A companion for communicants. Discourses upon the nature, the design, and the subject of…

Assertion 1.

We should Examine our State before our coming to the Table of the Lord, because tis a Dangerous Thing to come without a Wedding garment upon our Souls. We shall be Thunderstruck with an, How comest thou hither? if we come not in a state of Grace. A man in his Natural state, can do no other than Eat and Drink unworthily at the Table ⟨p. 97⟩of the Lord; for he must needs Eat and Drink under the power of a cursed Enmity against the Lord Jesus Christ▪ he must needs Eat and Drink without those virtues, in the absence whereof, he can do no other than here Take the Name of God in Vain; he must be like the Impenitent that while our Lord Jesus was […] on the Cross, did only Revile Him and Reproach Him there. If our Names he not found in the Genealogies of the New-Born, we may not participate of those most Holy thing•. The words, Eat and Drink, are not spoken to Dead men; they suppose unto be Not Dead in trespasses and sins; but •• ritually Alive before the Meat and Drink […] put into our mouths for our Nourishment. None but a Regenerate man can Relish the Flesh and Blood of our Lord; and the Doors of our Souls must be opened unto Him, by our Conversion before He will Sup with us, in His Communion. Until we are truly in Covenant with God, the Seals of that Covenant are very Improper for us, Unuseful to us. We shall receive mere Broad, and mere Wine, but no Seal (or at least no Seal of Life) in the Sacrament, if by Unregeneracy, we continue strangers to the Covenant of Promise. It is a mocking of God, for a man to ask for the Seal of his Pardon, while he still Hugs and Loves the Sin, which he would have to be ⟨p. 98⟩