Page:The True End and Design of the Lord's Supper.djvu/8

 tedious hoarseness, has been favourable to my wishes in the above respect, and has enabled me at length to present you with the following dialogues, in which you will find the principal matter of those lectures, digested in such a manner, as will, I trust, tend at the same time to fix it more deeply in your minds, and also to excite new sentiments of holy affection and thought on the subject.

So many excellent books having been already written concerning the, you may possibly think that it would have answered the same, or perhaps a better purpose, if I had recommended some of those books to your perusal. I wish to observe in reply, that every one has a way of thinking peculiar to himself on every subject, and it is for the advantage of the public, to be in possession of as great a variety of sentiments as possible, on every important point of Christian doctrine, provided those sentiments be agreeable to the truth of. I wish to observe further, that though many learned and pious treatises have been already written, concerning the nature and design of the Holy Supper, yet it has always appeared to me, that in general, too little attention has been paid in those treatises to the nature and necessity of the spiritual nourishment, meant to be conveyed in and by that supper. The sacred ordinance, has been too often considered, as intended merely to excite in the communicant a recollection of the 's suffering