6. If an unworthy receiver be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, a
grace of the Spirit, and the want of a due value of the mediation of Christ.
3. The sins of those that draw nearest to God are the blackest. Never was anything termed a guilt of the body and blood of Christ but the Jews' wickedness in crucifying, men's apostasy in denying him after knowledge, and the abuse of this ordinance, and that not only in the unregenerate Corinthians, but in the best that were guilty of those miscarriages; he taxeth whosoever eats and drinks unworthily. An universal particle.
4. The ground of our mischief is always in ourselves. It is not from the emptiness of the ordinance, that is a full cistern; nor from the shortness of God's grace, he is an overflowing fountain; but from want of those graces, or of exercising those graces, which are the bucket to draw and the mouth to drink. The plantain is not poisonous in its nature, but the venomous nature of the toad turns it into poison. Misery ariseth not from the insufficiency of the sacrament, but the unworthiness of the receiver. That judgment is conveyed to one, when grace is conveyed to another, is our own fault.
The door is open, but unbelief pulls to the door and locks it. The miseries rained down upon us are but the ascended vapours of our own sin. Christ hath an hand to reach the benefit to us upon our worthiness, and a hand to inflict the punishment on us upon our abuse; he makes himself a feast for the believer's faith, but the unbeliever makes himself a feast for the Redeemer's wrath.
5. We see here the base nature of sin. It changeth the brightest ordinances, makes the waters of the sanctuary bitter, turns food into poison, and a cup of salvation into one of damnation. We frustrate
God's expectations when he looks for fruit; then it is just he should frustrate ours when we look for food.
6. If an unworthy receiver be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, a worthy receiver hath a special interest in the body and blood of Christ. He hath as much advantage thereby as the other hath guilt.