N00426:278
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 I been very sensible of the wretchedness, which the Word of God assures me to be lying under?
Have we been so Humbled as to see our selves in that Rueful and woeful plight, in Rev. 3. 17. Wretched▪ ⟨p. 122⟩and miserable, and poor and blind, and naked? Have we bin brought to see and say, If […] •it still I Die? and yet have we with much Distress, and Anguish found our selves unable to stir? Have we seen our own Guiltiness, and cried out, O my wages is Death? Have we seen our own Worthlessness, and cried out, O my Righteousnesses are as Filthy Rags? Have we seen our own Impotence, and cried out, O Wretched man, that I am, who shall deliver me! And have we had such bl•ck visions of our own wretchedness, as to be filled with an Holy Violence of Soul, to be delivered from it? Have we been in such Agonies of mind, that the Glad Tidings of a Redeemer, had as Refreshing a sound unto us, as a Zoar had unto Lot, as the Serpent of Coper had unto a ••ung Israelite, or as the City of Refuge had unto a poor Man-slayer, or as an Ark would have had unto the drowning Giants of the Antediluvian World?
Have we been so Humbled as to see our selves in that Rueful and woful plight, in Rev. 3. 17. Wretched▪ ⟨p. 122⟩and miserable, and poor and blind, and naked? Have we bin brought to see and say, If 〈…〉 •it still I Dy? and yet have we with much Distress, and Anguish found our selves unable to stir? Have we seen our own Guilliness, and cry'd out, O my wages is Death? Have we seen our own Worthlessness, and cry'd out, O my Righteousnesses are as Filthy Rags? Have we seen our own Impotence, and cry'd out, O Wretched man, that I am, who shall deliver me! And have we had such blck visions of our own wretchedness, as to be filled with an Holy Violence of Soul, to be delivered from it? Have we been in such Agonies of mind, that the Glad Tidings of a Redeemer, had as Refreshing a sound unto us, as a Zoar had unto Lot, as the Serpent of Coper had unto a ung Israelite, or as the City of Refuge had unto a poor Man-slayer, or as an Ark would have had unto the drowning Giants of the Antediluvian World?