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In discoursing on the first of these observations; it is proposed, through divine aid, to point out,

1st. Some of these bars in the way of our attaining communion with Christ. 2d. Some of the distinguishing exercises of the Lord's people about such bars. We are first to point out some of the bars to our attaining communion with Christ.

The first and great bar is the natural heart against God and his revealed will.

enmity of our

Rom. viii. 7. The carnal mind," or as some render it "the wisdom of the flesh, is enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can be." This enmity in unrenewed men is like a great stone or dead weight, that keeps them from any real or sincere compliance, with the Lord's call or commands. If they seem to com ply on some selfish or carnal account, their compliance is partial; some part of the Lord's command being wilfully neglected. Such was the compliance of Saul with the divine command about the destruction of the Amalekites; whilst in contempt of that command he spared Agag. This enmity renders unrenewed men utterly impotent, and incapable of making any acceptable approach unto God. The remainders of this en mity in believers, are a great bar, or hindrance to their honest endeavours in seeking and serving him. Hereby they often find that they cannot do the things that they would. On account of this enmity, therefore, they may well cry out "Who shall roll us away the stone."

2. Ignorance is another great bar to our attainment of communion with Christ. Eccl. x. 15. "The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go up to the city." Sometimes persons are ignorant of the matter of their duty, or prejudiced against it; as Paul was before his conversion, with respect to the duty of confessing Christ. But many a poor soul has some knowledge of the matter of his duty, while he is in absolute darkness as to the right manner of performing it; that is, in the way of a single dependence on the righteousness of Christ for acceptance, and the strength of Christ for the perform-. ance.. "He knoweth not how to go to the city." This

darkness so far as it prevails in the Lord's people; is a great bar to their progress in his way, and a continual grief of heart to them. With regard to which they are still saying, Who shall roll us away the stone?

3. Unbelief is another great bar to our attainment of communion with Christ. He is set forth to us in the gospel as made of God into us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Unbelief holds him to be utterly unfit to answer these purposes. Unbelief treats the record of God concerning his Son, and concerning eternal life for us in him, as a cunningly devised fable; as a thing no way to be depended on for eternity. Unbelief shuts men up under their natural incapacity of any good thought, word or work; and so far as it prevails in the Lord's people, it incapacitates them for spiritual exercises; particularly, for partaking of the Lord's Supper, which will be unprofitable without that faith by which we feed upon Christ crucified; and therefore so far as it prevails, in the Lord's people, they will say concerning it: Who shall roll us arvay the stone?

4. Attachment to the world and the things of it, is a great bar to the attainment of communion with Christ in his ordinances. Many decline waiting on God in his ordinances, when they find, that the profits, pleasures or honours of this world are not to be had in that way. The case of such is represented in the parable of the Supper, Luke xiv. 17. He sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden come, for all things are now ready; And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground and I must need go and see it, I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to prove them, I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. With regard to worldly honour, we see how it hindered the Jews from believing in, and confessing Christ, John v. 44. How can ye believe which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour which cometh from God only. John xii. 42, 43. Among the chief rulers many believed on him

-but they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. There can be no sincere waiting on God, where the love of the world has the dominion: for says the apostle, Whoso loveth the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The world is the element of natural men; and therefore they delight in their inordinate attachment to it; but the remainder of that attachment in the Lord's people is their grief and burden; and as it is a principal hinderance to their exercise in seeking communion with Christ, they are still saying concerne ing this evil, Who shall roll us away the stone?

