John Willison

“ Whatever be wanting, love must not be wanting; for love is the spring that moveth all the graces, faith, repentance, delighit, &c. An extended Saviour requires an enlarged heart: and nothing is more becoming than that love should be recompenced with love, O sinner here you may see God bringing his Son from heaven to earth, from the earth to the cross, from the cross to the grave, and pouring out his blood to keep us from bleeding. Remember that without love there is no worthy communicating, so benefit by the sacrament, no communication with God John 14. ”

“ It is our sins that have done all: O cursed sin! If ye would not be unworthy communicants, ye should come here with a great mourning for sin, for all your by past sins, and for your breaches of vows since the last sacrament, for crucifying Christ over again, and causing his wounds to bleed afresh O is your heart whole and hard, go home and regrete it, and cry to God, That you are afraid of unworthy communicating, and darest not approach his table with such a heart. ”

“ This ordinance is a contract betwixt God and sinners: you can never go about it worthily, unleses you understand the nature of the covenant and the terns of which you engage: you must know yourselves to be poor and naked, sick and wounded, under the curse of the law, the corruption of sin, and the pomer of Satan, and Christ's fitness and suitableness to recover and help you, otherways you cannot discern the Lord's body aright. ”

“ The occasion whereat unworthy communicants crucify Christ makes it a heinous guilt: it is while he is displaying a banner of love to you; it is while he is making a rich feast for you, yea, and offering his flesh and blood to save your poor souls from perishing. ”

“ The sin itself proposed Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthiness:——i. e Whatever man approaches Christ's table, and partakes of these sacred symbolsof Christ's body and blood, having an irreverent, irreligious, unworthy and unsuitable carriage of heart, is guilty of a great crime, as reflecting not on the elements themselves, but vilipending that which they represent. ”

“ Would it not be counted a horrid monstruous crime, in a poor beggar, who is lying starving by the way side, if some hospital man should be moved with compassion to him and take him in, and make a great feast for him, and in the mean time, while he is entertaining him, and beseeching him to eat heartily, that he should stab the master at the feast! ”

“ It is to communicate with loose wandering hearts, that are thinking on the world when they should be fixed on Christ's dying. Will any venture to come here and sit down to-morrow with the world in their hearts, and their thoughts roving about it, and not to much as give any notice to Christ's dying groans, more than it were the death of some East-India prince they were hearing of. ”

“ But, positively unworthy communicating at Christ's table, is, I When a person communicates more for custom than for conscience sake; when men come to the table of the land because it is the fashion of the country where they live because all their neighbours do so, and they must go along with them for company's sake and that it would not be lucky for them if they got not their sacrament with their neighbours ”

“ O remember what became of the most unworthy communicant, (if Judas was one) : he was immediately given up to the possesion of the devil, who entered into him with the sup. If the devil were let loose, what havok would he make aamong unworthy communicants? He would soon revenge the blood of Christ, and make the communiion table a Golgotha. O sinners, will you be guilty of shedding the blood of a dear Saviour, who is longing to save you; will you offer to make a new attempt on his life? If you dare be so barbarous, (illegible text) you, heaven and earth will be a witness against you ”

“ When a person conmmunicates without understanding his necessity of Christ, and the nature and ends of this ordinance; when a pesson knows not the need of a Redeemer to recoyer him out of his ruined natural state, or of his blood to cleanse and heal his wounds, and his righteousness to cover his nakedness. ”

“ This unworthiness respects not the person of the receiver so much as the manner of his receiving: the apostle speaks not of a worthiness of the person, but a worthiness of the action; for he says not, Whatsoever unworthy person eats, &c for then he had excluded every man, for we are all unworthy. Moreover, the apostle words it thus, to be a caveat even to believers, and regenerate as well as natural persons, that people do not partake of the Lord's super either in an unworthy state or unworthy frame. ”

“ This was a greater evidence of the inexorableness of his justice, than if he had forbid the whole world full of men and angels into hell Therefore, when we approach to eat and to drink at the table of the Lord, we should be filled with a reverential adoration of the justice of God, and also of his purity, and of his all seeing and piercing eye that is beholding us at the time of communicating. If men had the recent impressions of this, would they eat and drink so unconcernedly and irreverently? ”

“ It is to communicate without any thankfulness of heart, or wondering at redeeming love. If we would communicate worthily, our hearts should ascend, like Manoah's angel, in the smoke of thanksgiving and elevation of fpirit Judg. 19 20 we should have the high praises of God in our mouths, and be inviting the angels and all creation to assist in praising him. ”

“ Therefore come humbly and mournfully acknowledging that all these all these strokes that were laid on Christ were due to us, and that the tragedy that was acted on him should have been acted on us: we should have been the mark of all the arrows of God's vengeacce; it is on us that all the vials of wrath should have been poured out. ”

“ I. What we are to understand by unworthy communicating.
II. Wherein consists the guilt and danger of it.
1. As the the first, negatively, I. The want of perfect purity and spotless or untained holiness does not make a person an unworthy communicant if these imperfections be regreted and mourned over: for what mortal can say that he has cleansed his heart, and that he is pure from sin? ”