A treatise concerning the Lords Supper

Quest. 5. What if this were the last opportunity you should ever have to be at Gods Table, what preparation would you make then? If you were to do that which is of so great concernment, which you must never do more; If God from Heaven should call to you the night before, and say, Now look well to the frame of your heart, that you go with care, and eat in Faith, and come away with profit, for you shall never receive more; would you then be so slight as now you are? Why, how do you know you shall? Are you not Mortal; And have you not seen some at one time at a Sacrament that were dead and in their Graves, and their Souls in Heaven or in He•• before the next? Hath God given you a Leas• of your life? Or hath he told you when you have one opportunity, that he will give to you another? Come then every time as you would do if you were sure it were your last, as you are not sure but it may be indeed your last.

Quest. 6 What if you were to go from the Sacramental board to Gods Bar, from his Table to his Tribunal, what preparation would you make then? If God should from Heaven tell you, The same day you do receive, the same day I will judge you, the same day I will require an account of you, how you came, and why you came, and whether you did eat in faith, and drink in faith, and do all as one that did believe a Judgment, and a life to come; why this may be your case, and thus God might ⟨p. 67⟩deal with you, and how if he should, after you have come unpreparedly?

Quest. 7. What if you had been then present under the Cross of Christ, when he was crucified, and seen his Wounds, and heard his dying groans, and were then to come to commemorate this Death of Christ, what preparation would you have made then? What if you had seen your Lord sweating drops of Blood in a cold season, and seen the Thorns upon his head, the Spear thrust into his side, that you might have a window to look into his heart, to see how he hath loved you, and seen the Nails in his hands and feet; and were, after such a sight as this, to come unto this Table, with what affection would you then come? Why, all this is really represented to you in this Ordinance, and should be as certainly believed, as if you had with your eyes beheld it done. What affections do some discover in beholding the execution of a common Malefactor? And shall not we before-hand endeavour to raise our affections when we are to come to see the Crucifixion of our dearest Lord?