If, now, it be asked, "How can these things be?" for are not multitudes who have been baptized as vicious as Heathens? We answer, in sorrow of heart, with many it is even so. But what is the cause of this, and where is the defect? Are children carefully trained up as members of God's family, and instructed in the nature and terms of the covenant into which they are admitted? Or are they suf fered to run loose with all the evil of a bad example before them, and evil passions within uncurbed, and continually gaining strength? Will you frustrate the grace of God by your own neglect, and then call in question the benefit of his ordinance? Do not suppose that Baptism will operate as a charm; that it, or any means of grace, will be effectual, unless we do our part. For so hath God ordained that the power and efficacy of his gifts shall depend upon the care employed in using and improving them. "To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundance." Consult the word of God, and his dealings with the sons of men; observe the promises made to the Church, and the conditions required in those who would partake of them; how every favour bestowed places the receiver under an increased obligation to use it aright; how the best gifts of our heavenly Father may be rejected, and his most gracious purposes frustrated; how the blessed Spirit himself may be resisted, till he will no longer strive with man; how they who had been brought near to God, and made a peculiar people, have fallen away, till heaven and earth. have been called to witness against them, and the brute beasts to upbraid them for their ingratitude. Oh, then, do not lightly esteem the ordinances of God, because some do not profit by them; receive not his grace in vain; cherish and improve it to the salvation of your souls. - To conclude: "Behold what love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" What earthly title can compare with this, which is given us by a voice from heaven? What can the loftiest ambition figure to itself, or the most covetous heart desire, which will not fall as far beneath the honour and the happiness here proposed to us, as earth, with all its darkness and corruption, is inferior to the brightness and purity of the starry firmament? O, my brethren, sons of God, and heirs of a kingdom eternal in the heavens, be not unmindful of your high calling, nor "of Him of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named," through whose prevailing merits and powerful intercession you are reconciled to the Father, and have received the adoption of sons. Remember that it is only as his members that you" have access by faith into this grace wherein ye stand." Be, therefore, “followers of Him, as dear children;" seek to be "filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual under as standing," and to be "strengthened with all might according to his glorious power*;" ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faitht :" and then be assured that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."‡ * Col. i. 9. 11. + Col. ii. 6, 7. + Phil. i. 6. "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come.' NOTICE has just been given of the first regular administration of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in this church; and I am anxious to take the earliest opportunity of drawing your attention to this most holy ordinance. I call it the first occasion of the regular administration of this sacrament; for that which took place three weeks ago might be considered as attendant on the ceremony of consecration, of which this ordinance should form a part; and it is only postponed till the following Sunday for the sake of greater convenience and decorum. In truth, so much of importance is attached to this sacrament, that no sacred ceremony is considered as complete without it. It is, as it were, the crowning act of every one. And thus it is placed where it ought to stand according to the practice of the primitive ages. In those times it was administered much more frequently than at present. At first it formed part of the service of every day; afterwards of every Lord's Day. Under the grievous abuses which, in the Romish church, grew into the service of the mass, as it was then called, it was perverted to the worst purposes; and one of these abuses was, that, while the priest communicated every day, and several times in the day, the people, perhaps, received only once a year, and then in one kind only; that is, they were prohibited from partaking of the cup. When, under the special blessing of God, our Church shook off the chains of popery, our reformers, whose great object was, as far as might be, to restore every thing as at the first, but to proceed with great moderation, required all persons to receive at the least three times in the year, of which Easter was to be one; while in "cathedral and collegiate churches, where there be many priests, and deacons, these were to receive every Lord's Day." A limitation or exception is often suffered to grow into a rule; and they who were required to communicate three times in the year at the least, seem to have considered this as all that was expected even of the most advanced Christians. The opinions which were put forth about the beginning of the last century tended, likewise, to |