The Communicant's Companion (continued)
say, ye will not come? When ye should return to God, will you excuse yourselves, and say, you are not ready? Consider earnestly with yourselves, how little such feigned excuses will avail before God. They that refused the feast in the gospel, because they had bought a farm, or would try their yokes of oxen, or because they were married, were not so excused, but counted unworthy of the heavenly feast."
2. Consider what an injury you hereby do to your own souls. You know not what you lose while you live in the neglect of this ordinance. If you be deprived of opportunities for it, that is an affliction, but not a sin; and, in such a case, while you lament the want of it, and keep up desires after it, and improve the other helps yon have, you may expect that God will make up the want some other way; though we are tied to ordinances, God is not: but if you have opportunities for it, and yet neglect it, and when it is to be administered, turn your back upon it, you serve your souls as you would not serve your bodies; for you deny them their necessary food, and the soul that is starved is as certainly murdered as the body that is stabbed, and his blood shall be required at thy hands. "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it;" yet thou deniest thine own soul that which would nourish and cherish it, and thereby showest how little thou lovest it.
If thou didst duly attend on this ordinance, and improve it aright, thou wouldst find it of unspeakable use to thee for the strengthening of thy faith, the exciting of holy affections in thee, and thy furtherance in every good word and work. So that to thy neglect of it, thou hast reason to impute all thy weakness, and all the strength and prevalency of thy temptations; all the unsteadiness of thy resolutions, and all the unevenness of thy conversation.
How can we expect the desired end, while we persist in the neglect of the appointed means?
Think not to say within yourselves, We are not clean, surely we are not clean, therefore we come not to the feast. If you are not, why are you not? Is there not a fountain opened? Have you not been many a time called to wash you, and make you clean? You are not ready, and therefore you excuse yourselves from coming: but is not your unreadiness your sin, and will one sin justify you in another? Can a man's offence be his defense? You think you are not serious enough, nor devout enough, nor regular enough, in your conversations, to come to the sacrament; and perhaps you are not: but why are you not? What hinders you? Is any more required to fit you for the sacrament, than is necessary to fit you for heaven? And dare you live a day in that condition, in which, if you die, you will be rejected and excluded as unmeet for heaven? Be persuaded, therefore, to put on the weddinggarment, and then come to the wedding-feast. Instead of making your unreadiness an argument against coming to this ordinance, make the necessity of your coming to this ordinance an argument against your unreadiness. Say not, I am too light, airy, too much addicted to sports and pleasures; I am linked too close in vain and carnal company, or plunged too deep in worldly care and business, and therefore I must be excused from attending this ordinance; for this is to make ill worse: but rather say, It is necessary I come to the Lord's Supper, and come in a right manner; my soul withers and languishes, dies and perishes, if I do not; and therefore I must break off this vain and sensual course of life, which unfits me for and indisposes me to that ordinance; I must disentangle myself from that society, and disengage myself from that encumbrance, whatever it is, which cools pious affections, and quenches the coal. Shake off that, whatever it is, which comes between you and the comfort and benefit of this ordinance; trifle no longer in a matter of such vast moment, but speedily come to that resolution: "Depart from me, ye evil-doers, and evil doings; for I will keep the commandment of my God."
Let me address this exhortation to those whose desires are strong towards the Lord, and towards the remembrance of his name in this ordinance; but they are timorous, and are kept from it by prevailing fears. This is the case of many, who, we hope, "fear the Lord, and obey the voice of his servant, but they walk in darkness, and have no light;" who follow Christ, but they follow him trembling. Ask them why they do not come to this sacrament, and they will tell you they dare not come; they are unworthy, they have no faith, no comfort in God, no hope of heaven; and therefore, if they should come, they should "eat and drink judgment to themselves." They find not in themselves that fixedness of thought, the flame of pious and devout affections, which they think should be; and, because they cannot comers they should, they think it better to stay away. What is said for the conviction and terror of hypocrites and presumptuous sinners, notwithstanding our care to distinguish between the precious and the vile, they misapply to themselves: and so the heart of the righteous is made sad, which should not be made sad. We are commanded to "strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees; to say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong; fear not." But wherewith shall we comfort such, whose souls many times refuse to be comforted? If we tell them of the infinite mercy and goodness of God, the merit and righteousness of Christ, the precious promises of the covenant, their jealous hearts reply, All this is nothing to them; the Lord, they think, has forgotten them, their God has forsaken them, and utterly separated them from his people: "As vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart."
But O ye of little faith, who thus doubt, would you not be made whole?
Would you not be strengthened? Is it not a desirable thing to attain to such a peace and serenity of mind, as that you may come with an humble, holy boldness to this precious ordinance?
For your help, then, take these two cautions:—1. Judge not amiss concerning yourselves. As it is a damning mistake, common among the children of men, to think their spiritual state and condition to be good, when it is very bad; for "there is that maketh himself rich, and yet hath nothing,"—so it is a disquieting mistake, common among the children of God, to think their spiritual state and condition to be bad, when it is very good; for "there is that maketh himself poor, and yet hath great riches." But it is a mistake which, I hope, by the grace of God, may be rectified: and though a full assurance is rarely attained to, and we ought always to keep up a godly jealousy over ourselves, and a holy fear, lest we seem to come short; yet such good hope through grace, as will enable us to rejoice in God, and go on cheerfully in our work and duty, is what we should aim at, and labor after, and of which we ought not to deny ourselves the comfort, when God by his grace has given us cause for it: wherever there is such a serious concern about the soul and another world, as produces a holy fear, even that gives ground for a lively hope.
You think you have no grace, because you are not yet perfect; but why should you look for that on earth, which is to be had in heaven only? A child will at length be a man, though as yet he "think as a child, and speak as a child." Blessed Paul himself had not yet attained, nor was already perfect. Gold in the ore is truly valuable, though it be not yet re. fined from its dross. "Despise not the day of small things," for God does not. Deny not