A50162:161
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.
The Negative Rules are these two.
First, Reprove not Furiously. It is said in Jam. 1. 20. The wrath of man, worketh not the righteousness of God. Remember, Nothing will be so well done in a passion, but what may be done better out of it. If you are to chide, yet chide not in a Fury. Do not call vile Names; much more, do not swear, do not curse, do not Rage with a Tongue set on fire of hell. If you are to smi•e, yet smite not in a Fury. Bloody, wounding, outrageous Buffetings are to be avoided; lest there be cause to say of you, Cursed is their Anger for it is fierce, and their Wrath for it is cruel.
First, Reprove not Furiously. It is said in Iam. 1. 20. The wrath of man, worketh not the righteousness of God. Remember, Nothing will be so well done in a passion, but what may be done better out of it. If you are to chide, yet chide not in a Fury. Do not call vile Names; much more, do not swear, do not curse, do not Rage with a Tongue set on fire of hell. If you are to smi•e, yet smite not in a Fury. Bloody, wounding, outragious Buffettings are to be avoided; lest there be cause to say of you, Cursed is their Anger for it is fierce, and their Wrath for it is cruel.
Secondly Reprove not for ever. Tis said in Ps. 103. 9. God will not always chide, neither will He keep his anger for ever. To be always finding faults, is the way never to be curing them. A perpetual Wrangling is a continual Dropping, which there is no enduring of; it prejudices the minds of them that feel it, against all that shall