A50162:287
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.
Conclusion. I.
A good man is found good by the Examinations of God. When God comes to try a good man, He finds the heart of the man to be right before Him. The good man may say with him in •. Chron. 29. 17. O my God, I know that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness; as for me, in the uprightness of my heart have I offered. Indeed our God uses not an Extremity of Justice and Rigour in our Trial; He would find a world of Iniquity in us, if He did; and He would utterly consume us. The Lord said in Isa. 48. 10. Behold, I have refined thee, but not like silver. No, the Refiner of gold or silver will not allow the the least measure of Dross therein. But our merciful. G•d overlooks many grains of Corruption many grains of Defilement & of Debasement in us; for we all have our Grains. However upon the Trial of a good man, the good God pronounces this of h•m, This is a d••r Son and a pleasant child, I will surely have mercy on hi•; He pronounces ⟨p. 94⟩this, I find good metal in the soul of th• •an, and he shall be mine in the day when I make up my Jewels. The Devil, the Satan, who is the Accuser of the Brethren, he may load a good man with Calumnies not a few; that evil spirit will accuse a good man as guilty of Hypocrisy in the power of it; but the Holy God brings it unto a Trial, and then He pronounces as in