Lord and a Seal of the Covenant that God hath made with us in him Two things then it is principally designed for 1 To Remember us of our Lord and Saviour and 2 to be a Seal of the Covenant of Grace of each briefly 1 'T is for a Remembrance not only of his Person or only of his Sufferings or any other particular part of his Ministry But we are by it required thankfully and affectionately to call to mind All that he hath done and all that he hath suffer'd His Life Doctrine and Laws His Passion Resurrection and Ascension His Victory over Sin Death and Hell and the gracious Covenant that God hath made with us through him These are all included in his Body and Bloud as I intimated before of which the Holy Sacrament is a Sign and Memorial And the remembrance of these which we are call'd to by the Divine Institution is not only some slight and passing thoughts but a solemn and most serious fixing of them upon our minds in order to the inflaming our affections with love and our wills with resolution that we may live answerably to that excellent Religion of the Holy Jesus which we profess 2 'T is the Seal of a Covenant The new Testament in my bloud The Covenant is That God will give pardon of Sin and eternal Life upon the conditions of Faith and Repentance This He seals to us in the Sacrament and assures us that he for his part will make good his Promises and we on ours seal that we will endeavour to perform the conditions So that the Lords Supper is a Sacrament by which we confirm those ingagements we are entred into at Baptism Then our Sureties undertook for us that we should be faithful in the Convenant and in this holy Ordinance we take all those obligations upon our selves and in our own persons promise to act according to them This plainly and in short is the nature and design of the Holy Sacrament concerning which there are some other expressions in Scripture which I shall consider briefly in order to the further explication of the sacred Mystery The chief are these 'T is called 1 The Cup of blessing 1 Cor. 10. 16. 2 The communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ 1 Cor. 10. 16 and in the duty t is said 3 That we shew the Lords Death 1 Cor. 11. 26. 1 The Cup of Blessing viz. of Praise and Thanksgiving Our Saviour Matth. 26 gave thanks when he took the Cup. The Jews used to conclude their paschal Supper with a Cup of Wine at which time they sung an Hymn and therefore call'd it the cup of praising and blessing And the Heathens also after their feasts had their cups of Praise to their Gods which some take to be the Cup of Divils mention'd by the Apostle I Coa 10. 21. So that by this we are taught to remember our Lord at his Table with praise and grateful acknowledgements And therefore the Ancients from hence call'd the Lords Supper the Holy Eucharist namely a Feast of Thanksgiving and the Solemnity was always attended with an hymn of Praise 2 Communion or Communication of the body and bloud of Christ viz. The Sacrament is a sacred Rite in which God communicates and imparts to all worthy Receivers the Benefits of Christs Incarnation and Sufferings He doth then ratifie confirm and solemnly exhibit them to those that duly attend upon that Divine appointment 3 As often as ye eat ye do shew the Lords death viz. 1 Declare unto men with joy and glorying that we believe he dyed for such purposes and that he hath procured inestimable benefits for us by his Death That therefore we will adhere and stick unto him and that neither death nor life shall seperate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus our Lord. And 2 Imports our shewing and declaring this also unto God and pleading it with him for his pardon and his grace for the sake of that meritorious Passion which we set forth and commemorate These passages fall under the Account I have before given of the Ordinance and shew how we are to Remember our Lord in it and what we may expect in so doing Thus briefly of the Nature and design of the Sacrament I might have run the matter into a large Discourse but I resolve all convenient brevity In what I have said you will find all things that are necessary and essential to the Ordinance For the niceties and disputes that are about it you need not trouble your selves with them But so much of it as I have represented I mean in the substance of the particulars 't is fit you should know And therefore I intreat you especially those of the more ordinary understandings to return back and fix your thoughts a while upon those periods and read them over and again till you have a clear and distinct apprehension of the Subject they explain I know the thoughts of most are very confused and much in the dark about it and while they are so they cannot demean themselves as they ought in the performance of the Duty nor receive those benefits that otherwise they might from it I beseech you therefore not to content your selves with a single and running reading Many Divine Truths will not enter into our minds at first sight or if they do they are gone as soon as they are received Though they are never so plainly exprest yet they many times seem dark till we look again Or though they strike our minds fully yet they pass out of Memory except we reflect and think them over I hope therefore you will do your selves this right And I thus urge you to consideration of my accounts not as if I fancied I had made any discoveries in them which were not made before No These are known things among the Intelligent sort of Christians But I do it because I speak to the