1. That the communicant may eat and drink. "Examine, and so let him eat." He is not to examine in order to justify his stopping away.
2. That he may know that the responsibility rests with himself. The examination is not by priest or minister; he examines himself.
3. That he may communicate solemnly and not come to the table carelessly as a matter of course. He is to make heartsearching inquiry and so approach the table with self-humiliation.
4. That he may come to the table intelligently, knowing to what he comes, and why, and wherefore.
5. That he may do so with appreciative confidence and joy. After examination, he will know his right to come and feel at ease.

• Have I life? The dead sit not at banquets.


• Have I appetite? Else how can I eat?


• Have I a friendship toward the Lord who is the Host?


• Have I put on the wedding garment?

• Have I faith in his death?


• Do I live by his death?

• Is this eating a symbol of a fact, or is it a mere mockery?


• Is Jesus really and truly the food of my soul?

• Am I truly one of his people, and one with them?


• Am I dwelling in love with them all?

• Am I in covenant with God in Christ Jesus?


• Do I rest in that covenant for all my hopes?

• Can I remember Christ, or am I attempting a vain thing?


• Do I know him? How else can I remember him?


• Are my past dealings with him such as I wish to remember?


• Is he so loved by me that I wish to bear him in my memory?

• Not to neglect communion, or postpone it, or go away trembling from the table; but to partake reverently.

• This is specially commanded. Hence, we cannot go to popish mass where there is no cup.

3. To eat and drink so as to discern the Lord's body, having the mind awake to see Jesus symbolized in this ordinance.
4. To give thanks unto the Lord for so great a privilege. Twice did our Lord give thanks during the Supper, and at the close he sang. It is not a funeral, but a festival.

Ye who have come to this table heedlessly, repent of your wicked intrusion, and keep away till ye can come aright.

Ye who have never come at all, remember, if you are not fit for the communion below, you are not fit for heaven above.

All of you, bethink yourselves of Jesus, and having examined yourselves to your humbling, behold him to your consolation.

The three questions which Philip Henry advised people to put to themselves in self-examination before the sacrament were, What am I? What have I done? and, What do I want? — John Whitecross

It is every man's duty solemnly and seriously to examine himself about his interest in Christ, his habitual grace, his actual right and fitness for the Lord's Supper before his approach to it. It is not said as to the first time of our partaking, but as to every time, "so let him eat." Now, the second and third time, as well as before, we are so to eat. Great preparations are necessary for great duties. The particle so bars men from coming without this previous work of examination. Let a man come only in such a manner; if he neglects this self-examination, let him not venture upon this great mystery. Thus, "I will wash my hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O Lord" (Ps. 26:6), alluding to the ancient custom of testifying the purity of their souls by the cleansing of their hands or to the washings used before sacrifices. If we take the gloss of Ambrose, it will read, "I will with a purity of heart embrace the Messiah, signified both by the altar and sacrifice. "So will I compass thy altar." Without such an inward purification, I dare not presume upon an approach unto it. — Stephen Charnock

The duty required for preventing the sin and danger of unworthy communicating is the great and necessary duty of self-examination. It is a metaphor taken from goldsmiths, who try the truth of their gold by the touchstone, the purity of their gold by the fire, and the weight of it by the scale. We have here: I. The person examining: "Let a men examine:" II. The person examined; it is "himself"; he is to call himself to the bar of conscience and to put questions to himself. (1) Concerning his state, whether he has a right to come or not. (2) His sins and shortcomings. (3) His wants and necessities. (4) His ends and designs; whether it be to obey the charge of his dying Savior, to show forth his death, renew and seal his covenant with God, get nearness and communion with him, nourishment to his soul, and supply to his wants. And (5) concerning his graces and qualifications, particularly as to knowledge, faith, repentance, fear, love, thankfulness, holy desires, and new obedience. — John Willison

Yet, no word of lamentation is used. It is not said that they have perished or passed into the land of shades, but that "they are fallen asleep."

"Fallen asleep" suggests a very different idea from that which distressed the minds of the heathen when they thought of death.

• It is the fit ending of a weary day.


• It is not painful, but the end of pain.


• It is so desirable that, if denied, we should pray for it.


• It is most sweet when the place of our sleep is Jesus.

• Neither sleep nor death destroys existence nor even injures it.


• Neither sleep nor death should be viewed as an evil.

• We shall awake from this sleep.


• We shall awake without difficulty.


• We shall arise greatly refreshed.

• Did we value their living presence, work, and testimony?


• Ought we not to be more kind to those who are yet alive?

• Should we not fill their vacant places?


• Should we not profit by their examples?

• Is our house in order?


• Is our heart in order?


