is true there would be no bar against going directly from the stews to the table of the Lord; yet as there would appear to be no good in going, people would not trouble themselves with it, if they had any thing else to do.

But though these doctrines should continue to crowd Christ's table to the very end of the world, yet still, as they must diminish the devotion, faster than they could possibly increase the number of the communicants, they could never answer any religious end, nor tend either to the improvement of men's lives, the salvation of souls, or the glory of God. Christ, we may presume, reckons his guests, not by the head, but the heart, and counts no hearts his but such as are clean from sin, or averse to it, and warmed with the love of God, and the beauty of Christian holiness. But if these doctrines should obtain, they would not only bring in guests from the streets and common roads, but from the common shores and dunghills too. Would not the death of Christ be gloriously commemorated by a herd of thieves, whores, and bullies; of panders, sharpers, and perjurers; by a rabble of drunkards, adulterers, and murderers?

If my reader is not one of those libertines, who are always ready to suppose the worst of a parson, he will never ascribe such a system of doctrines to a bishop; and if he have the least mite of common sense, he will never suppose that the bishop of Winchester, whose conscience was so tender that he could not bear to have this sacrament prostituted to the temporal end of the Test Act, could think of laying open such a divine mystery to the familiarity and intrusion of the worst of men.

There are still behind many other absurdities, false expositions of Scripture, of our communion service, and our catechism, and a world of art used to intersperse such expressions as may help to make the performance less shocking to the orthodox, but unwary reader. I have not leisure however to animadvert on them all. What I have noted and censured may serve in some measure to prevent the mischievous effects of this work of darkness, this mystery of iniquity, which recommends falsehood under the shew of truth, and sanctifies sin. It may shew, what I chiefly intended, that it cannot be the work of an apostle.

Let us now take the same liberty with our author, whosoever he is, that he has taken with Christ, and suppose him summing up, and paraphrasing his whole performance to his readers, thus :

My dear fellow-Christians, I have long observed with concern the apprehensions you labour under, and the vast trouble you are at, in preparing yourselves for a certain rite, called the Lord's supper. All this is owing to prejudice and groundless notions infused into your minds by superstitious teachers, who have taught you to imagine that there is some spiritual benefit annexed to it, when worthily received, who have taught you to apprehend some danger in receiving it carelessly, and in the midst of your sins, who in short have taught you to be a great deal too good on this occasion. Now to rid you of all these hopes and fears, and to discharge you from all fancied duty or tie to these works of supererogation, I will give you a plain account of the nature and end of this rite. Not to amuse and detain you with many words, you have nothing else to do, but just to eat some bread, and drink a little wine, and exactly as it is going down, remember the death of Christ. This is all, take my word for it. As for whining for your sins a long time before, or praying, or resolving to lead a new life, or putting yourselves under a severe examination, you may be at the trouble of so doing if you please, and have nothing else to do; but I tell you, Christ has laid no such burden on you, I tell you, he will accept very well of your eating and drinking in remembrance of him without all this coil. You have for this long time been obliged to go to church in order to perform this rite, and placed with a great deal of formality upon your knees about a table; but there is nothing of all this in Scripture, nay, and common sense is against it. What can people mean by eating, and praying, and drinking, and kneeling all at once? You have a notion that you cannot receive it unless your minister consecrate it for you. Why will you be so priestridden? It is the receiver himself that consecrates it; so that you may take it without the help of a parson, any where, any time, any way. So you do it in remembrance of Christ you may be sure you have done it according to the end and manner of its institution; there is no going

ness.

