The Communicant's Companion
Those only that go forth weeping, bearing this precious seed, shall come again rejoicing in God as theirs, and bringing the sheaves of covenant blessings and comforts with them. Let us therefore begin with this:
1. We have reason to bewail our natural estrangement from this covenant.
When we come to be for God, we have reason to be affected with sorrow and shame, that ever we were for any other; that ever there should have been occasion for our reconciliation to God, which supposes that there has been a quarrel. Wretch that I am, ever to have been a stranger, an enemy to the God that made me, at war with my Creator, and in league with the rebels against his crown and dignity! O the folly, and wickedness, and misery, of my natural estate! My first father an Amorite, and my mother a Hittite, and myself a transgressor from the womb, alienated from the life of God, and cast out in my pollution. Nothing in me lovely, nothing amiable, but a great deal loathsome and abominable. Such as this was my nativity, my original.
2. We have reason to bewail our backwardness to come into this covenant.
Well may we be ashamed to think how long God called, and we refused; how oft he stretched forth his hand before we regarded; how many offers of mercy we slighted, and against how many kind invitations we stood out; how long Christ stood at the door and knocked before we opened to him; and how many frivolous excuses we made to put off this necessary work.
What a fool was I to stand in my own light so long! How ungrateful to the God of love, who waited to be gracious! How justly might I have been for ever excluded from this covenant, who so long neglected that great salvation! Wherefore I abhor myself.
3. We have reason to bewail the inconsistency of our hearts and lives with the terms of this covenant, since first we professed our consent to it. In many instances we have dealt foolishly, it is well if we have not dealt