meaner and less improved understandings And perhaps from the Representation of the affair which I have given the others also may receive the advantage of a clearer order and method to their thoughts and be deliver'd from many unnecessary and uncertain notions that they have imagined to be of great consequence to be believed and known when either they are not true or not considerable CHAP. III. I Come now to the main thing I design viz. II To urge this great duty which I have thus explain'd and to do what I can to persuade you to the conscientious practice of it Now there are two things that commonly oblige men to action namely Considerations of Duty and of Interest And there are both here in the highest degree to ingage us I shall discourse of each 1 We have the Motive and Reason of Duty and Duty in such circumstances as have the greatest obligation in them A Lord who hath all right to our obedience both by nature and by dear purchase hath commanded us to do this And A Saviour who hath rescued
us from the Jaws of Hell and Earth and hath procured for us endless life and glory hath required it of us Here is the Authority of just Power and the Obligation of astonishing Love We are bound by the submissions we owe a Sovereign Lord and by the gratitude we owe an adorable Benefactor The Son of God the King of both the worlds The Redeemer of Men 't is He that commands and his commandments are not grievous had he put upon our necks a yoke heavier then the Iewish ceremonies had he injoyn'd a greater number of costly and laborious Rites than those and required so many of such services from us as would have taken up all our time and imployed all our strength and wearied all our powers Yet these we ought to have observed without repining and thought all but small homage to his Greatness and small acknowledgment of his Love All these had been nothing in compare with what he hath done for us freely without merit or obligation Nothing to his leaving the bosome of the Father and the glories of the upper world and the Hallelujahs of the blessed Nothing to his descending to a world of Infamy and woe Nothing to his suffering the scorns and contradictions of Sinners the Death of the Cross and the wrath of God So that we had been wretchedly ungrateful should we have stuck at any of these or as much as murmured at them But our Lord hath not given us any such tryal of our Love and obedience He hath deliver'd the world from the Yoke of Ceremonial bondage And besides Baptism hath appointed but this one Rite for us to observe A Rite that is neither troublesome nor costly tedious nor laborious And what Prodigies of baseness shall we make our selves if we refuse to take notice of this his gracious Institution With what face can we look up and call our selves by his name How shamefully are we upbraided by the practice of those we count barbarous Let us look abroad into the world and consider the most brutish Idolaters They will cut their beloved flesh and burn their dearest children and sometimes suffer themselves to be crush'd to death by the Carriages that bear their Idols because their Infernal Gods require and are pleased with such testimonies of their homage Hath the Devil such obsequious servants Are those Cruel Rites whch he appoints observed with so much duty Will those poor wretches do and suffer any thing rather than displease their ugly Deities And are we Christians Professing Servants of the Son of God our Sovereign and Redeemer and do we neglect this his main just and gracious appointment Is this too much to do for him and do we owe him so much less than Cannibals do their Idols Certainly those men of the Desart those wild Savages of the Woods shall rise up in judgement with such a Generation of pretending Christians and shall condemn it Methinks their diligence and exactness in those hard and painful services should cover us with blushing and confusion at our carelesness and neglect of the easie duty our Lord requires from us And we shall see great reason to be ashamed of our omissions if we consider that our blessed Redeemer had lived a Life of poverty and dishonour for our sakes He had instructed us in the way of Happiness by his excellent Doctrine and Precepts and had gone before us in an incomparable example and now he was just about to compleat his Love by offering himself unto death to deliver us from it and thereby to give an instance of the most amazing goodness that ever was At this time he injoines his Disciples to do something in Remembrance of Him And Lord What is sufficient to be done in memory of such Love Had he required the dearest of our bloud and the choicest of our substance to be offer'd to him in acknowledgment should we have thought such demands unreasonable Would ordinary ingenuity have scrupled to make those Sacrifices for such kindness But he calls not for these He looks for no First-born of our bodies nor chief of our Flocks No He appoints only a feast of Memorials and commands us to remember his Love in that And shall we not observe him in so small a matter Hath he not deserv'd to be remembred by us or do we know any better way to signifie our remembrance of him then that which himself hath prescribed Should we not do as much as this at the request of an ordinary dying Friend And is not the greatest and the best that ever creatures had worthy of such a testimony of affection from us I am sure there is no one can be so brutish as to deny the justness of the Duty and methinks none should be so unworthy as to refuse complyance with