The Eighty-Seventh Sacrament, July 3, 1737

Few days of my life have been crowned with greater mercies than this, if I may reckon the preservation of my wife, the birth of a child, and, what is infinitely more than either, the communication of the most delightful consolations of God’s presence, in the number of mercies.

I was much indisposed in the morning, yet not altogether without suitable supplies of strength and comfort. This evening I attended the Lord’s table, and introduced the ordinance with those words of Christ. “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed;” John vi. 55., which in a literal sense would be perfectly absurd, but in a spiritual, contain the most excellent and important truths. Christ speaks of objects as appearing in the light, not of sense, but of faith; and, therefore, represents all other kinds of meat and drink as nothing when compared with this. It is the most excellent meat and drink. A man had better want any kind of food than this. Does it appear thus welcome to us? Let us bless God that he gives us this lood, and that he gives us that communication of his Spirit whereby we should be engaged to feed upon it with delight. Do we owe our thanks to God for our daily bread? How much more, then, for this! What if we had been present, and almost dying with a parching thirst, when Moses brought water from the rock, would not that miracle have affected us? It would have became us to have owned the Divine goodness in that respect; but O how much more in the present! Imagine yourselves standing around the rock. How would it have impressed you, that God should have given you that drink! much more may this. Nor is the way less wonderful of obtaining this drink that revives the soul. It was more probable he should thus have smitten the rock, than that he should have smitten his own Son! Who would at such a cost have manifested his love? Would we have fed a perishing friend with our flesh? should we part even with a limb, it would be great proof of love. Would we open the vital sluice of our blood to give him drink? Perhaps we might; but for whom? Surely, only for one of a thousand, and that the dearest and most amiable creature. But Christ did this for us, when we were enemies, and rebels, and that he might give life to our souls, and that we might not die. Yet our fathers are dead that ate this bread, as well as those that ate the manna in the wilderness. True. But yet they all live to God; and the last day will make it appear that the blood of Christ has not lost its efficacy with regard to any one of them.

In breaking the bread, I spoke of the pleasure of meeting Christ. When a friend has done us a kind office, we rejoice to thank him; but O, what are all the kind offices of our earthly friends to those that we receive from Christ! Let us thank him, let us adore his goodness. O blessed day, when we shall see him! Nay, but even now we may do it as well. We ourselves, and all our sentiments and actions, are now as open to the eye and observation of Christ as they will ever be; let us, then, lift up our hearts immediately to him, and breathe out all the grateful sentiments of our souls before him.

At taking the cup, I observed, There is somethinor movinsf in the sigrht of human blood, but how much more so if it were the blood of a friend who had been slain by treachery and cruelty! And did we come to the place, and see his blood lying there, would it not penetrate our hearts? We should perhaps, in a transport of tenderness, dip our hankerchief in the precious remains, and bequeath it as a sacred legacy to our children. But here is the blood of Christ! Ought it not to be dearer, infinitely dearer?