N00426:135
A companion for communicants. Discourses upon the nature, the design, and the subject of…
A companion for communicants. Discourses upon the nature, the design, and the subject of the Lords Supper; with devout methods of preparing for, and approaching to that blessed ordinance. / By Cotton Mather, Pastor of a church at Boston. ; [Seven lines from Augustine]
Boston: printed by Samuel Green for Benjamin Harris, 1690
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Hence, I do not at all admire it, That this Omission often lays a thousand Thorns in the Deathbeds of them that have had this blame lying upon them. How often have I heard these Lamentations proceeding from those that have been passing into another World! Their Lamentations have had the Groans of a Deadly wended man setting an Accent on them; and they have sighed, Oh That I had joined my self to some Church of the Lord Jesus before I came to this! Oh that I had been a more frequent and serious Guest, at the Table of the Lord! If God will now spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more, the first thing I do shall be to Reform this Omission! It must needs wound the Soul of a sensible man, to think, what wrongs he has done himself by his, Not coming to the Table of the Lord.
Hence, I do not at all admire it, That this Omission often layes a thousand Thorns in the Deathbeds of them that have had this blame lying upon them. How often have I heard these Lamentations proceeding from those that have been passing into another World! Their Lamentations have had the Groans of a Deadly we•nded man setting an Accent on them; and they have sigh'd, Oh That I had join•d my self to some Church of the Lord Jesus before I came to this! Oh that I had been a more frequent and serious Guest, at the Table of the Lord! If God will now spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more, the first thing I do shall be to Reform this Omission! It must needs wound the Soul of a sensible man, to think, what wrongs he has done himself by his, Not coming to the Table of the Lord.
For,
First, Look upon the Damage done to your Internal and Eternal Concerns by this Omission. It was the Threatening against those which did Omit the ancient Passover, in