Page:Preparation sermon, before receiving the Holy sacrament.pdf/13

 Chriſts traitors adieu for ever. You may as well profeſs openly Chriſt's table to-morrow your love to the nails that pierced him, and the ſpear that ran into his ſide, and adore them for ſuch an action, as come here with a love to theſe ſins which were more bitter to him than the nails and ſpear. The Jews or Romans had no more power over him, had it not been for our ſins: yea, I may ſay, this will exceed the ſin of the Jews in ſome reſpects; they crucified Chriſt ignorantly, but you wittingly, they reckoned him guilty and a blasphemer, but you do it to an innocent and your Redeemer; they did it in his ſtate of humiliation, while in the form of a ſervant, but you do it when he is exalted at his Father's right-hand. O tremble at ſuch aggravated guilt.

4. 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. 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! And will you come to Chriſt's table, where he has prepared all ſpiritual and heavenly dains for you, and in ſaying to you, Eat, О friends; drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved; and yet all ye cruelly ſtab and murder the Maſter of that bleſſed feaſt? Lord, ſave any of you from ſuch dreadful wickedneſs and barbarity. To be guilty of blood errible; but O what muſt it be to be guilty of t blood which is inconceivably more precious than the blood of all the kings or men that ever lived, more precious than the life of all angels and the sole creation!