" plies of grace, new life, new love, new vigour, and new resolutions, that I may never again faint, or droop, or tire in my duty! Before receiving the Cup. This cup is the New Testament in my Lord's blood.-I will take the cup of Salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord in the midst of all the people. Grant, O merciful God, that this cup, which I am now about to receive, may be unto me a cup of blessing. Drink, O my soul, and remember Jesus. Drink, and mourn over thy sins and follies. Drink, and receive thy pardon. Drink, and forget thy sorrows. Unto him that hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion, forever and ever, Amen. After receiving the Cup. Was ever sorrow like unto his sorrow! Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing! Thanks be unto God, for his unspeakable gift. What benefits, what blessings can be greater, more precious than those of which this solemn repast reminds me. Revelation of God and his will, assurance of his parental condescension and love, pardon of guilty creatures, through the meritorious sufferings and death of Jesus, abolition of sacrifices and ceremonial worship, of all servile dread of God, all anxious fear of death; new life, new energy, the most glorious liberty, the most authentic hope of a blessed immortality! After both. Do this in remembrance of me. Yes, I I have done as thou hast commanded me. have commemorated, in this solemn feast, thy unexampled love, thy unmerited sufferings, thy beneficial death. Blessed, forever blessed be thy memory to me and all mankind. It is the memory of the purest virtue, of the most disinterested and beneficent love. It is the memory of our deliverance from the greatest evils, from the most oppressive vices. It is the memory of all that has a tendency to console, to strengthen, to refresh and to bless our species! Yes; thy memory, O Jesus, shall be ever welcome, ever precious to me. How can I ever forget thee, or think of thee with coldness and indifference! To thy doctrines, Son of the Highest, as the wisdom of God, will I steadfastly adhere. The light with which thou didst dispel the night of ignorance, of error and misery that enveloped the earth, shall be a light to my feet to guide me through the mazes of human thought and inquiry and doubt, and to conduct me to a more resplendent light hereafter. The memory of thee and of thy holy life, and thy no less holy precepts, shall accompany me along the paths of life, determine me in every doubtful case, preserve me from every wicked action, urge me to every good and generous deed, and make every duty a delight. When the sense of my frailty, the consciousness of my sins and failings, torment me, when the troubles of life oppress me, when I sigh beneath the pressure of adversity and affliction, the memory of thee, and the revelation thou hast made to me, shall strengthen and refresh me! When the hour of death approaches and flesh and heart fail me, the memory of thee, and of thy innocent, holy death, shall revive my sinking spirit, arm me with new strength, and give me life in the midst of death. Yes, forever dear shall thy memory be to me, Son of the Highest! Thy image, the image of thy exalted piety and virtue, the image of thy unwearied meekness and philanthropy, the image of thy all conquering patience and fortitude shall be continually before me, till I have learned to know thee better, and to hold immediate converse with thee. Then will my faith be changed into sight! Then shall I see thee whom my soul loveth, and with whom to have more intimate communion, it often pants. There shall I more worthily extol thy merits in behalf of man; then perceive and feel the entire value of thy love, and of thy benefits, and forever rejoice in thee, and that felicity for which I am beholden to thee! |