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tutions, which are administered by their hands, must fall with them therefore, the devil has been most busy, and bent his greatest force in all ages against the priesthood, knowing that if that goes down, all goes with it,

XIX. With the Deists, in this cause, are joined the Quakers, and other of our dissenters, who throw off the succession of our priesthood, (by which only it can be demonstrated,) together with the sacraments and public festivals. And if the devil could have prevailed to have these dropt, the Christian religion would lose the most undeniable and demonstrative proof for the truth of the matter of fact of our Saviour, upon which the truth of his doctrine does depend. Therefore we may see the artifice and malice of the devil, in all these attempts. And let those wretched instruments whom he ignorantly (and some by a misguided zeal) has deluded thus to undermine Christianity, now at last look back and see the snare in which they have been taken: for if they had prevailed, or ever should, Christianity dies with them." At least it will be rendered precarious, as a thing of which no certain proof can be given. Therefore let those of them who have any zeal for the truth, bless GOD that they have not prevailed: and quickly leave them; and let all others be aware of them.

And let us consider and honour the priesthood, sacraments, and other public institutions of CHRIST, not only as a means of grace and help to devotion, but as the great evidences of the Christian religion.

Such evidences as no pretended revelation ever had, or can have. Such as do plainly distinguish it from all foolish legends and impostures whatsoever.

XX. And now, last of all, if one word of advice would not be lost upon men who think so unmeasurably of themselves as the Deists, you may represent to them what a condition they are in, who spend that life and

hAlthough the author's deep conviction of the truth of his remarks has led him to use language which, to say the least, is not conciliating, yet the force of his observation evident. If the principles of the Quakers had been those of the primitive Christians, and Christianity had been thus handed down; the strongest, if not the only independent, irre fragable proof of its divine origin would have been wanting,

40 A SHORT AND EASY METHOD WITH A DEIST.

sense which God has given them, in ridiculing the great est of his blessings, his revelations of CHRIST, and by CHRIST, to redeem those from eternal misery, who shall believe in him, and obey his laws. And that God, in his wonderful mercy and wisdom, has so guarded his revelations, as that it is past the power of men or devils to counterfeit; and that there is no denying of them, unless we will be so absurd as to deny not on

e reason, but the certainty of the outward senses, nonly of one, or two, or three, but of mankind in gened. That this case is so very plain, that nothing but want of thought can hinder any to discover it. That they must yield it to be so plain, unless they can show some forgery which has all the four marks before set down. But if they cannot do this, they must quit their cause, and, yield a happy victory over themselves: or else sit down under all that ignominy with which they have loaded the priests, of being, not only the most pernicious, but (what will gall them more) the most inconsiderate and inconsiderable of mankind.

Therefore, let them not think it an undervaluing of their worthiness, that their whole cause is comprised within so narrow a compass: 'and no more time bestowed upon it than it is worth.

But let them rather reflect how far they have been all this time from Christianity; whose rudiments they are yet to learn! How far from the way of salvation! How far the race of their lives is run before they have set one step in the road to heaven. And, therefore, how much diligence they ought to use, to redeem all that time they have lost, lest they lose themselves for ever; and be convinced by a dreadful experience, when it is too late, that the Gospel is a truth, and of the last consequence.

THE DESIGN

OF

THE LORD'S SUPPER;

THE

OBLIGATION TO RECEIVE IT;

AND

ANSWERS TO THE EXCUSES COMMONLY MADE
FOR NOT COMING THERETO.

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STEREOTYPED BY JAMES CONNER, FOR THE

NEW-YORK PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL TRACT SOCIETY.

NEW-YORK:

Published by the Society, and to be had at their Depository, Protestant Episcopal Press Buildings, No. 46 Lumber-Street, in rear of Trinity Church.

Printed at the Protestant Episcopal Press, No. 46 Lumber-St.

THE DESIGN

OF

THE LORD'S SUPPER, &c.

THE Cross of Christ is the glory of the Christian religion. It is the bright centre in which all the rays of spiritual light unite, and from which they proceed. It is so stupendous a fact in itself, that the Creator of all worlds, the great Jehovah, in the person of his Son, should take our nature upon him to expiate the guilt of our sins, that it may well have our constant meditation. Such tremendous sufferings, and such never-ending sorrows, are averted by the completion of this grand system; and such incalculable, boundless, and eternal joys, are obtained by this sacrifice of himself, that we shall, through eternity, regard with unspeakable joy this wonderful grace of God in Christ Jesus.

The Lord's Supper is a solemn ordinance, designed for a perpetual exhibition and commemoration of the atoning sacrifice of the death of Christ. It is a representation to the outward senses of this great truth, that the only Son of God became man, and died for our sins. It teaches us by signs and emblems, those doctrines which the preaching of the Gospel brings before us expressly in words. Herein Christ offers himself to us with all his benefits, and we receive him by faith.

Its great design is to represent, or place before us, to commemorate, and to show forth the death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin, and to declare our expectation of his coming again.

It is A REPRESENTATION, OR PLACING BEFORE US, OF THE LORD'S DEATH, AS A SACRIFICE FOR SIN.

Dr. Owen, in his Treatise on the Lord's Supper, says in substance as follows:

"This sacrament is a more special and particular representation and setting forth of Christ as our Redeemer, than either the written or preached word. God has appointed him to be evidently crucified before our eyes, that every poor soul that is stung with sin, and ready to die by sin, should look up to him and be healed. John iii, 14, 15; Isa. liii. 5. Let faith represent Christ to our souls as here exhibited of God and given unto us, as tendered to us and received by us, and incorporated with us. Let us not rest in the outward elements and the visible sign. Christ in his love; Christ in his blood-shedding,

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