The Communicant's Companion (continued)
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 matter of it, "as the madman that casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, and saith, Am not I in sport?" Which lies heavier, the burden of sin, or the burden of affliction; and of which am I most desirous to be eased? What think I of Christ? How do I stand affected to him? Do I love him, and prize him as the fairest among ten thousand? Or hath he in mine eyes no form nor comeliness, and is he no more than another beloved? How do I stand affected to the word and ordinances? Are God's tabernacles amiable with me, or are they despicable? Am I in God's service, as in my element, as one that calls it a delight? Or am I in it as under confinement, and as one that calls it a drudgery? How do I stand affected to good people? Do I love the image of Christ wherever I see it, though it be in rags, or though not in my own color? Do I honor them that fear the Lord, and choose his people for my people, in all conditions? Or do I prefer the gaieties of the world before the beauties of holiness? How do I stand affected to this world? Is it under my feet, where it should be; or in my heart, where Christ should be? Do I value it, and love it, and seek it with a prevailing concern? Or do I look upon it with a holy contempt and indifference? Which have the greater command over me, and which, in my account, have the most powerful and attractive charms; those riches, honors, and pleasures that are worldly, or those that are spiritual and divine? How do I stand affected to the other world? Do I dread eternal misery in a world of spirits, more than the greatest temporal calamities here in this world of sense? Do I desire eternal happiness in a future state, more than the highest contentment's and satisfactions to which this present state can pretend? Or are the things of the other world, though sure and near, looked upon as doubtful and distant, and consequently little? By a close prosecution of such inquiries as these, with a