1. Something negatively.
person nor nature of the person is really present in any of those things. They are indeed the marks of his dignity, and he that violates wilfully any of them is supposed to be willing to do as much against the person of the prince, if it were in his power, as against anything which bears his character. The substance of the body and blood of Christ, is not in the bread and wine of the sacrament; his exalted body is no more to be broken and sliced in pieces; nor doth it consist with his state of glory, to have his substantial body shrouded under such mean elements. But the bread and wine are memorials and pledges of his body and blood, instituted by him as signs to signify him; therefore he that receives them without a due respect to Christ, and handles them unworthily, despising those things which are signified by them, is a contemner of the Son of God, since he hath no value for that which is a mark of his authority and his love.
Doct. Unworthy receivers of the supper contract great guilt, and incur great danger. In the handling which doctrine I shall shew,
I. What unworthy receiving is.
II. The sinfulness of it.
III. The danger of it.
IV. The use.
I. What unworthy receiving is.
1. Something negatively.
(1.) Unworthy receiving is not proper only to a man in a natural state.
The apostle chargeth here unworthy receiving, not only upon the professing, but the regenerate Corinthians, upon such as fell under the chastening hand of God for this cause, that they might' not be condemned with the world' to an eternal punishment, 1 Cor. 11:32.
He sent temporal punishments upon them that they might not undergo an eternal damnation; they were redeemed from eternal
punishment, renewed in their souls, yet some of them were guilty of unworthy receiving. The apostle also puts the unworthiness upon the want of a self-examination, which a good man may, by some supineness and negligence, be deficient in, and, as the sleepy church,
Cant. 5:2, may contract some rust in his graces, yea, and fall into some bemiring sin, as a neat man may into a dirty puddle, rendering himself at present unfit for the entertainment of, and converse with some worthy friend. Sins of a higher magnitude, which a good man may fall into, make him at the present unfit for heaven, and therefore for an heavenly ordinance. David was no worthy attender upon the institutions of God while he lay in his impenitency, till his tears had washed away his iniquity. Nor was Peter restored to the sweetness of converse with his Master, till he had wept bitterly; while a great sin remains unpurged, or the soul through negligence untrimmed, it is no fit guest for God.
(2.) Unworthy receiving is not to be measured by our sensible joy or comfort after receiving. Two men that have perfect health have not equal stomachs, nor equal appetites, and consequently not the same joy in their meals, yet both in health. We should more consider how graces are acted, than how comforts are dispensed; the former is our duty, and necessary to a right participation; the latter is an act of sovereignty, and not our duty. God's dispensations are not equal to all; some have only tastes, others full draughts; some may have more joy than strength, others more strength than joy. Mary had a strength of love to Christ, before she had a joy of pardon from him,
Luke 7:47. Paul's grace was not weaker fourteen years after his rapture, though we read not of a second discovery of the third heavens to him. God was most pleased with our Saviour upon the cross, acting his faith in, and love and obedience to God, when he denied him sensible comforts from heaven, and was bruising his soul for sin. The life and exercise of grace is the root of joy, though the fruit itself be not always visible; we may seem to have a rebuke from God, when we are in the strongest exercise of grace. The woman of Canaan had no sense of Christ's kindness, while she was acting a faith stronger than others who had met with swifter rewards. Jacob
had the honour to be termed a prince prevailing with God, in that wrestling wherein he received such a touch from God as made him halt all his life after, Gen. 32:25, 28. If our souls can ascend, like
Manoah's angel, in the smoke of thanksgiving and elevations of spirit, and be melted and softened by a flame of love, there is a worthy receiving, though there be not a sensible comfort.
But, 2. Positively; that is an unworthy receiving,— (1.) When evil dispositions and beloved sins are not laid aside and forsaken. As there must be faith respecting the Christian doctrine, so there must be repentance respecting the conversation. He eats unworthily that hath different ends from what Christ had in the institution; and wants the qualifications which Christ requires, who hath neither faith nor repentance, no sense of sin, nor love to Christ, to hold up to God. Common infirmities render us not unworthy, but voluntary defilements: neither the poverty, blindness, or halting of one or other of those invited, Luke 14:21, Mat. 22:10, was charged upon them, but only the filthy rags that one of them came in; such sordidness as he might have mended, not the lameness which he could not cure. Common infirmities are inseparable in this life; but the great breaches and violations of the covenant are to be discharged. Every sin doth make some separation between God and us (as the smallest body hath its shadow); but they are the darling sins that are a thick cloud between him and us. Those then are unquestionably unworthy receivers, that approach with a love to their lusts; as Judas, who came with his covetous disposition and treacherous purposes. Such as lay aside their sins at present in the act, but not in the habit and affection, that shake hands with them for a time, to fondle them afterwards.
