powerful temptations, if, instead of giving way to idleness and despair, he continues his resistance, and, by a diligent attendance upon the service and sacraments of the church, together with a regular practice of private devotion, endeavours to strengthen his faith, and imprint upon himself an habitual attention to the laws of God, and a constant sense of his presence, he will soon find himself able to avoid the snares of sin; or, if he fall into them by inadvertency, to break them. He will find the fear of God grow superiour to the desires of wealth, or the love of pleasure; and, by persisting to frequent the church and sacraments, and thereby to preserve those notions of piety from being effaced or weakened, he will be able to persevere in a steady practice of virtue, and enjoy the unspeakable pleasures of a quiet conscience.
Thus it appears, that the blessed sacrament is a commemoration of the death of our Lord; consequently, a declaration of our faith; and both naturally, and by the cooperation of God, the means of increasing that faith. And it appears also that it is a renewal of our baptismal vow, after we have broken it by sin; and a renovation of that covenant by which we are adopted the followers of Jesus, and made partakers of his merits, and the benefits of his death.
This account has almost anticipated what I professed to treat of,
Secondly: The obligations which enforce the duty of communion.
For the obligations to any duty must bear proportion to the importance of it; and the importance of a duty must be rated by the effect which it produces or promotes; and, therefore, as the benefits which we receive from this sacrament have been already shown, the necessity of it is sufficiently apparent.
But we may farther enforce this practice upon ourselves and others, by considering first, that it is a positive injunction of our blessed Saviour, which, therefore, all those who believe in him are bound to obey. That to