5. Another great bar to the attainment of comfortable communion with Christ, is a sense of guilt, and prevailing apprehensions of God's wrath. Men are naturally under the dominion of the guilt of sin. While the time of God's forbearance and of the outward favours of his providence continues, they usually get the thoughts of it diverted and their consciences kept quiet by the opinion of their own righteousness, and of the general. mercy of God. And though the native tendency of the truths which God has revealed in his word, be to break this false peace or quiet under the guilt of sin; yet the speculative or mere head knowledge and the outward profession of these truths, are often abused to the pro moting of this cursed and fatal delusion. To the same purpose natural men make use of duties, church privileges, good meanings and resolutions, legal convictions and sorrows. But when the Lord is pleased to make them feel the power and spirituality of his law in their consciences; all these schemes prove but mere cob. webs; they are soon swept away; their hope is then found to be as the giving up of the ghost; it ends, if sovereign mercy prevent not, in utter despair; as we see in the cases of Cain, and Judas. Oh, it is dangerousto hate convictions and awakenings of conscience.. Those who do so, who cannot bear to have their sin. and misery discovered to their conscience, have reason to fear; that, in a little, it will be awfully discovered, to their eternal confusion. As to the Lord's people, they have got their hearts reconciled to conviction. They are willing to have the worst of their case disco

*ered to them by the word and Spirit of God. They have seen the vanity of all other ways of relief from the guilt of sin, than that of the application of the blood of Jesus Christ. When they are enabled to the lively ex ercise of faith in his blood as that which cleanseth them from all sin; their consciences have a sweet and solid rest. In this divinely precious blood, they see the Lord's anger turned away from them; they see him pacified towards them for all that they have done.

But this faith is never without a conflict. There is still remaining unbelief, which often sadly prevails and deprives them of sensible comfort. In which case, they are filled with apprehensions of God's anger on account. of former iniquities, and feel much backwardness to the exercise of drawing near to God. Their sense of guilt is so great as to make them ready to cry out with Peter, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. They have a real knowledge that relief is to be had only by the blood of Christ: but their views of it are darkened by prevailing unbelief and other corruptions. So that nothing appears to sense; but great and crimsoned coloured guilt the sight of which makes their knees feeble and their hands hang down. They look upon their guilt as the greatest in the world, and they are saying, How shall we come to experience the benefit of the blood of Christ, in taking it away? Who shall roll us away the stone?

6. Another bar to the attainment of communion with Christ in his ordinances, particularly in the solemn ordinance of the Lord's Supper, is the difficulty of the right observation of it; the great danger of unworthy communicating. Those that rest in a form of godliness, find little difficulty in this or any other duty: they have their end, which is to get their consciences kept quiet by going the round of duties. The right manner of performing them in the sight of God, gives natural men little or no concern. But it is far otherwise with true Christians. They see, that, while they perform duties, in a carnal, unbelieving manner, they do so to the dis-honour of God and to the wounding, and hurt of their awn souls. They see, that they must have faith ex

ercised on the Lord Jesus as their righteousness and strength; they must have a supreme love to him; they must have gospel repentance, a broken and a contrite heart; they must not only have no particular prejudice or grudge against their brother; but they must have a real and hearty concern for his temporal and spiritual welfare, as for their own. They must have a cordial delight in the saints as belonging to Christ and bearing his image; they must have sanctuary preparation, for they are to seek the Lord after the due order. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. They see that, in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, they must have a real discerning of his body as the proper and life-giving food of their souls, which is a spiritual and supernatural attainment; otherwise they would be chargeable with the dreadful crime of unworthy communicating, and they would be really guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, as his crucifiers were in the days of his flesh. When the Lord's people thus consider the difficulty of the duty to which they are called; and the danger of mismanaging it, they will be under great and anxious concern, making them cry out, Who shall roll us away the stone?

7. Another bar in the way of communion with Christ in the ordinances of the Lords supper is the fear, that, if they should go forward to his holy table, and afterwards be so overcome by some corruptions or temptation as to prove a reproach to their holy profession it would be better that they had not engaged in such a solemn exercise. There is indeed a numerous generation of church members who have no such fear, but a great deal of confidence in their own wisdom and resolution, in their own righteousness, and in the manifold privileges and advantages they possess; so that they cannot see themselves to be in any danger; and yet it is often from this self-confident generation that religion receives its deepest wounds. But the Lord's people know by the word of God and by experience; that the heart is deceitful above all things, and that they are sur rounded with snares that are spread for them by satan and the world. Hence they see themselves to be in

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