodly at his return. The passover was the pledge of Israel's safety! and the Lord's Supper, to the true receiver, is the pledge of his safety from a worse destruction than that of the first-born in Egypt.

But the YOUNG may be especially addressed on this subject. The Jews, it would appear, (Luke ii. 41, 42.) took their children at twelve years of age, to partake of the passover; and well would it be if Christian youth, at twelve or fourteen, under right impressions, and with intelligence and piety, began to partake of the Lord's Supper. When this season is neglected, life passes silently forward, habits of omission get formed, and diffidence and false shame strengthen them. It has been observed, "we naturally feel some degree of embarrassment in doing any thing, for the first time, that is attended with a considerable degree of interest, and public solemnity." This difficulty increases with increasing years. I trust

that those of my younger readers, whose hearts are renewed by divine grace, will therefore feel that now is the happy opportunity, now is the precise time, in which they should commence a practice which will soon become a blessed habit, bringing along with it a most important train of consequences, full of benefit to them all their days. It is a turning point of your life. Come to this table, and you are taking a most important step towards fixing you for a holy, useful, and happy life. Turn from it, and you are multiplying the difficulties which the world, the flesh, and the devil, ever present in the way to heaven. The kindness of our youth, (Jer. ii. 2.) is much remembered by our heavenly Father. Give, then, to Christ, the first and the best of your days.

Yet while we would invite you and all Christians, and require you in the name of your Saviour, not to neglect his plain command, we would press you also to examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith: if you are still living in a course of sin, come not here; but yet keep not away altogether; repent of your sins, believe in Christ, devote yourselves to him, and then come, and you will obtain both edification and comfort.

In this chapter we have only considered the obligations in the way of duty; the privilege must be reserved for farther notice. Let us feel with Bishop Taylor, Happy is that soul that comes to these springs of salvation, as the hart to the water-brooks, panting and thirsting, weary of sin, and hating vanity, and reaching out the heart and hands to Christ."

CHAPTER VII.

ANSWERS TO THE EXCUSES COMMONLY MADE FOR NOT COMING TO THE LORD'S SUPPER.

THE obligation will be still farther felt, if we consider the excuses by which scrupulous or unwilling minds commonly justify their absence.

That which is most frequently urged, and which has perhaps the greatest weight, is this-they that receive unworthily incur great guilt; WE ARE UNWORTHY, AND THEREFORE WE Dare not go. This excuse, seeming to imply a reverence to this institution, makes many easy, under a direct act of disobedience; yet, in fact, it arises from ignorance and unbelief.

It arises from IGNORANCE; for many persons do not make the evident distinction between being UNWORTHY and receiving UNWORTHILY. The very best are unworthy. The guilty and the sinful are the very persons invited to come. A sense of our sinfulness is a needful part of preparation. If indeed a poor man resist, or cast from him, the bounty of the benevolent, he is unworthy of relief. reject the medicine which would heal him, he is unworthy of health; but you see evidently that the

If a sick man