Lord's supper may claim a superiority over every other season of social devotion.

Many persons, I am aware, find it difficult

so to control their minds as to render these silent moments profitable. But to such per-sons the very difficulty becomes a useful discipline, and the occasion should be valued for the sake of it. To aid them in the use of it, and to prevent its running to waste in miserable listlessness and idle rovings of the mind, it might be well that they should have with them some suitable little book of meditations and reflections, which they may quietly consult in their seats as guides to thought and devotion.

In a word, prepare your mind beforehand, be faithful during the celebration, review it when it is past; and you will never have reason to complain of its inefficacy as a means of religious improvement. You may not enjoy high and mystical raptures; you may be sometimes overtaken with languor and coldness; but as long as, in sincerity, and from motives of duty, you present yourself in this way before the Lord, you will find that there is refreshment and encouragement in the act.

You will have in it satisfaction, if not ecstasy; and will never doubt that something of the steadfastness of your principle, and of the vigor of your hope, is owing to this affectionate application of the life, example and sacrifice of the Saviour, in the way of his appoint

ment.

CHAPTER V.

THE RELIGIOUS DISCIPLINE OF LIFE.

NEXT to the means to be employed in the promotion of personal religion, we must attend to the oversight and direction of the character in general. The means of which we have taken notice, consist of a series of special and stated exercises, whose object is to prepare us for the right conduct of actual life; and they may be compared to the daily drill of the soldier, by which he is made ready for the field. Watchfulness and selfdiscipline belong to all times and occasions, and may be compared to the actual use which the soldier makes of his preparation in the camp and the field. The Christian is engaged occasionally in prayer, meditation, study, and the communion; he must watch and govern himself always. To the former duties he devotes certain appropriate seasons; the latter belong to every season and all hours. The former constitute his preparation for the

Christian life; the latter constitute its pervad ing spirit. No punctuality or fidelity in the former proves a man to be religious without the latter. And therefore, having stated the manner in which these means are to be used, it is necessary for us to go on and show how they are to affect the whole conduct of life, and make it an exercise of perpetual self-discipline.

Why you are to be always watchful over yourself, is easily perceived. In this world of sensible objects and temporal pursuits, you are constantly exposed to have your thoughts absorbed by surrounding things, and withdrawn from the spiritual objects to which they should be primarily attached. You are incited to forget them, to slight them, to counteract them. The engagements, the anxiety, hurry, and pleasures of life, thrust them from your thoughts; and desires, propensities, passions, are excited quite inconsistent with the calm and heavenward affections of Christ. All these tendencies in your situation are to be resisted. You are to be ever on the alert, that they may not lead you into any course of thought or of action at variance with the principles to which you are pledged

as a believer in Jesus Christ, and which form your delight in your hours of devotional enjoyment. Such inconsistency may be sometimes witnessed. But what can be more melancholy than to see a rational being, deeply convinced of the truths of religion, in his sober hours of thought dwelling on them with fond and delighted contemplation, excited by them to a devout ardor of communion with God, and sometimes to a glow of holy rapture which seems to belong to a superior nature ;and then sinking into worldliness, governing. himself in ordinary life by selfish maxims of temporal interest, obeying the passions and propensities of his animal being, and, in a word, living precisely as he would do, did he believe that there is nothing higher or better than this poor life? I ask, what can be more sad or pitiable than such a spectacle? Let it be your earnest care to guard against so deplorable an inconsistency. Now, while your mind is warm with its early interest in divine things,-now, while they press upon you in all their freshness,-now, take heed that you do not concentrate that interest, and use all its strength, in the luxury of devout musing,