Next Part 4 1The Lord's Supper

What must we examine?

(1) We must examine our SINS. Search if any dead fly spoils sweet ointment. When we come to the sacrament, as the Jews did before the Passover, we should search forleaven, and having found it we should burn it!

Let us search for the leaven of PRIDE. This sours our holy things. Will a humble Christ be received into a proud heart? Pride keeps Christ out. "Its presence within blocks the entrance of any other." To a proud man Christ's blood has no virtue; it is like a cordial put into a dead man's mouth, which loses its virtue. Let us search for the leaven of pride, and cast it away.

Let us search for the leaven of AVARICE. The Lord's supper is a spiritual mystery, to represent Christ's body and blood; what would an earthly heart do here? The earth puts out the fire; so earthliness quenches the fire of holy love. The earth is "the heaviest of the elements"—it cannot ascend. A soul be slimed with earth, cannot ascend to heavenly meditations. "Covetousness, which is idolatry." Col 3:5. Will Christ come into the heart where there is an idol? Search for this leaven before you come to this ordinance. How can an earthly heart converse with that God which is a spirit? Can a clod of earth kiss the sun?

Search for the leaven of HYPOCRISY. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Luke 12:1. Aquinas describes it as "the counterfeiting of virtue." The hypocrite is a living pageant, he only makes a show of religion; he gives God his knee—but no heart; and God gives him bread and wine in the sacrament—but no Christ. Oh, let us search for this leaven of hypocrisy and burn it!

(2) We must examine our GRACES. I shall instance one only—our KNOWLEDGE.

We are to examine whether we have knowledge, or we cannot give God a reasonable service. Rom 12:1. Knowledge is a necessary requisite in a communicant; without it there can be no fitness for the sacrament. A person cannot be fit to come to the Lord's table, who has no goodness; but without knowledge the mind is not good. Proverbs 19:2. Some say they have good hearts, though they lack knowledge; as if one should say, his eye is good—but it lacks sight. Under the law, when the plague of leprosy was in a man's head, the priest was to pronounce him unclean. The ignorant person has the plague in his head, he is unclean; ignorance is the womb of sin. 1 Pet 1:14. Therefore it is requisite, before we come, to examine what knowledge we have in the main fundamentals of religion. Let it not be said of us, that "unto this day the veil is upon their heart." 2 Cor 3:15. In this intelligent age, we cannot but have some insight into the mysteries of the gospel. I rather fear, we are like Rachel, who was fair and well-sighted—but barren: therefore,

Let us examine whether our knowledge be rightly qualified. Is it influential. Does our knowledge warm our heart? "Clearness in the understanding, breeds zeal in the doing." Saving knowledge not only directs, but quickens; it is the light of life. John 8:12. Is our knowledge practical? We hear much; do we love the truths we know? That is the right knowledge which not only adorns the mind—but reforms the life.

[2] This solemn preparation for the sacrament consists in dressing our souls before we come. This soul-dress is in two things:

(1) Washing in the lever of repenting tears. To come to this ordinance with the guilt of any sin unrepeated of, makes way for further hardening of the heart, and gives Satan fuller possession of it. "They shall look on me whom they have pierced—and they shall mourn for him." Zech 12:10. The cloud of sorrow must drop into tears. We must grieve as for the pollution, so for the unkindness in every sin which is against Christ's love who died for us. When Peter thought of Christ's love in calling him out of his unregeneracy to make him an apostle, and to carry him up to the mount of transfiguration, where he saw the glory of heaven in a vision, and then of his denying Christ—it broke his heart: "he wept bitterly." Matt 26:75. To think, before we come to a sacrament, of sins against the heart-mercies of God the Father, the bleeding wounds of God the Son, the blessed inspirations of God the Holy Spirit—is enough to fill our eyes with tears, and put us into a holy agony of grief and compunction. We must be distressed for sin, be divorced from it. Before the serpent drinks, it casts up its poison; in this we must be wise as serpents. Before we drink of the sacramental cup, we must cast up the poison of sin by repentance. Augustine, "He truly bewails the sins he has committed, who does not commit the sins he has bewailed."

(2) The soul-dress is the exciting and stirring up the habit of grace into a lively exercise. "I put you in remembrance, that you stir up the gift of God which is in you," that is, the gifts and graces of the Spirit. 2 Tim 1:6. The Greek word to stir up, signifies to blow up grace into a flame. Grace is often like fire in the embers, which needs blowing up. It is possible that even a godly man may not come so well disposed to this ordinance, because he has not before taken pains with his heart, to come in due order, to stir up grace into vigorous exercise; and though he does not eat and drink damnation—yet he does not receive consolation in the sacrament.

[3] A solemn preparation for the sacrament, consists in begging God's blessing upon the ordinance. The efficacy of the sacrament depends upon the blessing of the Spirit. In the institution, Christ blessed the elements: "Jesus took bread and blessed it." The sacrament will do us good, no farther than it is blessed to us. We ought, before we come, to pray for a blessing, that it may not only be a sign to represent—but a seal to confirm, and an instrument to convey Christ and all his benefits to us. We are to pray that this great ordinance may be poison to our sins, and food to our graces. As with Jonathan, when he tasted the honeycomb, "and his eyes were enlightened;" so by receiving this holy Eucharist, our eyes may be enlightened to "discern the Lord's body." 1 Sam 14:27. Thus should we implore a blessing upon the ordinance before we come. The sacrament is like a tree hung full of fruit—but none of this fruit will fall, unless shaken by the hand of prayer.

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