diets of examination particularly for non-communicants, and
regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up." They do not lie most safe that lie most secure, when the cause of God is at stake. I mind what word Mordecai sent to Esther, chap. 4:14, "If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another quarter: but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed." I remember that he was burnt in his own house, that said he could not burn for Christ; Matth. 16:25, "For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it." We have made ourselves singular in our backwardness and unconcernedness in the cause of God at this time, beyond all our neighbours; take heed God make not our stroke as remarkable, as our backwardness and unconcernedness has been, ere all be done.
No. III
As these overtures, "of admission to the Lord's table, and debarring from it," are excellent in themselves, were crowned with success in the author's own practice, and seem to be peculiarly seasonable at this day, it has been judged proper to give the following exact copy of them, taken from the author's original:—
"1. Admission to the Lord's table, and debarring from it, being acts of church discipline and government in a particular congregation, belong to the session of the congregation, and are not to be exercised by any minister or elder by themselves, nor any society of ministers and elders in an extrajudicial capacity.
2. Besides the ordinary examination in parishes, it is meet there be diets of examination particularly for non-communicants, and specially for those of the younger sort. And for this end, that once every year at least, especially before the celebration of the Lord's supper in the congregation, ministers, from the pulpit, exhort and stir up non-conformists to serious godliness, and the use of the