Practical truths tending to promote the power of godliness

3. Exercise Grace in the time of Receiving.

A man that is asleep is a living man, yet he is not sit to eat and drink until he be awake, so must true Believers stir up and awake their Graces, or they are not fit to eat and drink at the Lords Table. Sometimes the godly do (in a great measure) lose the benefit of this Ordinance, because they do not exercise grace at the time of Receiving as they ought to do. Therefore he sure then to exercise Faith. As thou dost receive the Bread, and receive the Cup, let thy Soul at the same moment, put forth a renewed act of Faith in closing with, and taking hold on the Lord Jesus Christ: By an act of Faith appropriate Christ to thy self; and his blood with the merit and efficacy of it to thy Soul in particular, believing that thy Sins shall be pardoned, and the Plagues of thy heart mortified thereby. Also, the Grace of Repentance should be exercised at ⟨p. 156⟩the time of Receiving. Whenever we look upon a Crucified Saviour, our hearts within us, should mourn and bleed, because our sins have pierced him. Zech. 12.10. And indeed, if it be not so, we discern not the Lords Body. The Corinthians came with a light frame of Spirit to the Lords Supper; therefore are they charged with not discerning the Lords Body. Had they been aware of a broken and a bleeding Christ before them; another manner of spirit would have been seen in them. If a Child be vain and merry when his Father lieth dead in the room before him, we say, he discerneth not, what an object is before him. So if men do not bring a broken heart, to a broken Christ; it is a sign that they discern not the Lords Body. Tears of Evangelical Repentance, become Christians when partaking at the Lords Supper.

A man that is asleep is a living man, yet he is not sit to eat and drink until he be awake, so must true Believers stir up and awake their Graces, or they are not fit to eat and drink at the Lords Table. Sometimes the godly do (in a great measure) lose the benefit of this Ordinance, because they do not exercisegrace at the time of Receiving as they ought to do. Therefore he sure then to exercise Faith. As thou dost receive the Bread, and receive the Cup, let thy Soul at the same moment, put forth a renewed act of Faith in closing with, and taking hold on the Lord Jesus Christ: By an act of Faith appropriate Christ to thy self; and his blood with the merit and efficacy of it to thy Soul in particular, believing that thy Sins shall be pardoned, and the Plagues of thy heart mortified thereby. Also, the Grace of Repentance should be exercised at