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means our bodies grow to their full stature, and are then kept up in life, health, and vigour, though we ourselves know not how this is done, nor perhaps take any notice of it. So it is with this spiritual meat and drink, which God hath prepared for our souls. By eating and drinking frequently of it, we grow by degrees in grace, and in the "knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," and still continue steadfast and active in the true faith and fear of God; though after all, we may be no way sensible how this wonderful effect is wrought in us, but only as we find it to be so by our own experience. And if we do that, we have no cause to complain that we get nothing by it; for we get more than all the world is worth; being strengthened in the inward man, and so made more fit for the service of God, more constant in it, and more able to perform it; or at least are kept from falling back, and preserved from many sins and temptations, which otherwise we might be exposed to; and this surely is enough to make any one that really minds the good of his soul, to hunger and thirst after this Bread and Water of Life, and to eat and drink it as often as he can, although he do not presently feel the happy effect of it, as some have done, and as he himself sometimes may, when God seeth it necessary or convenient for him. In the meanwhile he may rest satisfied in his mind, that he is in the way that Christ hath made to Heaven; and thank God for giving him so many opportunities of partaking of Christ's Body and Blood, and also grace to lay hold of them, to improve them to his own unspeakable comfort, such as usually attends the worthy receiving of the Lord's Supper: whereby we are not only put in mind of the great Sacrifice which the Son of God offered for our sins, but likewise have it actually communicated unto us, for our pardon and reconciliation to the Almighty Governor of the world, which is the greatest comfort we can have on this side Heaven; so great, that we shall never be able to express it unto others, how deeply soever we may be affected with it in ourselves. And though we be not always thus sensibly cheered and refreshed with it, as we could wish to be, howsoever we can never receive the Blessed Sacrament, but we have the pleasure and satisfaction of having done our duty to our Maker and Redeemer, which far exceeds all the comforts of this life, and therefore may well stay our stomachs till God sees good to give us more.
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