it I beseech you therefore if the Considerations of Duty can do any thing with you If there be any obligation in the highest Authority if there be any allurement in the sweetest love If your profession of subjection to Christ be not only a Complement and if he have any real interest in your Souls give this proof then of your being in earnest that which you would be thought Refuse no more of his Invitations Neglect no more of his calls Consider the expresness of his command and that this Law is peculiarly his His in such a sence as Baptism excepted no other Law is For his other injunctions are but enforcements of the Laws that God had written in the old Scriptures and in our hearts But this is his own proper commandment by obeying him in this we particularly own him as our Law-giver and by refusing we renounce him But if the considerations of Duty should not prove so powerful with you there are others which generally use to be of more force namely those taken from our interest And here II I desire you to consider the great benefits that a worthy Communicant receives from the holy Sacrament This is not a meer barren Ceremony or unprofitable Rite but an instrument and means to produce and to convey unspeakable blessings to us Here we receive 1 Confirmation of our Faith All habits are increas'd by being exercised and this Ordinance requires great exercises of the grace of Faith For here we make a solemn declaration of it and thereby bind it stronger upon our souls And to the exercise of this Divine Grace and the sincere and publick profession of it there is no doubt but God will superadd his special aid and blessing that out of weakness it may be made strong So that if your Faith be weake and trembling if you are perplext with vexatious doubts and temptations to unbelief apply your selves to this holy Ordinance as to the proper remedy Declare your Faith and pray for more If you believe God will help your unbelief Mark 9. 24. 2 Our Repentance will be heightned by our Due Communicating at the Lords Table and that in respect of all its great Acts viz. 1. Sence and
you of your sins What ever colours the guilty may set upon their neglects and contempts of Holy Ordinances before men God will not be deceiv'd or mock'd there is no putting tricks upon him If you will not be perswaded to your duty he knows the reason and 't is in vain to make false flourishes and excuses Yea some mens pretences are so openly untrue and gross that they cannot as much as hope to deceive men by them Every one sees the falsehood and lying of their allegations all their actions proclaim that they do not themselves belive or mean any thing that they say and yet they have the prodigious impudence to lye on in the face of God and conscience and men So seared and hardned are some in their perversness and hypocrisie and act at that rate as if it were a play-game and sport of wit to show how many wayes they had to evade their duty with some shew of reason Sirs when this vile sort of evil men have the forehead to pretend Religion they become the most mischievous miscreants upon earth and the fittest Instruments that Sathan can desire or use for the affairs of his Kingdom But no more of them now Friends I am exceeding troubled to see how undutifull to God and how unkind to themselves how foolish and unreasonable many men are when they seek for little occasions to pretend as reasons against the greatest and most important Duties when that which would excuse nothing else shall excuse them unto God for a neglect of his worship in the greatest Instances of it An aking finger a few Drops of rain the cold Air a Fit of Drowsiness an impertinent visit or such like trifles are enough to be pleaded for absence from the House of God and Holy Communion with him My wife was not at home or she was busie my Childs head aked or I had friends to dine with me therefore I could not be at the Sacrament Therefore I could not For shame false man offer such excuses to thy Master or thy Prince when he commands and expects thine attendance see how he will take them from thee yea offer such but to thine equal that waits for thee on affairs of moment and try how kindly he will receive the disappointment on such grounds Dost thou use to say I could not go out to market to buy necessaries because 't was cold weather I could not go to Dinner to my kind Neighbour next door that invited me because I had a corn upon my great Toe Are such pretences too trifling to be used on such ordinary occasions and are they enough for the greatest will they serve to excuse thy neglect of feeding thy soul with the bread of life and thy making provision for eternity Will they answer for thy not waiting on thy Lord the Lord of Life and Glory when he invited thee to the Feast of Love at the House of Banquets What thoughts hast thou of the priveledges of the Gospel the Communion of Saints the peace of Conscience the joyes of the Holy Ghost the foretasts of Glory what I say dost thou think of these if they have not so much power with thee as the most acknowledged trifles With how much less respect and devotion dost thou serve God than wicked men do the Devil and their Lusts When they invite to jolly meetings and communion in debauchery and beastial madness do the Blades use to make such excuses Are they diverted and kept off from their brutish satisfactions by such Nothings certainly they could not so excuse themselves to their lusts and vile Companions And do you pretend to be worshippers of the God of Heaven and worshippers of the