[After the Service.] "How awful is this place! Surely God is ❝here, and I knew it not. This is none other "than the House of God; and this is the gate "of heaven." These were the words of Jacob, when at Bethel he awoke from a dream in which he was favoured with the visions of God. The Almighty gave him this promise, "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth "be blessed." "This promise, O Christians! is fulfilled. This great redemption is accomplished by him, in whom all the familie: of the earth are blessed. "While you now sit with him at his table, the Patriarchs who foresaw this day, the Prophets who foretold it, and the righteous men who desired to see it, are beholding your Redeemer face to face, and sitting on thrones in heaven, where they now dwell in the presence of God; where they now sing the high praises of the Lord. My friends! there are vacant thrones. Say, are they vacant for you? Do you look on him whom you have pierced with repenting eyes? Do your hearts glow with love to God, with love to Christ, with love to the brethren? Do your bosoms expand with benevolence to the whole creation of God? Do you aspire to the regions above, and breathe towards the mansions of immortality? Then, my friends, these thrones are vacant for you! As sure as if an angel descended from his orb, and hailed you to your seat at the right hand of the Father, so sure will be your arrival in the promised land. If you fulfil the vows you now make, the gates will lift up their heads that ye may enter in : your blessed Redeemer will call unto you, "Well done, good and "faithful servants, enter ye into the joys of your Lord." 66 "Thither, O communicants, may ye all go! May God himself keep your feet from falling; hear this day your vows, and seal you to the day of redemption ! "As we have received the Lord Jesus," &c. PSALM Ciii. 3 ALL thine iniquities who doth Most graciously forgive; Who thy diseases all and pains Doth heal, and thee relieve. 4 Who doth redeem thy life, that thou TABLE THIRD, [Before the Service.] " COMMUNICANTS! the prophet Daniel foretold concerning our Saviour, "That he should "confirm a covenant with many." It is for this purpose that we have assembled this day. You sit down at this table, to avouch the Lord to be your God, and to join yourselves unto him, in a perpetual covenant never to be broken. "If, with sincere and upright hearts, if, with true repentance and faith unfeigned, you accept the terms of the Gospel, then all the blessings of the new covenant are in this ordinance sealed to your souls. Then the promises of the covenant become your portion: Then the blood of the covenant pleads for you in heaven: Then the messenger of the covenant brings you the glad tidings of salvation; Then the Mediator of the covenant gives you access to the holiest of all, by that new and living way which he hath consecrated with his flesh within the vail. 66 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,” said the Prophet of old," for behold thy King "cometh!" 66 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion," say we now, "for behold thy King "is come!" Sing hosanna: Strew his path with flowers: He who loved us is come: When Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus, the Jews, observing his emotion, cried out, "Be"hold how he loved him!" Christians! The ordinance which we are now to celebrate, represents the Redeemer, not as shedding tears, but shedding his blood for his friends. Much greater reason have we then to cry out, "Be"hold how he loved the human race!" 66 My friends, this is a feast of joy: This is the eucharist or song of thanksgiving. When the Patriarchs saw afar off this day which we now commemorate, they rejoiced: The prophets broke out into strains of exultation, when they foretold its arrival: The angels, when they announced its approach, tuned their harps, to higher joy, and sung, "Glory to God in "the highest, peace on earth, and good-will "to the children of men." It is a token of love which had no beginning, and which shall never have an end. Like the bow appearing in the cloud in the day of rain, which the hand of the Most High hath bended, it is a memorial of the world's being preserved from one deluge, and a signal that it shall never be destroyed by another. "To commemorate this great salvation, and to enter into covenant with God, I now distribute among you the symbols of the body and of the blood of Christ. [Service.] "The Lord Jesus, that night in which he "was betrayed, took bread," &c. [After the Service.] "I will arise and go to my Father, and say, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and "before thee." Instead of being in covenant with God, I heretofore made a covenant with sin and with death. That covenant, from henceforth, I disannul: Be it written in the volume of thy book, that henceforth I am thine: Accept of a heart which has been long estranged from thee! Receive a prodigal returning to his Father's house. If I have |