The Communicant's Companion (continued)
places of abode; why should you not now close this settlement in the service of God, which will make all your other settlements comfortable?
Choose you, therefore, this day whom you will serve—God, or the world; Christ, or the flesh; and be persuaded to bring the matter to a good issue; determine the debate in that happy resolution to which the people of Israel came, when they said, "Nay, but we will serve the Lord." Why should not he, who is the first and the best, have the first and best of your days? Which I am sure you cannot bestow better, and which it is both your duty and interest to bestow thus.
3. What will you get by delaying it? You intend some time or other solemnly to give up yourselves unto the Lord in this ordinance, and you hope then to receive the benefit and comfort of it: but the tempter tells you, 'Tis all good in time; and you dismiss your convictions, as Felix did Paul, with a promise, that "at a more convenient season you will send for them."
You are ready to say, as the people did, "The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built:" you think you must build your own first; and what comes of those delays? Satan, ere you are aware, gets advantage by them, and cheats you of all your time, by cheating you of the present time; your hearts are in danger of being hardened, the Spirit of grace may hereby be provoked to withdraw, and strive no more; and what will become of you, if death surprise you before your great work be done?
4. What better provision can you make for a comfortable life in this world, than by doing this great work betimes? You are setting out in a world of temptations more than you think of; and how can you better arm yourselves against them, than by coming up to that fixed resolution which will silence the tempter, "Get thee behind me, Satan?" When Naomi saw that Ruth was "steadfastly resolved, she left off speaking to her." The counsel of the ungodly will not be so apt to court you to the way of sinners, and the seat of the scornful, when you have avowed yourselves set out in the way of God, and seated already at the table of the Lord. You are launching forth into a stormy sea, and this will furnish you with ballast; your way lies through a vale of tears, and therefore you have need to be well stocked with comforts: and where can you stock yourselves better than in this ordinance, which seals all the promises of the new covenant, and conveys all the happiness included in them?
And now, shall I gain this point with young people? Will they be persuaded betimes to resolve for God and heaven? "Remember thy Creator, remember thy Redeemer in the days of thy youth;" and then it is to be hoped thou wilt not forget them, nor will they forget thee when thou art old.
Let me address this exhortation to those whose inclinations are good, and their conversation blameless, but their desires are weak, and their affections cool and indifferent, and therefore they keep off from this ordinance. This is the character of very many who are honest, but they want zeal and resolution enough to bring them under this engagement. They can give no tolerable reason why they do not come to the sacrament: it may be they have bought a piece of ground, or a yoke of oxen; their hands are full of the world, and they are too busy, they are unsettled, or not settled to their minds, and this makes them uneasy, and they hope that therefore they may be excused; but the true reason is, they are slothful and dilatory, and the things that remain are ready to die; they cannot find in their hearts to take pains, the pains they know they must take in a work of this nature; they are not willing to be bound to that strict care and watchfulness to which this sacrament will oblige them; they will be as they are, and make no advances;