best and purest sort to be Christians and expectants of eternal glories as rewards of your services and do you thus serve your Maker now and then when the humour takes you when the Devil hath no business for you and you have nothing else to do Are you not ashamed to confess that Religion hath so little power with you and that every thing can do more with you than your duty to God and the interest of your souls Do you thus work out your salvation Do you thus seek a Kingdom a heavenly Kingdom and everlasting Kingdom Is this the work and patience of the Gospel Is this running and striving and fighting and giving diligence Is this cutting off right hands and plucking out right eyes Is this forsaking all and following Christ If there be any reason if there be any shame if there be any Conscience if there be any sense of God and Religion in you let not small matters keep you from this your greatest duty and concern Make no more such vain and self-condemning Apologies I know not whether it were not better for you once for all to say you are no Christians than to insist on such shameless pretensions for your neglects of Christ and his appointments I add no more on this head now I pray God you may lay to heart what I have said CHAP. V. I Pass now to discourse with the other sort of Refusers viz. 2 Those that stand off upon the score of mistakes of Conscience In applying my self to them I shall consider the most weighty objections that carry any colour of conscience with them And though I know many pretend scruples of this sort when in earnest they are not the reasons of their neglects yet because they are so to some I shall take them to account They are of two sorts 1 Such as hinder men only sometimes and in part 2 Such as wholly obstruct their Communion and are pretended as grounds why they cannot partake with us at any time Of the first kind are these that follow viz. 1 We hear sometimes I would not have neglected the holy Sacrament but I was not in charity such or such a person hath abused me and I was at odds with him so that I durst not come To this I say That in such an occasion thou art seriously and impartially to consider whether thy displeasure were just or unjust upon the determining of this will depend the state of the case If 1 Thy displeasure were just and thy Neighbour hath done thee wrong and persists in it without repentance or reparation 't is no uncharitableness to be out with him or think amiss of him In such a case thy anger is no sin so long as it keeps it self within just bounds Be angry and sin not saith the Apostle Eph. 4. 26. they may be parted And what is no sin cannot unfit us for the holy Communion For that Ordinance doth not oblige us to be reconsiled in our thoughts to wicked and injurious men while they impenitently continue such It will indeed require us not to revenge our selves on them to do them wrong or to desire their ruine or as much as hurt but not to have kind and good thoughts of them while they continue obstinate in their sins and injustice otherwise it were in the
have communion with such Yea they are commanded to have no fellowship with them Ephes. 5. 11. and to come out from among them 2 Cor. 6. 17. For the answering this I propose these things to be considered 1 Hast thou taken the Method of our Saviour Matth. 18. 15. with the sinner from whose communion thou thinkest thou must withdraw Hast thou privately told him of his faults Hast thou admonisht him before witnesses Hast thou told the Church If so thou hast done and he persist still in his wickedness he will no doubt be legally excluded from Christian Communion and so the foundation of thy doubt will be taken off 2 How art thou sure when thou seest those thou callest wicked come to the Sacrament that they do not repent of their wickedness and come to the holy Ordinance to beg pardon for their sins and strength against them How dost thou know that they are not come to bind themselves by deep resolutions and sacred vows to a spiritual warfare and a new obedience Their coming makes profession of such designs and resolutions and how dost thou know that that profession is insincere Hast thou a way of prying into the heart But the man returns to his sins as soon as he hath done and hence thou wilt say thou knowest his hypocrisie This indeed were something if it could be certainly foreseen but how he will demean himself after the Sacrament thou canst not foretel This may have more effect upon him than former Sacraments have had This I say may be and charity thinketh no evil but believeth all things hopeth all things 1 Cor. 13. or if it now again prove otherwise it is no certain evidence that the man onely made pretence and shew he might then mean and design truly and well but temptations and his lusts were too strong for him and carried him away against all his endeavors and resolutions 3 Thou performest other sacred duties in which thou remembrest Christ and hast communion with God in the company of evil men Thou joynest in hearing and publick prayers with such and why mayst thou not be present at the Sacrament with them If it be pretended as a reason of difference That hearing the Word and Prayer are converting Ordinances but the Sacrament is not so I ask thee then whether thou meanest by converting a turning men from open Infidelity to the Profession of the Christian Faith and the owning of Christian Virtues or onely the turning those that profest this Faith and Religion before to the practise of them If thou intendest the former the Sacrament indeed is