The Communicant's Companion
2. What change have I experienced?—When I ask, Am I a child of wrath, or a child of love? I must remember that I was by nature a child of wrath.
Now, can I witness to a change? Though I cannot exactly tell the time and manner, and the steps of that change, yet "one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." Though, in many respects, it is still bad with me, yet thanks be to God, it is better with me than it has been. Time was, when I minded nothing but sport and pleasure, or nothing but the business of this world; when I never seriously thought of God and Christ, and my soul and another world: but now it is otherwise; now I see a reality in invisible things. I find an alteration in my care and concern; and now I ask more solicitously, "What shall I do to be saved?" than ever I asked, "What shall I eat, or what shall I drink, or wherewithal shall I be clothed?" Time was, when this vain and carnal heart of mine had no relish at all of holy ordinances, took no delight in them, called them a task and a weariness. But now it is otherwise; I love to be alone with God, and though I bring little to pass, yet I love to be doing in his service. If I have, indeed, experienced such a change as this; if this blessed turn be given to the bent of my soul, grace, free grace, must have the glory of it, and I may take the comfort of it.
But if I have not found any such work wrought in my heart; if I am still what I was by nature, vain, and carnal, and careless: if Jordan runs still in the old channel, and was never yet driven back before the ark of the covenant; I have reason to suspect the worst by myself. If all go one way without struggle or opposition, it is to be feared it is not the right way.
3. What is the bent of my affections?—The affections are the pulse of the soul. If we would know its state, we must observe how that pulse beats.
How do I stand affected to sin? Do I dread it as most dangerous, loathe it as most odious, and complain of it as most grievous? Or do I make a light