The Fifty-Ninth Sacrament, May 4, 1735

I OPENED the ordinance with some meditations on these words: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” Eph. i. 3, 4. Let us bless God at all times, especially after such meditations as we have here been engaged in, that we, who were afar off, are brought nigh. This is fulfilled in this very approach to the Lord’s supper, where the blood of Christ, which brought us nigh, is in so peculiar a manner to be commemorated. We have reason to bless God, who herein has blessed us with all spiritual blessings. There is a chain, and a connexion; those who are blessed with one spiritual blessing are blessed with all, — and they are the blessings with which the Christian is most affected, because in themselves so noble; and because there is such a connexion between them and heavenly things; for whom he predestinated, he called, justified, and glorified. It is because he has chosen us in him, that all those favours are bestowed upon us. God does nothing without design; — “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world;” Acts xv. 18; and it is a pleasing thought, that we lay upon the heart of Christ before the world was. God gave us to him by the covenant of redemption, when he chose us. It was of his free grace that he chose us all in him; and whatever favour he proposed doing he did on his account; and this was that we might be not only morally virtuous, but holy, and religious, upon scriptural principles; and also that we might be without blame; cutting off occasion from those who might seek to speak evil of us, and of religion; and all this in love, which must be the principle of our obedience; — love to God, and love to each other. Love — the blessed abridgement of all piety, and which this ordinance has a most apparent tendency to promote.

In the prayer, we humbled ourselves deeply before God, reflecting, particularly, that we could not have believed on the last sacrament day, that we should thus have forsaken him before the return of this.

When we came to break the bread we observed, that God and the devil are represented as carrying on the work of bruising Christ, though with different aims and purposes — the one full of grace, the other of malignity. Here God took the cunning in his own craftiness, and “out of the eater came forth meat.” Instead of our being deterred from trusting in Christ by what he has suffered, we are engaged to trust in him the more. Blessed Lord, we commit ourselves to thee, who wast thus reviled to bring us to glory; and seek our lives from thee, who didst die.

Before filling the cup, I mentioned our having access to the most holy place by the blood of Christ; in token of which the veil of the temple, though thick with embroidery, was rent asunder. Let us, by faith, look inward to that which is within it, and draw nigh in a full assurance of faith. Surely, if we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, we may have some peculiar ardour when drawing near to God in this blessed and holy ordinance; and in this part of it, accordingly, the prayer was principally taken up in pleading promises of pardon, of sanctification, conduct, direction, support, and the imparting of every good thing, of perseverance, and glory; and afterwards I said, Why should we doubt of them? Because we are sinners? Those promises are, many of them, such that they could be made only to sinful creatures.

I know not when I have remembered our concerns as a church with more pleasure than at this ordinance. On the whole, it was a season of some comfort especially in the advance of it, though my mind was greatly distracted at the beginning. ]Iany acknowledged the presence of God with them in the duties of the day: may all the praise be ascribed to him.