Supposing we derived no benefit to ourselves from this Sacrament, as the means of grace, what heart that is not dead to every virtuous feeling, could refuse to comply with this command, as a mere act of gratitude to such a Saviour! to Him, who was moved with such compassion for the sons of men, as to leave the glories of Heaven, and to take our nature upon him, to make satisfaction in that nature for our sins? It was at that awful moment, when, as Man, his soul was exceedingly sorrowful, on account of the heavy burden of our sins, then lying upon him, that our dying Saviour graciously bequeathed this holy ordinance, to distinguish all his faithful followers, requiring them and all, who expect any benefit from his death, to commemorate it after the manner which he has ordained. When it is recollected, that all this happened the very night before our gracious and affectionate Redeemer was bruised for our iniquities, and expired upon the cross for our transgressions, can any Christian profess that he loves his Saviour, and that he is grateful for his bitter sufferings, and yet wantonly and continually turn his back upon this sacred feast, instituted at a time and under circumstances so peculiarly affecting?
But as I am addressing one, who professes to be a Christian, I expect to be told, that you know that Christ has given this command, that you are assured of the benefits to be derived from obedience, and aware of the punishment denounced against disobedience. If you know all these things, do, my dear friend, consider, that to know what is right, and wilfully and repeatedly to err against that knowledge, is the very highest pitch of criminality: and let me conjure you also to remember, who it is that has said, that the servant who knew his Lord’s will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.
I am willing, however, to believe that you have hitherto been restrained from attending the holy altar, from an apprehension that your life has not been answerable to what you conceive it ought to be, in order to a worthy reception of the body and blood of Christ: and you stifle the suggestions of your conscience with flattering hopes, that you may live to be more worthy, and that you may yet have, after your course of life shall have become more conformable to the dictates of the Gospel, many opportunities of communicating.
This is the difficulty I undertook to obviate; and always supposing myself to be addressing a Christian, I think I shall find it no difficult task. Let us examine this matter, and begin with the hopes you have expressed, that you shall yet have many opportunities of worthily communicating. I trust that you will have many; but what will be the dreadful consequence, should you die before you have embraced any of those which have been presented to you, of giving this testimony of your obedience, love, and gratitude, and wholly destitute of those graces and blessings which the devout performance of this duty is so well calculated to produce and to secure? You must also, I should hope sorrowfully, recollect how many opportunities have already been graciously vouchsafed to you, how many invitations (at least twelve or fifteen in every year) [10] have been given, which you have hitherto neglected; and considering how much is to be done in a short time, for the attainment of heaven, the best of us have no opportunities to spare; for who can tell but the next may be the last afforded to us?
If the sacred rite now insisted upon, were merely commemorative of the death of our beloved and crucified Saviour, such a plea as this, must still subject those who urge it, to the charge of base ingratitude: but when it is considered, as it truly is, as the best means of grace bestowed by a merciful God upon a sinful world, the continued neglect of it must also brand us with the grossest stupidity, folly, and self-destruction.
As to the plea of unworthiness: are you therefore, because you are unworthy, as all are in many respects, to abstain altogether from receiving? Certainly not. You are commanded, having first considered the nature, object, and end of this holy Sacrament, to examine yourself, whether you are desirous to perform the will of God, and to render him an acceptable service; and so to communicate. If you thus consider it, you may have faults, you may fall into error; but this Sacrament is the appointed method, by which you may hope to obtain pardon for your faults, and grace to guard you against error for the time to come. If you say, you are a great sinner, and are afraid to come; I answer, Even the greatest sinner, if he is really sorry for the past, and intends to lead a new life, cannot any where expect to plead for mercy, through the merits of Christ, better than at his altar, and in the manner which he has graciously appointed. In short, he that cometh not at all, is in a no less dangerous state, than he who cometh unworthily; that is, who comes, resolving to continue in his sin; the former, because he uses not his best remedy against sin; the latter, because he abuses it; and both, while in that state, must fall short of the glory of God.
Now, observing, as I do, your great anxiety to do all the good to your fellow-creatures, that you have it in your power to perform; and believing that you thus act from no worldly or ostentatious motives, but in obedience to the will of God, the only true and solid principle of action in the breast of a sincere Christian; and observing also, that you attend the public services of religion, at least one day in a week; I am convinced that you cannot live in the habits of vice, or in the unrestrained indulgence of any wilful sin. If I am right, and you have only been subject to occasional lapses from a virtuous course of life, the effect of a sudden surprise, or violent temptation, that is the very reason why you should come to the Lord’s table; because if you earnestly desire to conquer that vice, whatever it be, which most easily besets you, and come with an honest heart, and sincere purposes of amendment; it is our comfort, in the midst of our imperfections, that our God expects no more from us, than he will enable us to perform; and that even as a father pitieth his own children, so will the Lord be merciful unto them that fear him; for he knoweth whereof we are made, he remembereth that we are but dust. [13a] But while he is thus merciful and gracious, he does expect this; that we be sincere in what we profess, and that we go to him for help by those ways and ordinances, which he has mercifully vouchsafed to afford us, as our comfort in this life, and our guide to everlasting happiness. Still, I hear you persist in expressing your fears, lest, after having received this blessed food, you should relapse into sin. Probably you may; and so have the best of men that have lived before you. But I am convinced of this (supposing you not to be an habitual sinner), that the oftener you attend this holy Sacrament, purposing to amend your life, and to walk from thenceforth in God’s holy ways, though you should still occasionally fall, the less and less frequent will those relapses be, till they altogether cease; [13b] and be assured, that he who, with pious diffidence, forces himself, as it were, to approach that table in obedience to God’s will, and because he finds that, without it, he is unable to cleanse his way, is better prepared than he is aware of. Come unto me all ye that travail, and are heavy laden (with the burden of your sins), and I will give you rest, [14] is Christ’s gracious invitation and promise to sinners. And if you desire to be relieved from such occasional relapses, you ought, undoubtedly, to obey this merciful call; for the denunciations against the unworthy reception of this Sacrament, apply to those, who, at the moment of receiving, not only have not forsaken their sins, but are continuing in the wilful and habitual commission of known sins.
