We agree with Mr. Bayard, in lamenting the dangerous misconception of the passage in the eleventh chapter of first Corinthians, and in commending the interpretation of Doddridge which he cites in his ninth Letter. Let this passage be well understood, agreeably to its intention, and no believer, not even the most timid, can find in the whole Bible a single sentence which represents the eucharist as a fearful or tremendous rite. Alas! how many are the instances in which we have known ingenuous and humble Christians to shrink from this feast of love, with feelings not unlike those with which the heathen regard their mysterious rites! Whatever encourages this temper, in the same degree indisposes ministers and people to frequency of communion. Yet ecclesiastical history affords the strongest presumption that the Lord's Supper was celebrated every Lord's day; and that on the first day of the week, the disciples came together to break bread.-Acts, xx. 7. In the first two centuries, it was usual to communicate at least once a week; this continued in the Greek church till the seventh century, and such as neglected three weeks together were excommunicated. As the power of religion decreased, and especially as superstitious horrors began to brood over the sacramental table, now a tremendous altar, the love for this ordinance decreased, until at length, (as in some churches in America) the Lord's Supper was celebrated only once a year. "And truly, this custom," we may say with Calvin, "which enjoins communicating once every year, is a most evident contrivance of the devil, by whose instrumentality soever it may have been determined." "It ought to have been," says he again, "far otherwise. Every week, at least, the table of the Lord should have been spread for Christian assemblies; and the promises declared, by which, in partaking of it, we might be spiritually fed." Before we leave this subject, it may be useful to add, from authorities cited by Dr. Mason, that the constitution of the Dutch church, of 1581, appointed this sacrament to be celebrated every other month. The Discipline of the Reformed church of France, after noticing the actual practice to be that of a quarterly communion, recommends a greater frequency, due reverence being maintained, in order that believers, treading in the footsteps * See Mason on Frequent Communion.-Lett. iii. Also, the following citations, introduced by him, viz:-Erskine's Theol. Dissertations, p. 262; Plin. Epist. lib. 10, ep. 97, p. 724. ed. Veenhusii; Just. Martyr, Apol. 2da. opp. p. 98, D. Paris, 1636. Also, Bingham, Book xv. c. ii. Inst. l. iv. c. 17. * of the primitive church, may be exercised, and may increase in faith by the frequent use of the sacraments. "The church of Scotland, at her first reformation, insisted upon four communions in the year; and there is every probability that they would have gone farther, but from an opinion that the people, just emerging from the darkness and bondage of popery, were unable to bear it. This conjecture is founded upon what actually took place at the modelling of that plan. of doctrine, worship, &c. by the Westminster Assembly, which united in one evangelical communion the churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The directory for public worship, prescribes the frequent celebration of the Lord's Supper: nay, it supposes that it should be so frequent as to supersede the necessity even of a previous intimation. Where this sacrament cannot with convenience be frequently administered, it is requisite that public warning be given the Sabbath day before the administration thereof.' How often should it be administered, to render this warning needless? Let this question be pondered by those who think semi-annual communions sufficient; yet that very directory have we adopted, and affect to admire."t Frequent communion, as already suggested, is rendered less easy in proportion as the services are long or burdensome. There are few Presbyterian churches in which injustice is not done to the feebler members of the flock, whose bodily strength is well nigh exhausted by the time the communion, properly so called, has begun. It is not assuming more than is reasonable, to say that the most solemn and affecting of all our religious observances should not be appended to the very longest service which ever takes place in our churches. Yet we know it to be customary with many pastors, not merely to abridge nothing of the foregoing exercises, but to preach their longest sermons, and make their longest prayers, before a celebration, which, as conducted in some places, itself occupies several hours. It is to be feared, that many persons regard the Lord's Supper less as a solemn commemoration, than as an awful covenant; a right of which the chief solemnity lies in a vow or oath of new obedience. The error receives confirmation from an abuse of the expressions: "This is my blood of the New Testament."-Matt. xxvi 28; Mark, xiv. 24. "This cup is the New Testament in my blood."-Luke, * 1st Book of Discipline, Art. xiii. † Mason's Works, vol. iv. p. 301. xxii. 20. The new covenant here mentioned is the covenant of grace, which is sealed with the blood of Christ, and not any additional compact constituted by this ordinance. On this subject, we may quote from Mr. Bayard : "By theologians, this sacrament is generally styled a sign, or seal of the covenant between God and the believer. On our part,' says Bishop Gibson, it is pleading before God the merits and efficacy of Christ's death for the pardon of our past sins, and for grace to avoid them for the time to come; and on God's part, it is a conveying and sealing of those benefits to every penitent and faithful receiver."* 'The Lord's Supper,' says Mr. Willison,tis called a seal of the covenant of grace, because, like a sealed charter, it confirms and assures to us the certainty of the covenant, and all its promised blessings-that God, in and through Christ, is willing to be a God to us, and to take us for his people' "Perhaps it may more correctly be viewed as a permanent memorial of the ratification of that new alliance, (as it is uniformly called in the French translation of the New Testament.) between God and man, to which the apostle Paul refers in his epistle to the Hebrews, as having been promised by God to the Jews, at the advent of the Messiah. This is the covenant, (the alliance or agreement,) I will make with them, after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts; and in their minds I will write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.'