This is the difficulty I undertook to obviate; and always supposing myself to be addressing a Christian, I think I shall find it no difficult task. Let us examine this matter, and begin with the hopes you have expressed, that you shall yet have many opportunities of worthily communicating. I trust that you will have many; but what will be the dreadful consequence, should you die before you have embraced any of those which have been presented to you, of giving this testimony of your obedience, love, and gratitude, and wholly destitute of those graces and blessings which the devout performance of this duty is so well calculated to produce and to secure? You must also, I should hope _sorrowfully_, recollect how many opportunities have already been graciously vouchsafed to you, how many invitations (at least twelve or fifteen in every year) {10} have been given, which you have hitherto neglected; and considering how much is to be done in a short time, for the attainment of heaven, the best of us have no opportunities to spare; for who can tell but the _next_ may be the _last_ afforded to us? If the sacred rite now insisted upon, were merely commemorative of the death of our beloved and crucified Saviour, such a plea as this, must still subject those who urge it, to the charge of base ingratitude: but when it is considered, as it truly is, as the best means of grace bestowed by a merciful God upon a sinful world, the continued neglect of it must also brand us with the grossest stupidity, folly, and self-destruction. As to the plea of unworthiness: are you therefore, because you are unworthy, as all are in many respects, to abstain altogether from receiving? Certainly not. You are commanded, having first considered the nature, object, and end of this holy Sacrament, to _examine_ yourself, whether you are desirous to perform the will of God, and to render him an acceptable service; and _so_ to communicate. If you thus consider it, you _may have_ faults, you _may_ fall into error; but this Sacrament is _the appointed __method_, by which you may hope to obtain pardon for your faults, and grace to guard you against error for the time to come. If you say, you are a great sinner, and are afraid to come; I answer, Even the greatest sinner, _if he is really sorry for the past_, _and intends to lead a new life_, cannot any where expect to plead for mercy, through the merits of Christ, better than at his altar, and in the manner which he has graciously appointed. In short, he that _cometh not_ at all, is in a no less dangerous state, than he who cometh _unworthily_; that is, who comes, _resolving to continue_ in his sin; the former, _because he uses not_ his best remedy against sin; the latter, because _he abuses it_; and both, while in that state, must fall short of the glory of God.