VOL. XV. " Y
338 A PKEPARATIVE SERMON FOR
ness. If we would meet God in the sacrament, we must be sure to have such affections about us, as God will own and acknowledge ; if John's reasoning is strong and pithy, how shall we love God whom we have not seen, if we do not love our brother whom we have seen ? Besides •■ 1 John iv. 18, ' God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.' Our soul is fitted for God to possess, when it is seasoned with love and holy affections toward the brotherhood. Therefore it is good to come thither with special love towards God's people, and as much as in us lieth with charity to all men. The two gospel commandments are ' faith and love,' 1 John iii. 23, And therefore we must strive to quicken both for this evan- gelical ordinance. Especially we should take care before we approach there, that we forego all our turbulency, all malicious discontented thoughts. In the ordinary sacrifices under the law this was required, that if their Ijrother had aught against them, they should go first and be reconciled, How much more, under the grand sacrifice of the gospel, should we brmg our hearts to such an holy pitch of self-denial, that we may forgive the greatest injuries that are done unto us. Well now, you see who are unworthy. I shall name one use more, and so conclude this point.
3. If it be so that when much care is taken,. yet many still are un- worthy ; it serves then to show there is no cause why men should abstain from the use of ordmances, for fear of communicating with wicked and profane men. Thus it hath been when the greatest care hath been taken of preventing these : and thus it may be still until the church do leave off to be a mixt company; and there be no unclean thing within the pale of it.
Ay ! but you will say. My comfort is hindered by it. I answer briefly —
[1.] It cannot choose but be matter of grief to God's people to see Christ's flesh torn by the teeth of wicked men, and their Saviour crucified afresh by their profane and irreverent receiving , and to see carnal wretches to snatch at these privileges which they know were purchased only for them. I say, this cannot choose but be matter of grief. But if we will not partake but there where there is no cause of grief and sorrow , if we expect such a perfect communion, we must wait for that till we enjoy the society of just men made perfect, and are admitted into the everlasting fellowship of the godly in the heavens. This first ; but —
[2.] We shall find that there are many that partake with much joy with unprepared persons, as those of Judah with the Israelites in the text. It is said in ver. 21, ' That they kept together with great glad- ness.' But —
[3.] There is a double communion. (1.) Direct and immediate with Christ ; and this they may fully have if they be not wanting to themselves. (2.) There is a spiritual communion with the members which proceeds from the union with the head : and we should not deprive ourselves of our union with Christ and the inward communion of the saints, for the outward intrusion of some few that have no share nor portion in the things administered. But this, as matter of debate, I leave, and come to another point drawn from the second branch of
RECEIVING THE SACRAMENT. 339
the first part, namely, the practice of the people. Notwithstanding their indisposition it doth not keep them off; but they partake not- withstanding : ' Yet they did eat the passover otherwise than was written.' From hence —
Ohs. That many rush upon the ordinances notwithstanding their unpreparedness. Their not being cleansed, I told you before, was a fault, yet they did eat. The reasons are —
1. The remissness or abuse of the censures of the church that do not restrain such persons from coming, but let them alone to continue in their sins, as 1 Cor. v, ' throughout the whole.' They had not cast out the incestuous person, and disabled him for communion.
2. It proceedeth from ourselves, because —
[1.] There is a great deal of ignorance and unbelief in the hearts of most men. They do not know, and will not believe the danger of unworthy receiving ; they think it is nothing, and therefore sottishly put themselves upon the ordinance without any fear at all. They hear us thunder out vengeance against such a sin, but their hearts are hard and their ears made fat ; they cannot conceive that we speak to them all the while, and therefore securely go on as if they were in a safe case. Infidelity besotteth the heart and casts a veil upon the soul , so that seeing, they do not see , they know the danger, and yet rush upon it ; we show them the pike, and yet they run their own bowels upon it. It is said, Heb. iv. 2, ' That the word preached did not profit them, because they did not mix it with faith in the hearing.' And indeed that is, the reason why people do so sottishly. Tell them of their own destruction, they do not believe ; when we tell them of the danger, while we declare that all ignorant persons, and all persons that do not judge themselves, and uncharitable wretches, are those that come unworthily to the Lord's table. Yet a man would wonder to see how many that lie under the guilt of these sins, do come there, and sit it out as boldly as the best. Truly these men give us the hearing, but they are full of infidelity, they do not mix the word with faith, and stir up the applicative crediting faculty of their souls, so as to say, Surely this will fall upon me if I receive unworthily. Their infidehty will not suffer them to bring their souls and the word to- gether, and therefore they have a kind of confused knowledge of the danger, but they do not think how they cast themselves upon it. Infidelity besotteth them so that they cannot look to their ways and consider what they are doing.