N00426:95
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.
What is it that we may safely Judge to be, A probable and credible profession of a Saving Faith?
To this I answer; That we must beware of Unscriptural Impositions in this Affair; we must not impose any Modes of Profession which we have no warrant for. 'Tis a Tyranny to Enjoin upon every man, A Relation about the precise Time and Way of their Conversion unto God. Few that have been Restrained by a Religious Education, can give such an one. Nor, is it any other than a cruelty, to Enjoin upon every man, An Oral and a Public Relation of his Experiences. Every Good man has not such a courage and presence of mind, as can speak pertinently before a Congregation of many Hundreds.
To this I answer; That we must beware of Unscriptural Impositions in this Affair; we must not impose any Modes of Profession which we have no warrant for. 'Tis a Tyranny to Enjoin upon every man, A Relation about the precise Time and Way of their Conversion unto God. Few that have been Restrained by a Religious Education, can give such an one. Nor, is it any other than a cruelty, to Enjoin upon every man, An Oral and a Publick Relation of his Experiences. Every Good man has not such a courage and presence of mind, as can speak pertinently before a Congregation of many Hundreds.
But still; as the Probationers for our communion, are to make a Profession of their Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as that Redeemer in whom all Fullness dwells, and on whom they Rely for communications from that Fullness to their own Souls; thus, we must Look for some justifying circumstance ⟨p. 53⟩of that Profession. Our Charity towards all men of whom we know nothing amiss is. To Hope all things, and Believe the Best. But when we come to make a Judgment of them that lay claim to privileges with us, 'tis but Reason that our Charity should require a more positive Evidence of the Qualification on which the claim is made. In the Primitive Times, They made such a Profession at their being Added unto the Church; and the Profession had this Justifying Circumstance in it, that they made it, when they Endangered their very Lives to make it. I make no doubt, but that in such a Time of Persecution, the Like Profession ought to be esteemed sufficient. But in places where the true Religion is in Repute and Fashion, then to look for some other Justifying Circumstance of a Profession, is but a Reasonable Conformity to the custom and manner of the Apostles. Now, Reason cannot rly dictate an easier, a irer, a fiter method for this; than, That a […] a blameless and […] Conversation, should either by […] o […], express what […] the Word of God has had upon his […] Soul. The Saviour of such a Religion […], very much manifest the […] of him that makes it; […] i more or the […], for the […] of His people, than to hear good Christians than