⟨these⟩ scenes present to thinking men, of the holy ⟨institution⟩ of the Lord’s Supper!! What must ⟨sceptics⟩, and infidels, and scoffers of all descriptions, ⟨think⟩ of that religion, of which they are supposed be a part! I know, it will be said that these ⟨abuses⟩ are no part of the ordinance of the Supper. I know they are not. But why, then, are they associated with it? Why are they appended to it? Why is a system continued, calculated to produce and perpetuate such abuses? Would the simple observance of the Supper produce such effects, if these unscriptural appendages were given up. Impossible. While this system is continued, these abuses will follow it; and all attempts to persuade men of the difference between these abuses, and the system that gives birth to them, will prove vain and fruitless.
In an overture of the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, dated Oct. 5, 1748, we find the following remarkable declaration, in exact unison with what has been said above:— ‘That the mariner in which this holy ordinance (of the Supper) is administered among us, greatly obstructs the more frequent administration of it; and particularly, the number of sermons on such occasions, and the many parishes thereby laid vacant upon the Lord’s day, are accompanied with several great inconveniences, if not also, too often, with scandalous profanations of that holy day.— That it would be for the interest and honour of religion, that some method were devised, whereby these abuses might be avoided, and the Lord’s Supper more frequently administered, agreeably to the word of God, to the apostolic practice, and to the practice of the primitive church.[1]
But this system tends to the profanation of the Lord’s Supper in another, and a still more serious
- ↑ See Dialogues on the Lord’s Supper, p. 49,— Note.
