N00426:91
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.
It may be Again Answered, That even among the Israelites, those that came to the Sacraments were under Obligation to give manifestation of what might be esteemed, A Work of Grace in their Souls. If they would not Express a sense of their Misery and Wretchedness by Nature, and their Need of a Sacrifice and a Saviour, they might not Communicate. See Deut. 26 5.
It may be further Answered, That a Ceremonial Holiness was required of all the Israelites that came unto the Sacraments; and there were Officers whose Business 'twas to make Exploration of it. Well, And should not Gospel-Churches have the An•itype of That? Almost all Things in the Mosaic Pedagogy were Typical; and the Substance of ⟨p. 51⟩every Shadow there, is, that which we are to be studious of. What have we now but Real Holiness to correspond with the Ceremonial, among the Jews? if a man be morally Unclean, he must now be thrust from the Holy Things; or else we provoke the God of Heaven, by not Distinguishing between the precious and the vile. God forbid, That we should willingly see any under our watch and charge do so self-Ruining a thing, as, To Eat with his Uncleanness upon him.
It may be further Answered, That a Ceremonial Holiness was required of all the Israelites that came unto the Sacraments; and there were Officers whose Business 'twas to make Exploration of it. Well, And should not Gospel-Churches have the An•itype of That? Almost all Things in the Mosaic Paedagogy were Typical; and the Substance of ⟨p. 51⟩every Shadow there, is, that which we are to be studious of. What have we now but Real Holiness to correspond with the Ceremonial, among the Jews? if a man be morally Unclean, he must now be thrust from the Holy Things; or else we provoke the God of Heaven, by not Distinguishing between the precious and the vile. God forbid, That we should willingly see any under our watch and charge do so self-Ruining a thing, as, To Eat with his Uncleanness upon him.