A companion for communicants. Discourses upon the nature, the design, and the subject of…

That our Churches observe ALL the Institutions of the Lord Jesus Christ; and be perfect and Entire, wanting Nothing. So will our Heavenly King delight in us, and afford us much of His Presence and sweetness at his Holy Table. 'Tis the Favour of our God unto us, That the Institutions of our King JESUS,are so far embraced in the Assemblies, of our little Zion. We have our Sacraments, in such a perfection, that the most perverse Disputers cannot charge us with an Omission of any One Thing required by the Scripture in them; and yet with such a purity, that we have none of those Crossings, and Kneelings, and other Superfluities which are not without their Naughtiness. We have our Ministers, the only Dispensers of our Sacraments, called and chosen by our Congregations to be the Overseers of their Souls, and by the Imposition of the Hands of the Presbytery, with solemn Fasting and Prayer, set apart for that sacred Service; Pastors and Teachers that are generally, Pious, painful, Faithful, and Learned Men, who devote themselves to the Feeding of their Flocks, and will at last be able to give up their Account with Joy and not with Grief. We have our Deacons, that stand engaged what they can, to free ou• Ministers from secular Disturbances and Avocations, to look after the Outward Concerns and Supports of the Ordinances, and to dispose of the Church […] for the Relief of such as it belongs unto; in the discharge ▪ ⟨p. 164⟩whereof many of them do purchase for themselves, A• Exalted Seat, or, A place of some eminency in our Church Assemblies. We have our Discipline, in which our Church-Members falling into Scandal, are first with an Open and an Awful Admonition, suspended from Church Privileges; and if they remain Obstinate, they are by the Elders with the Consent of the Brethren, very solemnly Rejected, with a Declaration, That they are Cast out of our Lords Visible Kingdom, and as to their External Condition, given up into the state of the Heathen, who have the Devil for their Lord. For these things, the Believers among us, do combine themselves into a Church-state by a most Holy Covenant; wherein they give themselves up to God, and Christ and one another, with an Agreement among themselves to Assist one another in their Attendance to the Rules of the Gospel.

That our Churches observe ALL the I•stitutions of the Lord Jesus Christ; and be perfect and Entire, wanting Nothing. So will our Heavenly King delight in us, and afford us much of His Presence and sweetness at his Holy Table. 'Tis the Favour of our God unto us, That the Institutions of our King JESUS,are so far embraced in the Assemblies, of our little Zion. We have our Sacraments, in such a perfection, that the most perverse Disputers cannot charge us with an Omission of any One Thing required by the Scripture in them; and yet with such a purity, that we have none of those Crossings, and Kneelings, and other Superfluities which are not without their Naughtiness. We have our Ministers, the only Dispensers of our Sacraments, called and chosen by our Congregations to be the Overseers of their Souls, and by the Imposition of the Hands of the Presbytery, with solemn Fasting and Prayer, set apart for that sacred Service; Pastors and Teachers that are generally, Pious, painful, Faithful, and Learned Men, who devote themselves to the Feeding of their Flocks, and will at last be able to give up their Account with Joy and not with Grief. We have our Deacons, that stand engaged what they can, to free ou Ministers from secular Disturbances and Avocations, to look after the Outward Concerns and Supports of the Ordinances, and to dispose of the Church for the Relief of such as it belongs unto; in the discharg