N00426:222
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.
First, Proceed after a Regular and an Orderly ⟨p. 106⟩manner, and with a Wonderful Strictness, in your Self Examination.
You should Retire yourselves; he that would meddle with this wisdom, should Separate himself. Take Time for it; and be not like the Duke D' Alva, who being asked, whether he had observed a late Eclipse answered, I have so much to do on Earth, I have no time to Look up unto Heaven. So, Have not so much to do Abroad, that you have no Time to look within; but allow yourselves Time to be Alone. When you are thus Retir••, then begin with an Humble and an Hearty Prayer unto the God of Heaven. Be sensible, That a Deceitful Heart will but illude you, if a Merciful God shall not Assist you and Remember, That the Lord Jesus have […] you to come unto Himself, not only for Gold Tried in the Fire, but also for Eyesalve which may strengthen you to discern that Gold. Fall down before the Lord with such a Supplication as that in Psal. 119.23. Search me, and Try me, O God; and add, Lord help me now, to Search and to Try my self, and lead me in the way Everlasting. Zealously Implore the Father of Lights, that He would not leave you in the Dark about the State of your own Souls. Beg that the Eternal Spirit of God, would put forth His Righteous Operations, either as a Spirit of Bondage ⟨p. 107⟩or as a Spirit of Adoption in you; and that He would lead you into all Truth. Have then at hand, a Competent Number of Good Scriptural MARKS, by which a good State is Characterised in the word of God. You have many of these therein scattered here &there: and Especially, The first Epistle of John is full of them; besides other whole paragraphs in this Book of Life; such as the Fifteenth, the Twenty fourth and the Twenty Sixth Psalms, and sundry Octonaries of the Hundred and Nineteenth, which describe the Heirs of Life. Here you may Read the Conditions of them that shall be saved; Oh do not shun the Trials of the Scriptures; tis the Temper of Hypocrites, which Tertullian found in Heretics, to be Lucifugae Scripturarum. i.e. such as care not to be Tried by Scripture-light. These being laid before you, require of your selves now a most Exact Account thereabout. Ask, Am I thus or no? ask, do I thus or no? ask, have I this or no? Press a Direct Answer, and let not your Hearts Flam you off, without a Punctual, a Positive, and a Peremptory Reply to your Enquiries. Deal by your own Hearts, as you would by a Slippery Fellow who declines to let you know, what he is;