4. The nature of the ordinance requires it. It is an heavenly banquet,
him; and indeed without it, we may see the print of the nails, and put our fingers into his wounds without any remorse. Delight in Christ cannot be without it. Christ cannot be much in our thoughts till he comes to lie nearest our hearts, and will never be our delight till he be our beloved. We cannot have high and raised thoughts of him, which are necessary for a transformation into his glory, without this.
Strange imaginations will intrude themselves, and be welcome guests, unless this grace stand at the door to thrust them away. We cannot burn in our converses with God unless this grace set us on fire, nor can we have any heavenliness in this duty; for it is by this affection that we have our conversation in heaven in any service. Nor can we have a strong appetite to Christ in a sacrament without it; the stronger the apprehension of, and affection to, any good, the more importunate will be our longings for it, and the quicker our motions to it, and the less can the soul brook any distance between that good and itself.
4. The nature of the ordinance requires it. It is an heavenly banquet, and requires an heavenly frame. As love is the greatest grace in heaven, so it ought to be highly operative here. It presents us with God's love to us, and therefore calls for a suitable return from us. The heathens observed a suitableness in their sacrifices to the idols they worshipped. They would not offer a slow-paced creature to the sun, but an horse, because of the quick motion of that creature. God here wills the greatest good to us, and shall not we will the greatest good to God? An enlarged God should make an enlarged heart. Nothing is more becoming than that love should be recompensed with love.*
5. No benefit can be by a sacrament without this grace. Communion with God is entailed upon it: John 14:21, 23, 'He that loves me, shall be beloved of my Father, and I will love him, and manifest myself to him.' Not that our love precedes the love of God in the first efflux of it, but the degrees and acts of our love, kindled at first by the love of God, are rewarded with greater declarations of his love. Where love is acted to God, there both the Father and Son will combine together for such a soul's satisfaction; they will come and dwell there by the