Plain Words to a Young Communicant

You have now taken the first solemn step which is to separate you from, the world. You have avowed your purpose to follow Christ, and have begun to entertain the question, whether you shall not enroll yourself among his people. In these circumstances, if rightly affected, you are conscious of an unusual solicitude, a tender fear of doing wrong, and an earnest desire to be instructed. It is to furnish you with some plain directions, as to the professing of religion and ita consequent obligations, that the following paragraphs are offered to your devout coneideration.

The profession of religion, though, commonly associated with a first partaki-iig of the Lord’s Supper, is distinguishable from it. In cases where the subject comes from beyond the pale of the Church, he is baptized; and the profession of his new faith connects itself with his baptism. And we may conceive of cases, for instance on a dying bed, where the administration of the Lord’s Supper may be impossible, but where there is still an avowal of attachment to Christ. But since for the most part in Christian lands, those who become subjects of saving experience are such as have been already baptized, the first open acknowledgment of religious obligations is their approach to the Lord’s Table. Hence this is commonly spoken of as their profession of faith, or, less correctly, as joining the Church.

The of confessing Christ before men is incumbent on every one who hears the Gospel. It is spoken of in Scripture in immediate connection with saving faith. If thou shalt confess with thj mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart tha God hath raised him from the dead, thou sbll; be saved.”* In like manner, the duty of commemorating the death of Christ at his table is binding on all who have been made acquainted with his gracious work. Impenitence and unbfelief, while they disqualify for right performance, afford no excuse for neglect. It is the sin and not the apology of the sinner, that he has no faith to profess and no love to testify.

* Rom. 10: 0.

12 THE YOUNG COMMUNIOAJ^.

All baptized persons are members of the Church. Their duty, therefore, to acknowledge Christ before the world rests on yet clearer grounds. It is true, we do not ascribe a regenerating grace to their baptism; but we must not go to the other extreme of making this precious ordinance a nullity. Those who have been baptized stand in a relation to the Church different from that of the world at large. They have been designated as disciples or learners, and, where the parental obligations have been’ discharged, have been trained in religiou3 knowledge. Such children of the Church should often consider the privileges and benefits sealed by this ordinance. They should be humbled for their sins, and for falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism and its engagements. They Bhoiild feel bound to the faith and practice signified by their symbolical separation from the world. Children born within the pale of the visible Church, and dedicated to God in baptism, are to be taught to read, and repeat the Catechism, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostles’ Creed, to abhor sin, to fear God, to pray, and to obey the Lord Jesus. And when they arrive at years of discretion, it behooves every one of them to consider the duty of ratifying the vows made in their name, by a personal avowal of allegiance to Christ. The case of such is therefore widely different from that of the world without.

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