Reformed consensus on 1 Cor 11:29 #2

Continuing from the previous post, we can demonstrate that the Westminster divines and a wide range of puritan authors held that 1 Cor 11:27, 29 and 32 indicate that unworthily partaking of the Supper would lead to chastisement but also damnation if not repented of.

In countering separatist arguments Samuel Rutherford said the following:

A worship corrupt by accident only through the fault of the worshipper, may and does make the Lord’s Supper damnation to the eater, and therefore the eater is forbidden so to eat. A worship in the matter and intrinsical principle unjust and sinful is defiled both to the man himself and to all that take part with him, as the teacher of false doctrine and all that hear and believe are defiled; but if the sin of an unworthy communicant even known to be so, is damnation to himself, and defiles the worship to others, then Paul would have said, he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh his own damnation, and the damnation of the whole church, and Paul should have forbidden all others to eat and drink withal, who communicates unworthily, if he allowed separation. But he says, he eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not to others.

David Dickson in his Commentary on 1 Corinthians makes it clear that the punishment of eating unworthily is "judgement, or temporal and eternal punishment, unless hee repent".

Richard Vines was one of the leading Presbyterians at the Westminster Assembly. He published A Treatise of the Institution, Right Administration, and Receiving of the Sacrament of the Lords-Supper. In this he deals extensively with the latter part of 1 Cor 11. Alluding to 1 Cor 11:29 and speaking of how Chrysostom says that just as bodily food can aggravate a disease albeit not in itself so the Lord's Supper may be the cause of spiritual death to the partaker yet not in itself, he says, "He that eats and drinks unworthily, eats damnation, drinks damnation to himself...So this Sacrament received by wicked men, aggravates their condemnation, not of it self, but through their unrepented sins" (p69).

That the Apostle in setting home the sin and danger of eating and drinking unworthily, speaks thundring and lightning in very pertinent, but yet new and unusual phrases, which...have no brother in any other part of Scripture, as guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, eating or drinking judgement or damnation, etc. full of terrour, and fit for compunction (p179)

The sin of receiving unworthily is largely insisted on in the following part of this Chapter, where the aggravation of this sin is shown by the special guilt that attends it, and that is a guiltiness of the Lords Body; by the particular cause of this guiltiness, Not discerning the Lords Body, by the judgement that Follows upon it, damnation or punishment; by the way of prevention of the sin, the guilt and judgement, and that is Self-examination, and Self-judging (p198)

Vines speaks of the danger of this sin of unworthily partaking. "'He eats and drinks judgement to himself'if he be a godly man that eats and drinks unworthily, or haply also damnation, if he be an hypocrite, for the word krima, may respectively extend to both. A strange phrase it is to eat and drink judgement, but it is allusive...as sure as he eats of the Bread and drinks of the Cup unworthily, so sure is judgement to follow thereupon, or to accompany it, for he eats judgement, but it is to himself, not to others, except they be partakers in his sin, which may be divers ways (p385)

We might also refer to Thomas Vincent's Explication of the Shorter Catechism, officially commended by a large array of the most eminent Puritan ministers of the time.

Q. 11. What is the sin of unworthy receiving the Lord's supper?
A. The sin of unworthy receiving the Lord's supper is, that such are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord; that is, they are guilty of an affront and indignity which they offer to the Lord's body and blood. "Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."— 1 Cor. 11:27.

Q. 12. What is the danger of our unworthy receiving the Lord's supper?
A. The danger of our unworthy receiving the Lord's supper, is the eating and drinking judgment to ourselves; that is, provoking the Lord, by our unworthy receiving, to inflict temporal, spiritual, and eternal judgments upon us. "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep."— 1 Cor. 11:29, 30.

Likewise John Flavel:
Q. 10. What is the danger of coming to the Lord’s table without these graces?
A. The danger is exceeding great both to soul and body. (1.) To the soul; 1 Corinthians 11:29. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, (2). And to the body; 1 Corinthians 11:30. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.

Jonathan Edwards writes, “Those who contemptuously treat those symbols of the body of Christ slain and
His blood shed, why, they make themselves guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, that is, of murdering Him."

James Fisher comments:

Q. 27. What risk do they run who omit to examine themselves as to the above graces, before they come to the Lord's table?

A. They run the risk of coming unworthily.

Q. 28. What is it to come unworthily?

A. It is to come without any real sense, or consciousness of the need that we stand in of Christ, as "of God made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," 1 Cor. 1:30.

Q. 29. What danger do they incur who thus come unworthily?

A. They eat and drink judgment to themselves, 1 Cor. 11:29.

Q. 30. In what sense can they who come unworthily, be said to eat and drink judgment to themselves?

A. In so far as by their eating and drinking unworthily, they do that which renders them obnoxious to the righteous judgment of God.

Q. 31. To what judgment do they render themselves obnoxious?

A. To temporal judgments, or afflictions of various kinds, in the present life; and to eternal judgment, or condemnation (if mercy prevent not) in the life to come, 1 Cor. 11:30, 32.

Joseph Woodward was a puritan minister in England settled at Dursley in Gloucestershire who declared his resolve to admit none to the Lord's Supper except those who had a credible profession.

A certain man obstinately said that he would not submit to examination and that if the minister would not give him the sacrament he would take it! In pursuance of this impious resolution, this man attended the church on sacrament day, but had scarcely set foot in the building before he fell dead, the Lord thus making clear to all the church members that the solemn admonitions addressed to the Church of the Corinthians by the apostle in the first Christian century were ageless in their solemn application.