(5.) Do not only cherish, and keep it from decay, but see that you increase it : 2 Peter i. 5, ' Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge ;' 1 Thes. iii. 10, ' Perfect what is lacking ;' 1 Thes. iv. 1, ' That as you have received of us how you ought to walk, and please God, so you should abound therein.' A little faith will be as no faith ; not honourable to God, nor comfortable to you, nor useful to others. All our doubts, perplexities, uncertainties, come from the smallness of our graces. It will not make an evidence, therefore give diligence. No endeavour, labour, pursuit after God, but hath its recompense ; not an earnest thought, an earnest prayer, or time spent. What shall I say ? They whose hearts are upon the ways thereof, go on ' from strength to strength,' You are almost at home; nearer than when you first believed ; then you thought all your pains too much, now all too little.
Let me apply all to the sacrament.
1. There we come to meet the bridegroom in a way of grace. The marriage covenant between God incarnate and his espoused ones is here celebrated and solemnised. The sacrament is a transfiguration of the last marriage-supper, to ascertain us what entertainment we shall have at the day of judgment, when the bride, the Lamb's wife, shall be made ready, and clothed with fine linen, Eev. xix. 23, and then be received into the nuptial feast : ' Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb.' All is now prepared in this duty.
2. In some respect there should be as serious preparation for the one as for the other, as we would prepare to die, or prepare to meet Christ the judge. Christ did not wash his disciples' feet when he took them with him to Tabor, to his transfiguration, but when he took them with him at his last supper, John xiii. 7. Surely, to rush upon the pre- sence of the bridegroom with a perfunctory, careless, common frame
Vers. 3, 4.] sermons upon matthew xxv. 347
of spirit, is a dangerous thing. When a people come hand-over-head, prepare themselves slightly, pray slightly before they come, and live carelessly and negligently, they slight the bridegroom, and wrong themselves, strengthen themselves in sin, rather than against it. Methinks it looks like going to the day of judgment. Here we receive the pledges of our salvation or damnation.
3. We should come with oil in our vessels as well as in our lamps.
[1.] Our lamps should be kept burning bright. If you are sluggish now, it is a sign you are slight in the whole. Surely, now the king sitteth at his table, Cant. i. 2, our spikenard should send forth the smell thereof ; a lively exercise of grace. Now we come for meat which perisheth not ; now is our familiar converse with Christ, and near communion with him ; now we come to our legal investiture ; Christ and all his benefits are delivered by these signs which he hath instituted. As if a man should say, Here is my house, when a deed is delivered, and you give up the key, or give possession of land by a tnrf : this is our solemn taking possession of him and all his benefits. We receive Christ in the promises of the covenant, but here is a par- ticular close application. In the word Christ is offered, and exposed to all, as the brazen serpent, that whoever looked upon him might be healed ; but this supper is like the blood sprinkled upon the door- posts. In the work, Christ and immortality are brought to light. Now Christ is slain before our eyes ; the bread is put into our hands and mouths.
[2.] We should come with oil in our vessels. Would we have the Spirit blow upon a dead coal ? He findeth nothing in us to work upon. We are bidden to examine ; and what must we examine ? 1 Cor. xi. 28. The apostle will tell you : ' Whether you be in the faith or no,' 2 Cor. xiii. 5. But to speak to this case : I confess, that in foro ecclesice, in the court of the church, all are virgins that take their lamps, that do profess to believe ; all these must be admitted ; but in foro coeli, in the court of heaven, none but converted ones are admitted ; but in foro conscientice, in the court of conscience, I dare not discou- rage those that have the grace of the second or third ground. It is a means to strengthen them in faith, hope, and love, and make them more firm in the covenant of God ; and the difference is too nice between temporary grace and saving grace for any to exclude them- selves. I am bound to come with grace, but I am not bound to come with assurance. Besides, in the kingdom of grace Christ will not shut them out. They that have good affections should come, but with this caution : I would press them to mind the renouncing and engaging- part of the covenant, and earnestly to break the league between them- selves and their own ways, and engage themselves more firmly to God for time to come ; that you may not think as you have done, or speak as you have done, nor behave yourselves in your relations as you have done ; but throw sin out of doors. I would press you in the apostle's words, Heb. x. 22, ' Let us draw near with a true heart, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water.' The one relateth to the duty part. ' Let us draw nigh with a true heart ;' the other relateth to the promissory part. Though your grace be common grace, it is this way moulded into special.