wrong. Your parsons are a kind of fellows of narrow education and narrow notions, or else they would never restrain this rite to the penitent, the faithful, and the meek, as they do. I grant you, such devout persons ought not to be excluded from this rite, nor ought those either who are not so disposed. To confine it to your pious folks only, is to leave our Lord a thin table. There is no warrant in Scripture for such a restraint; and for man to presume to set bounds where Christ has set none, is impiety, and arrogance, and uncharitableness, and narrow-heartedI tell you, Christ keeps open house, and his table is free to all. Nor is he so nice about the dress you are to appear in, when you visit him, as your ceremonious parsons would persuade you. He will not take offence at such trifles as your sins, when you come in a civil and neighbourly manner to sup with him; fear not, he is not so cap. tious. What your parsons prate to you on the subject of preparation for this rite, is a mere bugbear, nothing but a scarecrow. As vain also are those expectations of grace and spiritual infusions, which they have so often inculcated to you. But Christ is not obliged to make good their large promises. Believe me, you have nothing to fear, and as little to hope for from this rite. Your teachers have huddled all the Christian duties together, and confounded them one with another; so that by their way of managing the matter, you are given to understand that no one duty can be well performed without all the rest, as much as to say, you cannot say your prayers, without giving money to the poor, nor keep the sabbath, without visiting the sick, nor perform this rite of the Lord's supper, as it is called, without doing I know not how many other duties, that have nothing to say to it at the same time. This is all a jest. One thing at once, and it will be the better done. know what too much cooking does. Upon the whole, therefore, come all of you to the performance of this rite, howsoever distinguished by your vices. There is no respect of persons here. You are all welcome. But as you are exempted from all trouble both before and after, the least you can do is to come seriously. Compose therefore your gestures and the muscles of your faces. Put on a serious look, and a serious air. And as for the future, you are to

You

celebrate this rite in a tavern or any where else, on any occasion, I think it the more necessary to caution you against a jocose or ludicrous behaviour at the time of receiving. I tell you therefore, that unless you be very serious, unless you eat seriously, and drink seriously, you had as good not do it at all. It is a religious rite, and you must be serious at it. Some of you perhaps may imagine, that I am not strictly orthodox in relation to this rite; but if he will shew me one sentence in my whole book, that I cannot reconcile with the Bible, nay, and with the communion service of the church of England and its catechism, I will give him leave to call me schismatic, or heretic, or what he will. Indeed I had been worse than a lunatic, if I had not always provided a saving against all imputations of that kind. I love you very well, my dear readers, as you may plainly perceive; but not so well as to run the hazard of losing a handsome livelihood for your sakes. Besides, truth, at its first appearance, must not glare upon weak eyes. It ought first to be insinuated with a nice and delicate address, and as soon as the world is grown a little familiar with it, it may then go naked. If any of you should take it into his head to think, that I am not over-zealous for Christian piety and devotion, let him cast his eye towards the end of my book, where he will find a specimen of my devotion. He will there see prayers in their full pathetic perfection, and in a genteel and polite style, contrary to the vulgar custom. He will there see a spirit of piety strong enough to keep up an ejaculation for the length of thirty pages, which will fully convince him, that notwithstanding all the appearances in my book upon the Lord's supper, I am no enemy to devotion. I will take my leave of you, my gentle readers, with one piece of advice, which was never so much needed as in these too religious times. Be not righteous above measure.

Having thus epitomised our author's performance, I shall now acquaint the reader with the substance of a conversation that turned on the subject of this book, at which I happened to be present some time ago. The company was made up mostly of men of letters, who had all seen and read the plain account. After many remarks, some critical and some theological, they came at length to guess

at the author; but they could not agree among themselves upon any particular church to which they could give him. They observed, that he insinuates at the beginning of his preface, that he is a clergyman of the church of England, by saying that he had once the care of a parish; but this was generally regarded, as said with a design to conceal himself, and recommend his principles. To the like artifice they ascribed his attempt to reconcile his doctrines to our communion service, and all the guarded expressions he makes use of to elude the imputation of impiety and error, with which after all he is manifestly chargeable.

There was one who took him to be a Quaker; his reason for being of that opinion was, because he endeavours to debase the nature of the sacrament, and give the world a low notion of it; as a dead rite, consisting entirely in a mere outward act. I'll warrant you, said he, if the author could once bring the world to think with this book of his, we should immediately have another to shew the emptiness and vanity of such an idle ceremony, and the folly of performing it externally any longer. But I believe he might save himself the trouble; because if it were come to that, no sober Christian could think it a duty to observe it.

There was another who would needs have it to be the work of a Corkian Jacobite, as he expressed it; because, according to him, the arguments of the late bishop of Cork against drinking of memories had been undeniable, had there not been a concomitant grace supposed in the sacrament of the Lord's supper; which alone can difference it from drinking in memory of any other person. Now, said he, could this author bring the sacrament to a level with the glorious memory, the latter would then appear a profanation, and so must be laid aside. But I hope things will never come to that pass. I hope no artifices of his or any body's else will ever be able to make us forget our great benefactor king William.

This gentleman seemed to speak from a spirit of party, so his conjecture was received with little regard.

A third person insisted that the author must be a Jesuit. You see, said he, with what art and chicanery he