A50162:158
Small offers towards the service of the tabernacle in the wilderness four discourses accommodated…
Small offers towards the service of the tabernacle in the wilderness four discourses accommodated unto the designs of practical godliness : preached partly at Boston, partly at Charleston / by Cotton Mather ; published by a gentleman lately restored from threatening sickness as a humble essay to serve the interest of religion, in gratitude unto God for his recovery.
Boston: printed by R. Pierce, 1689
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
We are to search them also with Questions about their Experience. As our Lord asked His Family, in Joh. 16. 31. Do ye now believe? So should we ask our young people, Have you Experienced a work of Regeneration in your souls? Ask them, Have you ever yet carried a labouring and heavy-laden soul unto the Lord Jesus Christ? It was the Advice of Wisdom, Know the state of thy Flocks. Thus, we should endeavour to Know the state of the Souls which we are to be concerned for; to know whether they are in a Natural, or a Renewed state.
We are to search them also with Questions about their Experience. As our Lord asked His Family, in Joh. 16. 31. Do ye now believe? So should we ask our young people, Have you Experieneed a work of Regeneration in your souls? Ask them, Have you ever yet carried a labouring and heavy-laden soul unto the Lord Iesus Christ? It was the Advice of Wisdom, Know the state of thy Flocks. Thus, we should endeavour to Know the state of the Souls which we are to be concerned for; to know whether they are in a Natural, or a Renewed state.
Once more, We are to help them with Questions about their Temptations. It was a Question once given to some, in Luc. 24. 38. Why do Thoughts arise in your hearts? Even so we should Enquire of our young people, What Thoughts are you most troubled with? Enquire, what Fears, enquire what Snares they are most endangered ⟨p. 48⟩by. Be always jealous, lest as the serpent beguiled Eve, so their minds be corrupted. Moreover Some Questions we are to put upon them, Secondly, which concern their Lives. It was once an Interrogatory which some were put unto, in Luc. 23. 17. What manner of communications have ye? Thus we are to Examine our young people about the Words and the Works, that fill their Lives. There are especially three things which they should be Examined about; their Prayer, their Time, and their Company; Ask them, whether they live without Prayer or no? Whether in Prayer they secretly and sincerely pour out their souls before the Lord? Ask them, How they spend their Time? How much Idle Time, and how much useful Time, they allow unto themselves? And ask them, What their Company is? Whom they sit withal? Whether vain Persons and Fools, or the Saints which are the excellent, and all those that fear God? Our Question will prove their Safeguard, if it be well administered.