are annexed in Scriptures; but to the due observance of Sacraments, as such, high promises. A sermon is not, I believe, supposed by any one to be beneficial because it is a sermon', or to be attended

Services of the Church of England, in particular, it has been explained at length by Bishop Hoadly, that the assertion in the Catechism that the inward part or thing signified in this Sacrament is the Body and Blood of Christ, and that these are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper, means simply that they who eat the Bread and drink the Wine in the religious remembrance of Christ's Body and Blood, do verily and indeed “ take both in the sense in which Christ called them His Body and Blood, viz. as memorials of them." p. 149. So too, when it is declared in another answer in the Catechism, that the benefits of which we are partakers in this rite, are "the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and wine," the Bishop interprets it thus, "as bread and wine, considered only as natural food, strengthen and refresh our bodies, so this bread and wine considered and taken as memorials of the Body and Blood of Christ our Master, lead us by their peculiar tendency to all such thoughts and practices as are indeed the improvement and health of our souls." p. 162.

1 [In one sense it is, in which the Author would not have denied it. The Psalms, Proverbs, &c. are surely written in a tone of promise to hearers of God's Word, simply as such; so that a blessing may be considered to rest on one who receives a Sermon in Church as God's Word, over and above the edification which he may experience. The same thing may be argued from what is said in the New Testament about "preaching and teaching the Gospel;" except that of course much more besides delivering Sermons is included under the word. St. Paul may be said to have "preached Christ" in the ship, by his whole behaviour; our Saviour "bore witness unto the Truth," even when he "held His peace," and gave Pilate " no answer."]

with any other consequences than such as it has a natural tendency to produce. A dull, drowsy sermon has no effects, either good or bad, except as a discipline of patience. An impressive or affecting sermon is wholesome or the reverse, according to the impression it creates or the affections it moves. In all cases it is the character of the Sermon, and not any promises of Scripture annexed to the attendance on it, which can alone afford any rational ground for judging of its effects: it is Experience and not Faith. On the other hand, the beneficial efficacy of Sacraments will be admitted, by many, to belong to them because they are Sacraments; not because they are strikingly and impressively administered, not because the accompanying Services are calculated to awaken our most serious thoughts, but because the rites themselves are instituted by God for the express purpose of benefitting us, whether we can perceive how or not: the effects of Sacraments may be judged of, not by their nature or tendency only, but by the promises of Scripture: their proper proof is not Experience but Faith.

Here then are two ordinances, to one of which, as such, God has annexed no promises, and to the other great promises; and so far I suppose there can be little doubt which would claim our most constant and dutiful attendance. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, professing as it does to feed us with the Bread of life, and to make us spiritual partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ, ought, one would think, in all reason to form the most

prominent feature in the worship of the faithful ; to be dwelt on as the sure and abiding piedge of God's love, and sought for earnestly, if possible, as the daily, or at any rate the weekly sustenance of souls hungry and thirsty after righteousness. One would expect to find those who from circumstances were detained from every other Service, yet, at least, endeavouring to present themselves at this; if necessity compelled them to forego some part of the appointed instruction of the Church, rather one would imagine ought [it] to be any part than the most solemn and important of all. Churches might be empty, or thinly attended, during the celebration of every other rite: the prayers, the litany, and sermon might be attended only by persons who, from station or accident, were disengaged from necessary occupations: but the Holy Mystery of our religion, that solemn rite at which is distributed the blessed Bread which came down from heaven, this, at least, should be a signal for the general assemblage of Christ's flock, not, as it now unhappily is, for their dispersion. So, too, the commissioned servants of the Lord, those whose office it is to feed the flock of Christ, and to whose custody this Heavenly Food has been committed, anxious, one would think, must they be to deliver out this precious dole, ever ready to distribute their unfailing treasure, which, like the widow's cruse of oil in the Prophet's hands, will ever flow on inexhaustible. Borne down they may be with various toils, their strength exhausted, their time unceas

ingly occupied, yet for this at least the most important of all their toils, some time, some strength would be reserved: rather ought any duty to be left unfulfilled, any part of their commission undischarged, than this their greatest duty, the very essence of their commission.

Such, I say, is the view one would take of the respective duties of the Clergy and their flocks in regard to the different parts of religious worship, if the importance of these parts were measured by the standard of Faith alone; by the promises of God, and without any regard to human Experience: and such, as a fact, is the view taken of them in all countries, not Protestant, from one end of Christendom to the other. The ignorant and superstitious Churches of Greece and Rome, in this respect at least, present a spectacle fraught with instructive lessons to the serious member of our own enlightened communion. Among them he sees, in the outward part of religion at least, an exhibition of that deference of sight to Faith in which we are externally so deficient. The opening of the Eucharistic Service, which among ourselves is a signal for three-fourths of the congregation to withdraw, operates there like the voice of the good shepherd which the sheep hear and obey. The areas of the Churches, which we fill with seats to accommodate the gazing audience of a popular preacher, so arranged for the most part as to make kneeling almost impossible, are among them' a

marble pavement, where to sit is impossible, and adapted only to the use of devotees who come to humble themselves before their God.

But not to dwell longer on this contrast let serious persons after duly weighing the difference between the Evangelical promises annexed to the Eucharist as such, and to Sermons as such, proceed to ask themselves these two questions: What at this day would be thought of a Clergyman of the Church of England who was to content himself with preaching four, or eight, or even twelve sermons in the course of the year? and how many Clergymen of the Church of England are there who administer the Eucharist in their Parish Church more at any rate than twelve, or even than eight or four times in the same period?

And now let it be considered why all this is so: What are the arguments by which this course is justified? Will not one and the same answer be returned every where? viz. that very few would attend the Eucharist if administered more frequently',

1 A similar argument may be [drawn out] on the notions prevalent among Protestants, respecting public worship in general. If the use and duty of such worship is founded on Scripture, it is founded on the expression, " Where two or three, &c. ;" so that persons who think that a clergyman is wasting time for having service on week days, with congregations of two or three, but that he is not wasting time if there are two or three hundred, certainly conceives the use of public worship to be something else than that promised in the Bible, and that when this something else cannot be got, the thing promised in the Bible is not worth having.