no converting Ordinance nor are the Word and Prayer ordinarily used for such purposes among us where the Gospel is already generally profest And thou dost not bear the company of the wicked of which we speak in the places of publick worship upon any such expectation But if by converting ordinance thou meanest as is most likely such a one as God useth as a means to cause men professing the name of Christ to depart from iniquity to turn from sin to holiness and from the power of Satan unto God I see no reason why any should think or say that the Sacrament is no converting Ordinance If it be not either 't is because the Sacrament is no proper means or because God will not concur by his Grace with it Neither of these can be said with any shew of reason Not the former for why should not the solemn remembrance of Christ and the consideration of what he hath done and suffered be a means for the killing of sin which he came to destroy and the promoting holiness which he lived and died to advance yea what can be supposed more likely and powerful for the promoting of that blessed purpose why should not the sign and seal of Gods gracious Covenant to give pardon and eternal Glory to all that forsake their sins and live an holy life be a fit instrument to provoke those that understand it to renounce their sins and to devote themselves unto holiness why should not that solemn sacred ingagement that all that know what they do lay on themselves at the Sacrament to endeavor to depart from every known evil and to practise every known duty be a means to oblige them to it Certainly there is nothing that in the nature of the thing seems to be a more likely instrument to convert men from a life of sin to a life of holiness than the sacred remembrance of our Lord at his Table So that if this Ordinance be not converting it must be because God will not concur by his grace in it But whoever saith that speaks what he cannot know and cannot prove he talks without book and against it and is so extravagant in his assertion that it would be folly to attempt the confuting of him This I have said on this occasion not to ingage in a Controversie but to clear a matter of Christian practice And the very root of this Objection lies in this conceit That the Sacrament is not a converting Ordinance For which there is nothing but Phancy and the bare sayings of some mistaken men But now if as I have proved The Sacrament may be and is an Instrument of Conversion Then why should any refrain because evil men are admitted to it 4 If wicked men come to the Sacrament that are not prepared for it their unpreparedness is their sin and they shall answer for it But we ought not therefore to neglect our duty because they have omitted theirs We may and we ought to advise and admonish them to prepare themselves for the Ordinance before they come to it If they will not follow our brotherly admonition we cannot help it we have done what we can to render them more worthy and their sin shall not be laid to our charge To prepare our selves for the holy Communion and to address our selves unto it is that which we are sure concerns us If we neglect 't is our sin and other mens sins will not excuse us Their sinning in one kind should be no reason why we should sin in another There is no reason that we should starve our selves because others take the bread that belongs not to them 5 If we are worthy Communicants and others receive unworthily They have no Communion with us nor we with them They onely eat bread and drink wine but we partake of the mystical body and bloud of our Lord. Our Communion is with the Father and with his Son Iesus Christ and with the Faithful worthy Receivers but the unworthy partake neither with us nor them If an Ape leap upon the Table and eat of the bread where Friends are met at an entertainment Is he therefore a Guest is he one of the Company If writings are to be mutually sealed there among the Friends and that Creature catcheth up the Seal and doth as the Covenanters do is he therefore a party He doth the same action but not with the same
hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled And now when thou hast exercised thy self in these acts and the time of the holy Communion approacheth Then 6 Imploy thy time in awakening and affectionate thoughts of Christ thy Lord. Consider the greatness of his Condescension the kindness of his Vndertaking the boliness of his Life the purity of his Doctrine the heaviness of his Sufferings the power of his Resurrection and the glory of his Ascension Turn thy thoughts earnestly and often upon these and such instances of the History of the holy Jesus and by them dispose thy self to a befitting remembrance of him at his Table And Lastly Gather up all thy thoughts and resolutions together viz. thy apprehensions of the vileness of sin of the Grace of the Covevenant and the merits of thy Lord Thy purposes of leaving every evil way and of renewing thy baptismal Vows and say to thy self Now is the time come that I must use these thoughts and resolves that I may obtain pardon and strength victory over sin and assurance of happiness My Lord invites me to the great representation of the evil of sin in his own sufferings to see his Body wounded and his Soul made an Offering for Sin in the Type of Bread broken and Wine poured out To remember his Conquest over Sin by Death and a glorious Resurrection To see the Covenant of Grace and pardon sealed He invites me to these Priviledges and call upon me to bind my self stronger in this holy Covenant