Came upon this choice piece from Boston’s Memoirs. A series of questions put to a prospective communicant. The first question I find rather insightful—I’ve long tended to think that a working understanding of the Shorter Catechism is basically the cognitive side of Presbyterian terms of communion. Without reaching that bar, the session ought to delay that applicant and give further instruction (L. Cat. 173). Also, there is explicit submission to church discipline.
I am aware that Boston arguably had some “independent” aspects to his presbyterianism, and perhaps this reflects too much a likeness to the old Congregational “church covenants?” But whatever the case, I find this explicit consent and covenanting commendable:
“And if the Session be satisfied in this also, the party is to be put explicitly to consent to the Covenant (whereof he desires the seal), to be the Lord’s, live under Him, and serve Him all the days of his life, by answering expressly the following (or the like) questions: 1. Do you believe the doctrine of the Shorter Catechism of this Church, so far as you understand the same, to be the true doctrine agreeable to the Holy Scriptures, and resolve through grace to live and die in the profession of the same? 2. Do you consent to take God in Christ to be your God, the Father to be your Father, the Son to be your Saviour, and the Holy Ghost to be your Sanctifier; and that, renouncing the devil, the world and the flesh, you be the Lord’s for ever? 3. Do you consent to receive Christ, as He is offered in the gospel, for your Prophet, Priest and King; giving up yourself to Him, to be led and guided by His Word and Spirit; looking for salvation only through the obedience and death of Jesus Christ, who was crucified without the gates of Jerusalem; promising in His strength to endeavour to lead a holy life, to forsake every known sin, and to comply with every known duty? 4. Lastly, do you promise to subject yourself to exhortation, admonition, and rebuke, and the discipline of the Church, in case (which God forbid !) you fall into any scandalous sin?”
Memoirs, Appendix 3, § 10, p. 488.
West Port Experiment 
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