N00426:296
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.
Secondly, We must Examine our selves, about our Love to MAN. And what is this Love, but, A Benevolence to all men, and a Complacence in Good men for the sake of God?
Murderers may not come to the Lords Table; but what are we better, with out, The Love of our Brother? If we give our own Bodies to be burned, and have not Charity, it profits nothing; nor will it profit us-any thing, ⟨p. 126⟩for us to come where the Body of the Lord, is Broken, if this Charity be absent from us.
We are therefore to Examine our selves upon this,
Do I desire the Welfare of all men as truly as my own?
Do we, like the Compassionate Samaritan, count every one our Neighbour, that wants our pity? and can our Love extend it self not only unto strangers, but unto Enemies? Do we Lament and Bewail the miseries of our Fellow-worms; like our Lord, of whom 'tis noted, that when he saw a man labouring under a Complicate Surdity and Aphony, then, He sighed? Especially do our hearts bleed over, the spiritual miseries of other men; wishing and Longing for the Day, when The Devil shall not deceive the Nations any more? Are we therewithal ready to do our utmost for the Redress of these Miseries & count we no Warm Prayers, no Good Turns, too much for the Comfort of such as are in their Distresses Tho' our Charity do begin at home, do we see to it, that it End not there; and can we act according to that Golden Rule, Do as you would be done unto In Giving, do we show the same Concern and the same Friendship, that we would expect from others in evil Hours in Forgiving, do we generously pass by more than seventy seven provocations, and are we like those that have been famous for this Temper, To be sure to do a Kindness for an Injury?