N00426:192
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.
If a man be indeed in a Good State, and perceive it not; what follows but a world of inconveniences? The Person is perhaps like Daniel, one greatly Beloved! yet, not having Assurance of it, be wrongs Himself by perpetual Disquietments and Vexations; and albeit he be travelling towards Canaan, he must always cry out as a Christian in Horror did, I am in a Roaring Wilderness of Woe! He wrongs ⟨p. 92⟩Religion too; and brings up an Evil Report o• it, among Strangers; as it at were but a Black Mopish, Melancholy Thing. And he gratified the Devil exceedingly; who because he, do Envy him for, would therefore Deprive him of the Peace which the Lord Jesus has left as His Legacy unto us.
If a man be indeed in a Good State, and perceive it not; what follows but a world of inconveniencies? The Person is perhaps like Daniel, one grearly Beloved! yet, not having Assurance of it, be wrongs Himself by perpetual Disquietments and Vexations; and albeit he be travelling towards Canaan, he must alwayes cry out as a Christian in Horrour did, I am in a Roaring Wilderness of Wo! He wrongs ⟨p. 92⟩Religion too; and brings up an Evil Report o• it, among Strangers; as it at were but a Blac• Mopish, Melancholly Thing. And he gratified the Divel exceedingly; who because he, do Envy him for, would therefore Deprive him of the Peace which the Lord Jesus has left as His Legacy unto us.
But suppose the man to be not in a good State; Suppose him to be, in the Gall of Bitterness, and the Bond of Iniquity; for this man to be now misled by a false Assurance, This undoes him Totally, Finally, and very Terribly▪ The Destroyer of Souls insults over such a man and makes that shout upon his lamentable case Aha, so I would have it! The man is involve in many Labyrinths of wretchedness; he is Preposterous in all hs Applications; like him in