The Communicant's Companion
delight, and we will give ourselves to it, and continue instant in it. They that have been feasted upon the sacrifice of atonement, ought to abound in sacrifices of acknowledgment, the spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise, and a broken heart, which are acceptable to God through Christ Jesus; and having in our flock a male, we must offer that, and not a corrupt thing.
It is the shame of many who are called Christians, and have a name and a place in God's family, that they are as backward and indifferent in holy duties, as if they were afraid of doing too much for God and their own souls, and as if their chief care were to know just how much will serve to bring them to heaven, that they may do no more. They can be content to go a mile, but they are not willing to go twain. And does it become those on whom God has sown so plentifully, to make their returns so sparingly?
Ought we not rather to inquire what free-will offerings we may bring to God's altar; and how we may do more in religion than we have used to do?
They that have found what a good table God keeps, and how welcome they have been to it, should desire to dwell in his house all the days of their life; and blessed are they that do so, "they will be still praising him."
2. We must see to it, that we be conscientiously just and honest. We not only contradict our profession, and give ourselves the lie, but we reproach the religion we profess, and give it the lie, if, after we have been at this sacrament, we deceive or defraud our brethren in any matter; for this is that which the Lord our God requires of us, that we do justly; that is, that we never do wrong to any, in their body, goods, or good name; and that we ever study to render to all their due, according to the relation we stand in, and the obligation we lie under to them. "That, therefore, which is altogether just ("justice, justice," as the word is,) thou shalt follow." There are many who make no great pretensions to religion, and yet natural conscience, sense of honor, and a regard to the common good, keep them strictly just in all their dealings, and they would scorn to do a base and dishonest thing; and shall not the bonds of this ordinance, added to those inducements, restrain us from every thing that has but the appearance of fraud and injustice? A Christian, a communicant, and yet a cheat, yet a man not to be trusted, not to be dealt with, but standing on one's guard! How can these be reconciled?
Will that man be true to his God whom he has not seen, that is false to his brother whom he has seen? Shall he be entrusted with the true riches, that is "not faithful in the unrighteous mammon?"
Let the remembrance of our sacramental vows be always fresh in our minds, to give a check to those secret coveting's, which are the springs of all fraudulent practices. I have disclaimed the world for a portion: shall I then, for the compassing of a little of its forbidden gain, wrong my brother, to whom I ought to do good; wrong my profession, which I ought to adorn; and wrong my own conscience, which I ought to keep void of offence? God forbid! I have likewise renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, and promised not to walk in craftiness; "by the grace of God, I will therefore ever have my conversation in the world, in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom." They that are so well skilled in the arts of deceit, as to save themselves from the scandal of it, and to be able to say with Ephraim, though he had the balances of deceit in his hands, "In all my labors, they shall find no iniquity in me that were sin;" yet cannot thereby save themselves from the guilt of it, and the ruin that attends it; for doubtless "the Lord is the avenger of all such." Those that cheat their neighbors, cannot cheat their God, but will prove in the end to have cheated themselves into everlasting misery; and "what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"