The Communicant's Companion (continued)
in the strength of the grace of God. What is the duty I have most neglected, have been most backward to, and most careless in? To that I must most solemnly bind my soul with this bond.
2. Wherein may we have the best opportunity of glorifying God?—What can I do in my place for the service of God's honor, and the interests of his kingdom among men? "The liberal deviseth liberal things," and so the pious devises pious things, that he may both engage and excite himself to those liberal pious things, in and by this ordinance. What is the talent I am entrusted with the improvement of? My Lord's goods I am made steward of; What is it that is expected from one in my capacity? What fruit is looked for from me? That is it that I must especially have an eye to in my covenants with God; to that I must bind my soul; for that I must fetch in help from heaven, that, having sworn, I may perform it.
Chapter 5. Instructions for Renewing Our Covenant with God in Our Preparation for this Ordinance. t is the wonderful condescension of the God of heaven, that he has been pleased to deal with man in the way of a covenant, that, on the one hand, we might receive strong consolations from the promises of the covenant, which are very sweet and precious; and, on the other hand, might lie under strong obligations from the conditions of the covenant, which, on this account, have greater cogency in them than mere precept, that we ourselves have consented to them, and that we have therein consulted our own interest and advantage.
The ordinance of the Lord's Supper, being a seal of the covenant, and the solemn exchanging of the ratifications of it, it is necessary we make the covenant before we pretend to seal it. In this order, therefore, we must proceed,—first give the hand to the Lord, and then enter into the sanctuary; first in secret consent to the covenant, and then solemnly testify that consent: this is like a contract before marriage. They that "ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward, must join themselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant." The covenant is mutual, and in vain do we expect the blessings of the covenant, if we be not truly willing to come under the bonds of the covenant. We must "enter into covenant with the Lord our God, and into his oath;" else he doth not "establish us this day for a people unto himself." We are not owned and accepted as God's people, though we "come before him as his people come," and sit before him as his people sit, if we do not in sincerity "avouch the Lord for our God." In our baptism this was done for us, in the Lord's Supper we must do it for ourselves, else we do nothing.
Let us consider then, in what method, and after what manner, we must manage this great transaction.
I. In what method we must renew our covenant with God in Christ, and by what steps we must proceed.
(I.) We must repent of our sins, by which we have rendered ourselves unworthy to be taken into covenant with God. Those that would be exalted to this honor, must first humble themselves. "God layeth his beams in the waters." The foundations of spiritual joy are laid in the waters of penitential tears, therefore this sealing ordinance sets that before us which is proper to move our godly sorrow: in it we look on him whom we have pierced, and if we do not mourn and be not in bitterness for him, surely "our hearts are as hard as a stone, yea, harder than a piece of the nether millstone." Those that join themselves to the Lord, must go weeping to do it: so they did—" In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." That comfort is likely to last, which takes rise from deep humiliation and contrition of soul for sin.