A50162:24
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.
First, A Counsel. He concludes, Now therefore fear the Lord and serve Him. Therefore! Wherefore? Why, inasmuch as you find the Lord so bountiful, that you cannot possibly Amend your selves if you leave Him, or excuse your selves if you grieve Him. Therefore are you to fear Him, serve Him. Every Mercy of God hath a Therefore, in it; it calls for Gratitude ⟨p. 4⟩and Obedience. When God has been merciful to us, even common Ingenuity, end much more, holy Ingenuity will put us upon that Enquiry, What shall I render to the Lord? Behold an Answer in this, Therefore! We are Therefore to fear the Lord and serve him; we are Therefore to put away all our Idols, all our Follies for ever more.
First, A Counsil. He concludes, Now therefore fear the Lord and serve Him. Therefore! Wherefore? Why, inasmuch as you find the Lord so bountif•l, that you cannot possibly A•mend your selves if you leave Him, or excuse your selves if you grieve Him. Therefore are you to fear Him, serve Him. Every Mercy of God hath a Therefore, in it; it calls for Gratitude ⟨p. 4⟩and Obedience. When God has been merciful to us, even common Ingenuity, end much more, holy Ingenuity will put us upon that Enquiry, What shall I render to the Lord? Behold an Answer in this, Therefore! We are Therefore to fear the Lord and serve him; we are Therefore to put away all our Idols, all our Follies for ever more.
Secondly, A Copy. He gives them a Precedent, an Example, to induce them hereunto. The Pattern of a considerable person, has no inconsiderable Influence upon the Observers of it. Such an one does good or ill, even like a Briareus, with an Hundred Hands. An Hundred, & an Hundred more will do like Him. If he be wicked, he does according to the Language of Solomon, Speak with his Feet. If he be Godly, he is, according to the Character of John, a Voice, Such an One most effectually bespeaks all about him, as Gideon did once, Do what you see me to do.