N00426:358
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
DEVOTIONS At the SUPPER of the LORD; With Some Touches upon the con… › Counsel 2: Counsil. 2.
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.
Counsel. 2.
Counsil. 2.
Bring to the Table of the Lord, those things without which you cannot keep alive, the Exercise of your Graces there. A few things there are without which, your Spikenard will wither at the Table of the Lord; and these you must be sure to come furnished with. That they come in good States, is indeed, the Unum necessarium of Communicants; you must in the first place look to this, That you have the Root of the matter (of the Spikenard) in you. Having provided for that, then,
Bring to the Table of the Lord, those things without which you cannot keep alive, the Excercise of your Graces there. A few things there are without which, your Spiknard will wither at the Table of the Lord; and these you must be sure to come furnished with. That they come in good States, is indeed, the Unum necessarium of Communicants; you must in the first place look to this, That you have the Root of the matter (of the Spiknard) in you. Having provided for that, then,
First, Be sure to bring Right Ends with you. The Lord that asked an ill person at His Table, How camest thou hither? will ask every person Why comest thou? Now be capable of ⟨p. 148⟩giving a good Answer thereunto. When some had been at Ordinances, our Lord Enquired of them, in Math.11.8.9. what went ye out for to see? Even so, when we come to This Ordinance, our Lord will put that Enquiry to us, What are you come hither to see? O be able to say, That you did not come out merely for a Show. The Lords Supper ha's been perverted unto wretched Ends by evil men too often in the world. It ha's been Hurtfully […] by them that have made it a Test for, an Officer; admitting the vilest of men unto it, in order to their having some civil or military Trust. It ha's been Blasphemously perverted by them that have made it a Bond of Iniquity; taking the Sacrament as a Ty to strengthen one another in some Devilish Enterprise. It ha's been Superstitiously perverted, by them that have made an Host or a Charm of it; carrying it about in Procession for Adoration, or using it as a Medicine for the sick, or casting it into a Sepulchre of the Dead. Renounce all such Ends as these, with all the other more carnal Ends of a Pharisee, in your coming to the Table of the Lord. But when He demands of you, What come you hither to see? Reply like those Honest Greeks, in