• Is our Christian work in order?

4. How much better that the faithful should fall asleep than that the wicked should die in their sins!
5. How patiently should we bear up under the labors and sufferings of the day, since there remaineth a rest for the people of God!

1. The sleepers are yet ours, even as those in the house who are asleep are numbered with the rest of the inhabitants.

• They have the same life in them which dwells in us.


• They are part of the same family. "We are seven."


• They make up one church. "One church above, beneath."

• Their Father's voice will arouse them.


• They shall be awake indeed, full of health and energy.


• They shall have new clothes to dress in.


• They shall not again fall asleep.

• Sleep does not destroy the love of brothers and sisters now.


• We shall arise as one unbroken family, saved in the Lord.

A pious Scotch minister being asked by a friend during his last illness whether he thought himself dying, answered: "Really, friend, I care not whether

God's finger touched him, and he slept. — Tennyson

S.T. Coleridge speaking of a dear friend's death, said, "It is recovery, and not death. Blessed are they that sleep in the Lord; his life is hidden in Christ. In his Redeemer's life, it is hidden, and in his glory will it be disclosed. Physiologists hold that it is during sleep chiefly that we grow. What may we not hope of such a sleep in such a bosom?"

There must be life in Christ before death can become sleep in him. "Louis, the beloved, sleeps in the Lord," said the priest who announced the death of Louis the Fifteenth. "If," was Thomas Carlyle's stern comment, "if such a mass of laziness and lust sleeps in the Lord, who, think you, sleeps elsewhere?"

He was much tried, but he was in a grateful and cheerful humor, for he wrote of most comfortable things.

• So as to gratify Satan by murmuring, or


• So as to kill his own soul with despair.

2. It prophesies that God will send to him speedy deliverance's to call forth new praises. It is natural to lend more to a man when the interest on what he has is duly paid.

• Never did man bless God but sooner or later God blessed him.

• It takes the mind off. from present trouble.


• It lifts the heart to heavenly thoughts and considerations.


• It gives a taste of heaven, for heaven largely consists in adoring and blessing God.


• It destroys distress by bringing God upon the scene.

1. God personally condescends to comfort the saints.
2. God habitually does this. He has always been near to comfort us in all past time, never once leaving us alone.
3. God effectually does this. He has always been able to comfort us in all tribulation. No trial has baffled his skill.
4. God everlastingly does this. He will comfort us to the end, for he is "the God of all comfort," and he cannot change.

1. To make us comforters of others. The Lord aims at this: the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, trains us up to be comforters. There is great need for this holy service in this sin-smitten world.

2. To make us comforters on a large scale. "To comfort them which are in any trouble." We are to be conversant with all kinds of grief and ready to sympathize with all sufferers.

3. To make us experts in consolation, "able to comfort;' because of our own experience of divine comfort.

4. To make us willing and sympathetic so that we may through personal experience instinctively care for the state of others.

Music is sweetest near or over rivers where the echo thereof is best rebounded by the water. Praise for pensiveness, thanks for tears, and blessing God over the floods of affliction make the most melodious music in the ear of heaven. — Thomas Fuller

Away over in India a poor native woman, like Naomi, "was left of her two sons." She did not, perhaps, know enough to think about God at all in her grief, but she would take no comfort. To everything that could be said, she had one answer: "I had but two, and they are both gone."

Day after day she pined and fretted, going listlessly about, her life "empty" of all but a blank despair. One morning, as she wandered here and there among the people of the mission, one of them again remonstrated; but the poor thing gave her old reply: "I had but two, and they are both gone." "Look," said the worker, turning and pointing towards a group near by where a white lady of the mission stood directing some dusky natives. "Do you see her?" The woman looked and saw a sweet, pale face; patient, gentle, glad, as clear as a sky washed blue with storms, but wearing that unmistakable look which tells that storms have been. "Yes," she said, "I see her." "Well," said the other, "she has lost her sons, too!"

The poor native mother gazed for a minute spell-bound; then she sprang towards her. "Oh, lady!" she cried, "did you have two sons and are they both gone?"

"And mine are both gone," said the white lady, clasping the hands of her poor sister in sorrow. "But Jesus took them; and they are with Jesus, and Jesus is with me. And by-and-by I shall have them again."

From that hour the native woman sat at her white sister's feet, followed her about, hung on her words, and from her would take comfort, "the comfort wherewith she herself was comforted of God." — From "What Aileth Thee?"

He would put off a meditated journey rather than leave a poor parishioner who required his services. From his knowledge of human nature, he was able, and in a remarkable manner, to throw himself into the circumstances of those who needed his help. No sympathy was like his. — Chambers, on George Crabbe