Page:Brief inquiry into the origin and tendency of sacramental preaching-days (1).pdf/20

Rh head, to any thing like the Bible pattern, or to they themselves saw to have been the primitive practice: when we consider that multitudes embraced the reformed doctrines, who gave no evidence of conversion to God, and that all who became Protestants, were admitted to fellowship with the Protestant churches. Principal Baillie, of the University of Glasgow, one of the Commissioners from Scotland, to the Westminster Assembly, in one of his Letters, says, that not one in forty of the members of the best reformed churches, gave any evidence of true grace and regeneration! How is is possible that such churches could be reduced to anything like scriptural order of discipline, or that such fearful crowds of unconverted men could be brought under the influence of the authority of Christ, or of the love of his simple and holy institutions? And in proportion as this state of things continues, in that proportion is reformation, in regard to the Supper, or any other point of scriptural order, unattainable. I am persuaded that there are now very few godly ministers, who have thought at all on this subject, who are not convinced in their consciences, that the Lord’s Supper was designed, and continued for ages to be a weekly institution of the Christian dispensation; and that consequently sacramental preaching days are not only unscriptural inventions of men; but also the cause of much delusion, the source of much self-righteousness, and the occasion of a dreadful prostitution of this sacred ordinance.

But then, as most churches are now composed and constituted, they are aware that any reformation; worthy of the name, is quite out of the question. Hence they endeavour to make the most and the best of things as they are. Indeed, when men prove to a demonstration, that the Lord’s Supper was for ages a weekly institution with the