3. The ends of it declare the unworthiness of neglecting it.
be thought contemptible after God's order, all the battering engines in the world shall prove ineffectual to gain the victory. If Jordan be appointed for the healing Naaman's leprosy, 2 Kings 5:10, the waters of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, shall never be medicinal.
When God appointed lamps for the defeat of the Midianites, Judges 7:20, had Gideon slighted them as too weak, and assaulted them with his numerous host, he had received a rout instead of a victory. When
God orders any instrument of conveyance, all other means will be successless; and not only so, but God will be offended, because his institution is contemned; and what can then reasonably be expected from a slighted God?
2. The time when Christ instituted it shews it not worthy of our neglect. It was a little before his death: 1 Cor. 11:23, The same night in which he was betrayed he took bread.' Good men (much less would a good and bountiful Saviour) do not use to employ themselves in trivial concerns, when they are near expiring. That which was instituted, when wrath began visibly to march against him, Judas upon the point of betraying him, and is to continue till his second coming, is not without a desirable fruit. Had it been a needless ceremony, he would not have breathed out a word for its institution; had it been an institution of a light concern, some other time would have been chosen by him for the settlement of it. We may gather the necessity, as well as the value of it, from the time of its institution, which shews that there is something worthy in it of our esteem, and undeserving our neglect. The last words, actions, legacies of dying friends, are never thought matters wholly to be neglected. Joseph's brethren questioned not their pardon from Joseph for the injury they had done him, when they used so powerful an argument as the command of their dying father: Gen. 50:16, 17,
'Thy father did command before he died;' and shall we undervalue, by a wilful neglect, the commands of a dying Saviour, settled by him just before he went to remove the wrath of God from us upon himself?
3. The ends of it declare the unworthiness of neglecting it.
(1.) The remembrance of Christ. This was the end, and twice repeated, 1 Cor. 11:24, 25. In the giving the bread, ver. 24; in the cup, ver. 25. We are naturally unmindful of God, ungrateful to Christ; we need something to renew our remembrance of him. He hath left us this dark glass, wherein we may see his face till he return with a full glory; and is it an affection to him never to look upon his picture, the medal of himself, wherein he hath engraven the tracks of his dying love; all that he did, all that he purchased, all his fulness, all his treasures, wherein we may behold him as a Redeemer, pouring out his blood for us, as a sanctifier pouring his blood into us, as a benefactor opening his enriching treasures to us, as a supplier providing for all our wants? How can we say we love him, if we do not mind him? What value have we for him, if he be not in our thoughts? Well, but we may remember Christ otherways without this ceremony. We may, but do we? Do you frequently ponder upon him; are your thoughts of him edged with choice and ravishing affections to him; doth not the body of death hinder you from thinking of the Lord of life? But suppose you are not one minute forgetful of his love, doth it consist with your professed affection to him to choose your own ways of remembering him, and neglect his? Suppose we had a friend who had redeemed us from the galleys, restored us from servitude, redeemed our lives, instated us in a large inheritance, and was to take a long journey, promising to return again, leaving with us his picture, which he would have us look upon at some special seasons, and express in that method a particular mindfulness of him.
Though we could not without an excusable ingratitude forget him had we not that picture, yet it were but an unworthy return to deny the observance of so small an order to a friend to whom we owe ourselves. This is all the picture Christ hath left of himself; he never appointed any images or crucifixes, never imprinted the features of his face upon Veronica's napkin. Is it not ingratitude to neglect the remembrance of him in his own method, when he might have put hard conditions upon us; and when it is not a mere sight of him, but a spiritual feast with him, wherein we may suck his very blood into the veins of our souls, as well as the wine into those of our bodies?
The primitive Christians used commemorations of the martyrs,
whose blood they counted the seed of the church; and shall the stated commemorations of that blood be neglected, which is the foundation, the price, and the purifying fountain of the church?
(2.) It is a seal of the covenant. This is the common nature of a sacrament, to be a seal of the righteousness or justification with God by faith in Christ, Rom. 4:14.* As a seal affixed to a writing conveys to a man the lands and goods named in the writing. It is not only a sign which represents, but a seal which confirms, the benefit; not a bare picture, but a seal whereby pardon and the whole design of salvation is passed over to us: Luke 22:28, 'This cup is the new
Testament in my blood, which is shed for you.' It is a confirmation of the rich charter of God. There is a conveyance, take, eat; take, drink; take Christ with all his treasures, with all his graces. This is a pledge of the promise, a pawn given you for the glory to be bestowed upon you. He seals it to the eye by the elements, and to a believing heart by the Spirit. It seals not the truth of the death of Christ, or the truth of your faith. It supposeth faith in the communicant, and supposeth the death of Christ in the institution; but it seals the right of faith, and the interest of faith. It is a seal of the righteousness of faith, of the interest of faith in that righteousness it lays hold on, as the seal of a deed seals the right and interest of the person in that land conveyed to him by the deed. What there is in Christ, is sealed to us in the sacrament for our comfort; the privileges he hath purchased, and the graces he is endowed with; and when you have this seal you have arguments for prayer, and power to enforce them. Lord, here is thy bow in the cloud, a sign that thou wilt not drown the world; here is thy seal in the sacrament, a sign that thou wilt not charge my sin upon me, which hath been charged upon my Saviour. It was told me that it was a body broken for me, blood shed for me. I have taken it upon this account, I have taken this seal, I have covenanted to obey thee, I am willing and desirous, and I will be industrious to do it; be a God keeping covenant with me and truth for ever. The honour of God lies at pawn in his seal, whereby strong consolation cannot be denied to those that lay hold upon Christ in it. As the passover was a pledge as well as a memorial, a pledge of a spiritual as well as memorial of a
temporal deliverance, so is the supper a pledge of what is to come, as well as a memorial of what is past; a pledge of all the fruits of the death of Christ yet behind. Should this then, that is so desirable and confirming a seal, be neglected, which we may believingly plead as God's act and deed, when it is not a bare stamp of a seal, which signifies nothing but the image upon the seal; a seal to a deed which gives the assurance of the advantages in the deed, and an interest in the contents of the deed, and what is conveyed by it.
(3.) It is a renewing our covenant with him. It is a federal rite wherein God exhibits, on his part, Christ and his benefits to us, and we profess our subjection and obedience to him, laying more solemn vows upon ourselves; whence they were called sacraments, the word signifying a military oath, whereby soldiers oblige themselves to be true to their general and the cause they fought for. And Pliny saith,* he learned it of some Christians, that at their meeting they did sacramento se obstringere, ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, &c. Covenants are always mutual, something to be done by us as well as for us. God seals the benefits of the covenant on his part, and we seal to the duties of the covenant on ours. It strengthens us in the assurance of the benefits promised, and engageth us to a performance of the duties required. The exhibiting the signs is the seal on God's part; our receiving the signs is the seal on our part. By taking them we acknowledge that we stand to the conditions, and restipulate with God again that we will be his; and upon this striking hands with God, we claim a right, and lay hold upon his seals and plead them. You avouch God to be your God,
Deut. 26:16–18, obliging yourselves to a greater distance from sin, and detestation of it; divorce from it to a more quickened obedience, vigorous faith, holy life, and exacter service; fetching strength from the death of Christ in the supper to this end. Is not this desirable, to be in covenant with God, to have God in covenant with us, to have it more assured on both parts, which is the felicity and security of a creature?