-Heb. x. 16. Such is the substance of the new covenant, (or alliance,) of which the apostle has given merely an epitome, and which you will find more fully stated by the prophet Jeremiah, (chapter xxxi. 31-35.) Of this new covenant, the Lord's Supper may properly be considered as a token, or memorial. "Thus when God made a covenant with Noah, that he would no more deluge the earth with water, he appointed the rainbow as a token,' or memorial, of this agreement; so that whenever afterwards beheld, it might remind Noah and his posterity, of the Creator's promise.'--Gen. viii. 8-18. So also when God instituted the rite of circumcision, he declared to Abraham that it should be a token (or memorial) of his covenant, that he should be the father of many na * See Gibson on the Sacrament, &c. p. 26. tions; that he would be God to him, and to his seed after him; and that he would give them the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.'-Gen. xvii. 1–9.” In connexion with this sacrament, there doubtless may be, and in true believers usually is, a renewed dedication of themselves to God; but to make this the chief end of the ordinance, is to displace the principal thing. This view of the subject has been favoured by the etymological and historical associations of the term sacrament, a word not used in scripture, and in the employment of which we should be careful not to bring along with it any of its secular appendages. If among the Romans the word sacramentum signified the formal deposit of money in pledge with the pontifex, in a civil process, which sum was forfeited by the losing party; or, again, the oath which the soldier took to be faithful to his standards; there is no reason why these heathen ceremonies should in the slightest degree modify our notions of a Christian rite. Yet we have heard formal discourses founded on this very misapprehension. The two states of mind produced by these two considerations are not congenial. If we are engrossed with the remembrance of Christ's death, we shall be less likely to feel that peculiar sense of legal obligation which some have brought into connexion with this ordinance. Accordingly, we have not seldom been present at the administration of this sacrament, in which the secondary view of the transaction has entirely superseded that which is primary. The preaching, the prayers, and the exhortations, were exclusively directed to awaken a sense of mere duty, to rouse Christians to exertion, and to exact of them a sacramental vow of the most awful kind. Every thing was merged in this oath of dedication. The awe-stricken participants, instead of weeping over the emblems of divine love, were trembling under the covenant of works; and the cross, if erected at all, was seen amidst the fire and lightning of Sinai. The death of Christ, if mentioned, was produced in aid of the legal impression. Of his substitution and atonement, there was scarcely one syllable. We have distinctly in remembrance the place and the occasion, where the ordinance was thus conducted by an eminent and popular clergyman, who has since seceded from our church; and we could only say, "This is not to eat the Lord's Supper." This error falls in very well with the heterodox teaching of the new divinity on all those points which concern the propitiation of Christ. If there is no proper sacrifice, no substitution of Christ in the sinner's place, no imputation of the sinner's guilt, no endurance of the sinner's punishment; if atonement is a mere rectoral transaction, declarative of God's hatred at sin in general; if it secures the salvation of none in particular, but merely removes the obstacle out of the way of all; then indeed the death of Christ assumes a new aspect, very unlike that in which the church catholic has always regarded it; to "show forth the Lord's death," having none of its former significancy, must become something else; and accordingly becomes a showing forth of our own submission to God. Again, it is a part of the same system of error, to change the mode of applying to the mercy of God. Having removed the great object of faith, it removes faith itself, at least from the high place which it had occupied. When the expiatory death of Jesus, was the one great object set forth in the eucharist, the belief of this, with consequent affections, was the great act of the soul, in partaking. But let the absolute mercy of God, without satisfaction of justice, be the cardinal truth involved in redemption, and the soul, shrinking in dread, will resort to that mere unconditional submission to divine sovereignty, which has come in the place of precious faith. No wonder, therefore, that in certain pulpits, and certain revivals, and certain sacraments, the perpetual cry has resounded, "Submit to God;" and that we have so seldom heard the invitation, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." At such a communion, celebrated among the very ruins of the old covenant, the contrite believer will be ready to exclaim, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." Upon this subject, we take the liberty of adducing the remarks of Dr. Russell, of Dundee, a sound and evangelical theologian: "The covenant of God, it is evident from the passages I have just referred to, consists of free promises, ratified by the work of the Redeemer. In this ordinance, we are called to commemorate that glorious work, with devout and thankful hearts, and in the sure and certain hope, that not one good word of all that the Lord hath spoken shall fail to be fulfilled. Not the most distant hint of any thing like a vow or oath being the nature of this observance, is given in the word of God. It is true, that our religious services include the solemn dedication of ourselves, and of all that we have, to God, and in the observance of the Lord's Supper, there is |