N00426:253
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.
Have we a sense of Truth, and do we Taste and See, that, The Lord is Good? Is Experience joined with our Speculation; and instead of being sw•ln like Bellowed or Bladders, by that which when Unsanctified, puffeth up, can we say, Now mine Eye sees, I abhor my self? Are we come to judge of things with a Spiritual Eye; and admire, and adore the things which the world counts Foolishness? Is our Wisdom so pure, that it puts us upon Mortifying all Dispositions, that are contrary to God, within us? Is our Affection raised, by what we understand; and do's our Love abound yet more and more in all Knowledge and Sense? And is our Obedience thereby promoted, so that Knowing of these things, we are so Happy […] to do them?
Have we a sense of Truth, and do we Tast and See, that, The Lord is Good? Is Experience joyned with our Speculation; and instead of being sw•ln like Bellowed or Bladders, by that which when Unsanctify'd, puffeth up, can we say, Now mine Eye sees, I abhor my self? Are we come to judge of things with a Spiritual Eye; and admire, and adore the things which the world counts Foolishness? Is our Wisdom so pure, that it puts us upon Mortifying all Dispositions, that are contrary to God, within us? Is our Affection raised, by what we understand; and do's our Love abound yet more and more in all Knowledge and Sense? And is our Obedience thereby promo••d, so that Knowing of these things, we are so Happy 〈…〉 to do them?
Secondly, A Communicant should Examine himself, Whether his Repentance be, The Repentance which is not to be Repented of. And what is true Repentance, but, A Grace of God whereby a Sinner with Grief and Shame for Sin, Turns from it, unto the Eternal God?