But another argument on this subject overpowers me with its weight; and I trust, my dear friend, it will produce a similar effect on you. I know you would be greatly shocked, as I should be, to be told, that we were unfit to approach our Maker, in the ordinary devotions of the closet, or to join our fellow Christians in the daily service of the church. And yet it is your duty and mine to consider (what is most certainly true), that every act of religion, whether public or private, requires the same dispositions of mind, namely, repentance of past sins, and purposes of future amendment, as the celebration of the Sacrament. No man is fit to approach the throne of God in that divine form of prayer which Christ himself hath taught us, or in any other, if he is then living in habitual violation of his laws; for that is to pray with his lips, while his heart is far from God; and this we know is declared to be mockery in his sight. Praying unworthily, that is, without reverence and godly fear, and whilst we live in the love and habitual indulgence of any known and deliberate sin, will be equally offensive to the eye of spotless Purity, as unworthily communicating. If this reflection were duly attended to, men would discover, that the common excuses alleged for non-attendance at the altar, if pursued through all their consequences, would necessarily lead to the casting off every branch of social and private worship. [15] Do not imagine that I seek to depreciate this sacred ordinance, or to lessen the reverence due to it; for I readily admit, that whoever is determined to indulge in the practice of known sins, and to persevere in a wicked course of life, ought not to come to the table of the Lord: but I most earnestly entreat you (if you are such a one, as I trust you are not) to consider the danger of your state: to such a one I say, If you are not fit to receive the Sacrament, you are not fit to pray; and, oh horrible thought! you are not fit to die. So far am I from depreciating this blessed institution, that I wish it to be universally regarded, and resorted to by all Christians, as the best means of grace, and a pledge to assure us of God’s favour to his people: but I am also desirous to convince you, that reverence and respect are equally required, and a general good life and virtuous conduct are no less essential to the right performance of those ordinary duties of prayer and praise, which by too many are performed in compliance with custom, and regarded as mere matters of course; whereas there is not one of these duties, the due performance of which (I repeat this idea for its importance) does not require the same sorrow for past sins, the same steadfast purposes of amendment, the same faith in Christ, and the same charity to men, as communicating at the holy table. No man is, or can be, accepted by God, in the performance of any of these duties, who is not fit to come to the other. No man, who has a just sense of the nature of this holy Sacrament, who has sincerely repented of his past sins, who is desirous of leading a good life, and in general does so, can ever be unprepared for the Lord’s Supper; no man, who leads a bad life, can ever come properly prepared to that, or to any other Christian ordinance whatever. As to previous, special preparation, this is all well, and ought never to be omitted, where men have opportunities for it; and it is quite clear that we cannot take too much pains in self-examination, or in raising our affections to God. But to think that by these preparations alone we are, and that without them we cannot be prepared, is a grievous and dangerous error. Even our preparatory, or our ordinary prayers, if we hold fast any darling sin, or adhere to any habitual vice, are an abomination and a mockery of God. Prayers, when added to a general good life, are, indeed, an admirable preparation; and nothing can be depended upon as a security against vice, but a frequent and reverent reception of the Holy Sacrament, and endeavouring to live every day, as if we were daily to communicate. This is the true, this is the only preparation; and he that with such impressions communicates, though at a minute’s warning, will never be rejected by Him, who was touched with a feeling of our infirmities. On the contrary, such a man will find this holy rite to be, what its all-bountiful Author intended it should be to all faithful Christians, a support and a comfort in every situation of life; it will confirm his faith and good resolutions, elevate his hopes, and increase his charity; it will bring to his mind assurances of forgiveness and acceptance, in that tremendous hour, when we are taught most earnestly to pray that no pains of death may make us fall from God: it will enable him to support those pains with Christian fortitude, because he will feel that they are to be his introduction to eternal joy.
A great master in the art of holy living, the most excellent and pious Bishop Jeremy Taylor, has, in so pointed and convincing a manner, enforced this duty upon all descriptions of Christians, and his reasoning so strongly confirms what I have already advanced, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of transcribing the passage.
“All Christian people must come to this holy supper. They, indeed, that are in a state of sin must not come so, but yet they must come; first, they must quit their state of death, and then partake of the bread of life. They that are at enmity with their neighbours must come, that is no excuse for their not coming; only they must not bring their enmity along with them, but leave it, and then come. They that have a variety of secular employments must come; only they must leave their secular thoughts and affections behind them, and then come and converse with God. If any man be well grown in grace, he must needs come; because he is excellently disposed to so holy a feast: but he that is but in the infancy of piety had need to come, that so he may grow in grace. The strong must come, lest they become weak; and the weak, that they may become strong. The sick must come to be cured, the healthful to be preserved. They that have leisure must come, because they have no excuse; they that have no leisure must come hither, that by so excellent an act of religion they may sanctify their business. The penitent sinners must come, that they may be justified; and they that are justified, that they may be justified still.” [19]