N01479:30
A monitor for communicants. An essay to excite and assist religious approaches to the…
A monitor for communicants. An essay to excite and assist religious approaches to the table of the Lord. : Offered by an assembly of the New-English pastors, unto their own flocks, and unto all the churches in these American colonies: with a solemn testimony to that cause of God, and religion in them.
Boston: printed by T. Fleet for Samuel Gerrish, 1715
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
These are the Things, after which your Self-Examination, is to be Inquisitive. But I make some Remarks upon the Performance of this Exercise.
These are the Things, after which your Self-Examination, is to be Inquisitive. But I make some Remarks upon the Performance of this Excercise.
First. Tho' you do not, upon your Self-Examination, get beyond all Doubts and Fears, whether you have these ⟨p. 17⟩things Really in you, yet you must not be by these Doubts and Fears hindered from going on, and coming to the Table of the Lord. If you have any preponderating Hopes that you have these Things, or cannot fairly and justly Pronounce the Sentence, that you have them not; You may and should come. Come, as the Poor Woman, that came Trembling, to touch the Garment of our Saviour. Come and say, Lord, At thy Bidding I come. I durst not forbear, what thou hast bidden me to do.
First. Tho' you do not, upon your Self-Examination, get beyond all Doubts and Fears, whether you have these ⟨p. 17⟩things Really in you, yet you must not be by these Doubts and Fears hindred from going on, and coming to the Table of the Lord. If you have any preponderating Hopes that you have these Things, or cannot fairly and justly Pronounce the Sentence, that you have them not; You may and should come. Come, as the Poor Woman, that came Trembling, to touch the Garment of our Saviour. Come and say, Lord, At thy Bidding I come. I durst not forbear, what thou hast bidden me to do.
Secondly. While you are in your Self-Examination, to Silence your Doubts and Fears, whether you have done these things or no, the best way is, not only to Ask whether you have done such things, but now to Do them. It is now a Sweet Season to Do all that belongs to the New Creature; To Do it, over & over again; The Doing of it, will render the Being of it Unquestionable. Upon every Stroke say, Lord, Now I do this, if I never did it before!