our love to him was obstructed? Did we cordially, unreservedly, and thankfully accept, or renew our acceptance, of him as our only and all-sufficient Saviour? Did we yield him the most implicit confidence, the sincerest gratitude, and the devoutest homage of our souls? Did we experience any measure of the blessed comfort of being united to him by a living faith and in a holy covenant? Did the feeling of being at peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, make us more alive to the duty of devoting ourselves more exclusively than ever to his service and glory? Did we firmly resolve, in an humble dependence on the aids of his Spirit, to be more careful than ever to "adorn the doctrines of God our Saviour," earnestly, though inwardly, entreating that he would enable us daily to "die unto sin and live unto righteousness?" Supposing that our feelings toward him were all of the deepest, devoutest, and more ardent description-supposing that, with "the children of Zion," we were "joyful in their King "—that we delighted ourselves in the Lord, and greatly rejoiced in his salvation-nay, that we even ardently longed to be absent from the body and present with him in his kingdom, thus anticipating the blessedness which awaits his second coming-was it not in these feelings that we placed our confidence, instead of placing it only in Christ himself? Are we sure that we did not, on account of these feelings, indulge any thing like self-complacency or self-gratulation, instead of distinctly and unfeignedly regarding Him as "all our salvation and all our desire?"

3. It is expedient for us, in the third place, to inquire, Whether our participation of the Lord's Supper has had the effect of suitably awakening the feelings with which we ought to regard sin? Contrasting sin with the attributes of that God of whose law it is the transgression, and regarding it as that which he cannot but hate, and that which nothing but his mercy, through Jesus Christ, prevents him from punishing in the per

son of every individual sinner,--did we indeed, while engaged in the service of communion, feel towards sin all the horror and the hatred which it is fitted to excite? Viewing it as the very opposite of that transcendent holiness which was embodied in the living example of our adorable Redeemer, and as the cause of all those unutterable and unparalleled agonies which he had to endure in order to the satisfying of divine justice, did it indeed stir up in our souls the liveliest emotions of aversion and sorrow? Did we experience any deep feeling of self-abasement on account of it? Were we deeply impressed with the conviction that our own sins were as hateful in the sight of God as those of others, and as justly the objects of his awful displeasure? Were we suitably affected by the thought that our besetting and cherished sins, to which we would at one time have gladly bespoken, as it were, so large a degree of indulgence, were essentially of the same nature and tendency as those which were immediately instrumental in crucifying the Son of God? Did we feel that the very sins of our bosoms-the sins from which it seemed hardest for us to be divorced-were the most certain to have accomplished our everlasting ruin? Did we feel that the fondness and tenacity with which we had clung to them, made it all the more astonishing, that God, in his righteous retribution, had not left us to learn the dreadful effects of his displeasure with sin,--not from the recorded agonies of his own dear Son as the substitute of the guilty, but from our own internal, intolerable, and inexhaustible sufferings? Were such as these the feelings which the service of communion actually awakened in our souls? And can we say that the prospect of being, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," saved from the wrath and curse due to us for sin, instead of making us feel less grieved or afflicted on account of its guilt and pollution, made us only the more deeply sensible of its exceeding sinfulness and its unspeakable malignity? If these feelings towards sin

have not, in some degree, been awakened in our breasts, by the solemn service of which we are speaking, we have only been affording a fresh instance of the deceitfulness of sin, in presuming to show forth the death which Christ endured on its account. If there we have not felt that, by the cross of Christ, the world has been crucified to us, and that we have been crucified to the world-if there we have not felt that we were mortifying the flesh with its affections and lusts—we have virtually been crucifying the Son of God afresh, adding to our guilt, and treasuring up against our own souls a larger measure of his righteous indignation.

4. It now only remains for us to examine, in the fourth place, whether our participation in the Lord's Supper has been attended with any suitable measure of love toward our brethren. This is a feeling with respect to the existence and excitement of which, while engaged in that holy ordinance, we should have little difficulty in deciding. Our fellow-communicants are ordinarily the persons with whom we are accustomed to meet in the common intercourse and transactions of life. It is among them that our temper and principles have been tried; that our affections have been called into exercise; and that our character has been formed and manifested. In the unavoidable diversity which must occasionally have arisen as to our views, opinions, and interests, we must have come to know what measure of candour, forbearance, and generosity-of patience, meekness, and humility, we have been accustomed to exercise toward each other. The recollection of these things things both familiar and probably recent-can scarcely fail to be, in many instances, present to our minds while we encompass the same altar, and engage in the same service. In thus professing our love to Christ, we can scarcely help reflecting that those around us are doing the same, and it is almost impossible for us not to be there struck with the circumstance, if it has so happened that any thing in the intercourse of

ordinary life has produced some degree either of aversion or of alienation between us. Misunderstandings may arise even among the best of men, and intimacies may thus unhappily be broken up; but if such occurrences are found to impair their interest in each other's spiritual welfare, to make them less ready to rejoice in each other's happiness, or less ready to promote it when opportunity is afforded-it is almost impossible that this should not be felt at a communion table, and that the consciousness of it should not sensibly affect the exercise of that brotherly love which should nowhere glow more ardently than in that situation where the predominant feeling of the soul is, or ought to be, one of unbounded gratitude and love to the Saviour. Taking, then, these considerations into view, as the best means of guiding and assisting our judgment, can we deliberately and confidently say, that, while placed in the situation now referred to, all our resentments have been extinguished-that every shade of enmity has been removed that every feeling of uncharitableness has been subdued and that no emotion has been experienced or detected in our minds, but what was perfectly consistent with the most "unfeigned love of the brethren ?”

By some such process of self-examination as that which we have now attempted to describe, we may, with some degree of accuracy, ascertain, whether our actual participation in the ordinance of the Supper has been attended with any suitable exercise, or any sensible enlargement of those various feelings which it was intended and is fitted to awaken toward God, toward Christ, toward sin, and toward our Christian brethren. It is not intended, by any thing that has here been stated, to inculcate the idea, that the warmth of our emotions during the celebration of any part of religious worship, may always be taken as the measure of our graces or the test of our principles. The warmth of our emotions is different in different individuals, according to their natural and constitutional temperament

according as they are lively or sedate, cheerful or melancholy, open or reserved, enterprising or inactive. That warmth often varies, in the same individual, at different periods of life, according to the state of his bodily health, and according to the complexion either of his ordinary circumstances, or of the events which have recently befallen him. The thing which it is of principal importance to consider is, not the mere excitement which these feelings produce in the mind, but the readiness and determination with which it seizes on them, so to speak, as principles of action-the heartiness of purpose, in other words, with which it enters afresh on that course of Christian conduct in which they are calculated and intended to animate the believer's exertions, as one who has been received into covenant with a holy God.

In this point of view, the feelings which we may have experienced during the service of communion, are in the highest degree important; and when they are not such as to exert a wholesome and powerful influence on our Christian practice, we have great reason for humiliation and regret. In such instances, it is of consequence for us, if possible, to ascertain the cause, or causes, why we have been so little affected by the ordinance in which we have been engaged. It may sometimes be discovered that the reason why we have been little affected by it, or affected in a way very different from that which we had anticipated, consists in the circumstance, that we were disposed to place too much reliance on our mere feelings, and thus to derive our comfort rather from ourselves than from the God of salvation. At other times, our disappointment may be traced to the vague and indistinct notions which we had entertained respecting our original condition as sinners, and respecting our own actual condition and state of mind at the time when we were professedly seeking to enter into spiritual communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" or it may be traced to the low, inaccurate, and