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DISCOURSES

SUITED TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE

LORD'S SUPPER.

PART I.

DISCOURSES BEFORE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER.

A

DISCOURSE I.

THE NATURE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER.

LUKE XXII. 19, 20.

This bread is my body, which is given for you:-this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

CHRISTIANITY is honourably distinguished, by the simplicity and spirituality of its ordinances and duties, not merely from those false religions which have in every age imposed on the credulity or the fears of mankind, but also from Judaism, the only other religion which justly lays claim to a divine origin. By far the greater part of the Christian code is occupied with the duties which naturally arise out of the relations which man bears to the Supreme Being, and to his fellow-men. Love to God and love to man, form the two cardinal requisitions of the law of Christ; and its particular injunctions are but illustrations or exemplifications of these two leading principles.

It is comparatively but a very small part of the Chris tian law that is occupied with ritual observances. Under the Old Testament economy, ceremonial institutions bore a very considerable proportion to the general mass of religious duty. On those who lived under that dispensation, were imposed numerous fatiguing and expensive observances, the meaning of which was in many cases obscure; and the obligation of which

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