and thereby to make my self the subject of those blessings it assures and conveys I say imploy thy Soul in such thoughts and bring them with thee to the Lords Table spread them before him there in humble Confessions Supplications and Acknowledgments and thou mayst then expect to receive the benefit thou art seeking after These are Preparations for a bare Penitent that hath yet made but little progress in subduing of his Sins And though the highest degrees of all these are not absolutely necessary to the coming of such to the Lords Table yet the more they have been exercised in them so much the better it is by so much they re more prepared and so much more they may expect of the benefits But if your minds that have not been used to spiritual things will not fix long on such thoughts and meditations Ingage them as far as you can proceed in the Method prescribed with that diligence and care that becomes one that is serious And then though your preparations be imperfect now they may be more compleat against another season If thou art sensible they have been so defective maintain and keep up that sense and resolve upon it to indeavor to fit thy self better for another Sacrament by renewing the same method which will be easier for thee in the progress than it was in the beginning As for the other sort viz. II. Those that have advanced in the conquest of their sins They are to act over all the former particulars that I have advised to the bare Penitents For being yet sinners and imperfect they have need to use that Method And there are these few other Directions to be briefly added that do further concern them 1 Call your selves to a particular account concerning your sins examining what vices you are most addicted to and what are the sins of your tempers or of your Profession and Calling when you have found those exercise particular acts of Repentance upon them and renew your resolutions against them Consider that allowance of them is inconsistent with sincerity and a state of true regeneration That 't is necessary you should oppose and subdue them and that the holy Sacrament is to be used as a means for that blessed end 2 Examine what ground you have got upon your sins since the last Sacrament whether you are now more tender and fearful of offending God than you were before whether your inclination to any evil be more weakened and mortified If so take encouragement hence to go on with more Christian vigor and resolution If not humble your selves for your unfruitfulness and indeavor to dispose your souls to make a better use of the next opportunity 3 Inquire into the state of your souls as to your Graces what Graces are wanting and what are weak which are growing and which at a stand and when you have found the condition of your souls as to these then exercise your meditations upon those particulars in the Life Doctrine and Precepts of your Lord whom you are to remember at his Table that may be proper for your case Apply your thoughts and cares and resolutions that way Design and resolve to attend the holy Sacrament for the supply of those wants and to endeavor to use it so that the needed graces may be obtain'd and the weak ones may be strengthened that those that are at a stay may be put into motion forwards and those that are growing may be further improved If you thus provide and imploy your selves in the method before remembred you will then be meet partakers of the holy Mysteries and may assure your selves of the blessings and advantages which they convey THis Subject would have required larger discourse but my present business was principally with the careless and negligent to whose condition I have mostly applied my self For the others that are solicitous for their souls and desirous to be further informed about this great and important affair of Preparation I shall advise them to get and carefully to read and digest two excellent Books of the Sacrament The former called Mensa Mystica or a Discourse concerning the Sacrament of the Lords Supper by Dr. Simon Patrick and the latter named the Christian Sacrifice containing most excellent Meditations and Prayers both before and after the Sacrament In the first design of this little Discourse I intended to have added some things of that sort for your use But while I was thinking of it my Pious Learned and Excellent Friend the Author sent me one of those his last Books the Devotion and Piety of which is extraordinary and there is nothing that I know fitter to prepare your affections and to excite them to the noblest height of desire and love than those heavenly Meditations And you cannot use more proper judicious or affectionate Prayers than those he hath annext So that I was exceeding glad when I saw this useful much needed Work so incomparably well done that there was no occasion of my doing any more in it than earnestly to recommend that book to your perusal And I intreat you to get it into your Houses and from time to time to indeavor to warm your souls by it when you are preparing for the Sacrament and by it to fix you in your resolutions of living according to your ingagements there when you have attended on that blessed Ordinance And now my Friends I leave you to the blessing of God and the consideration of what I have said Whatever judgment may be made of it I have this testimony that I meant it sincerely And I shall never cease to pray that both you and I may sincerely practice according to it Your Faithful Monitor and Servant J. 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