(2.) When, though beloved sins are discarded, yet there is not a due preparation suitable to the quality of the institution. The apostle implies it in the precept he enjoins immediately after the declaration of the sin: ver. 28, 'Let a man examine himself.' He that doth not trim up the graces he hath, that doth not search them out, and marshal
them in order to entertain the master of the feast, as well as he who wants those qualifications necessary. An actual as well as an habitual sanctification was required of Jesse's sons before the sacrifice: 1 Sam.
16:5, 'Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.' Christ did sanctify himself before he made himself a sacrifice, John 17:19, so should we before we commemorate it. If the lamps be not trimmed, they will burn but dimly. If that he counts the weddinggarment be not brushed, it will be a slighting the Lord not to appear in our best garb. The Corinthians were chastised, not for want of grace in habit, but for want of grace in act. It is a disrespect to Christ not to put on a wedding-garment which we have in possession, when graces and affections are not set on work which the ordinance requires. A natural man is unworthy for want of possessing those graces; a renewed man unworthy for want of acting them. The party that so offended was not sent out to clothe himself, but punished for his neglect: 'Friend, how camest thou in hither?' Christ's worthy care in the institution must be answered with a worthy carriage in the preparation. He washed his disciples' feet before the institution,
John 13. We should prepare our souls before the participation. When a good man's graces lie dead at the ordinances, he receives unworthily. What difference is there between a dead man and one that doth not exercise the acts of life? When Christ reacheth out himself, and our hands are not ready to take, our hearts not ready to embrace, it is an unsuitable carriage. We have no great esteem of the gales that blow, if we will not prepare and hoist our sails to be filled with them, and stand not ready to suck Christ's breast in his ordinance.
(3.) It is an unworthy receiving when we rest only in the ordinance, expecting from the work done, what we should expect only from Christ in it. When we content ourselves with Elijah's mantle, without asking for the God of Elijah. Thus the Jews deluded themselves with their privileges, and displeased God with their neglect of him; like
Joab securing himself by laying hold of the horns of the altar without repentance for his murders. This is to derive from the sacrament the cause of our righteousness and justification, and ascribe that to the
naked elements and signs which is only to be expected and desired at the hands of God. This is a wrong to God, when we prefer the shadow before the substance, the shell before the kernel, satisfy our appetite and take no notice of the Master. Doth not he slight both the physician and the physic, that expects a cure from a medicine in his pocket, which he was to take into his body? The like it is to Christ, to think that a corporal feeding, without a spiritual relish, can nourish our souls; a chewing the elements with the teeth, without feeding upon Christ with the heart. This is evident, when we answer not sacramental engagements, as well as when we come without sacramental preparations; in that we slight the end of the ordinance, as in the other we slight the greatness of the institution.
(4.) When there is a garishness and looseness of spirit in the time of our attendance. Not discerning the Lord's body, say some; not minding the Lord's body, but letting the thoughts run at rovers, which should be fixed upon Christ's dying; not making a difference between this holy bread and common refreshments in the behaviour of our souls. Our spirits should be low in regard of contrition, not in regard of a sordid demeanour towards God. To have base ends and starts in his worship;* to regard our own things in this act, and not the things of God; to have unsettled and roving thoughts, crosses the end of this ordinance. It is unworthy not to remember Christ, not to shew forth his death; how can this he done without minding him?
The Master of the feast is not remembered unless we look through the bread and wine to the broken body and the shed blood of Christ.
We esteem not him that we do not mind, we value not him that we do not, with the weight of our souls, intently lean upon. Not that any man is free from roving while the flesh cleaves to him. (The involuntary startings of the flesh, the involuntary injections of the devil, do not make us unworthy receivers. God regards the willingness of the spirit to affect us, and the weakness of the flesh to pity us. 'He knows our frame, that we are but dust,' and dust is apt to be removed with a blast of wind.) But when the reins are let loose to the headstrong flesh, when we pull it not in, but follow rather than resist the motions; it is then that we make light of the dignity of this