N00354:111
Military duties, recommended to an artillery company
Military duties, recommended to an artillery company; at their election of officers, in Charles-town [sic], 13.d. 7.m. 1686. / By Cotton Mather, Pastor of a church in Boston. ; [Three lines of quotations in Latin]Military duties, recommended to an artillery company; at their election of officers, in Charls-town [sic], 13.d. 7.m. 1686. / By Cotton Mather, Pastor of a church in Boston. ; [Three lines of quotations in Latin]
printed by Richard Pierce, 1687
MILITARY DUTIES Laid before A TRAINED BAND 13. d. 7. m. 1686. › Application 5 › Rule 1: RULE. I.
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.
Oh Lay down your Arms, and make your peace with that terrible God, whom by your sin you have made your provoked Adversary. The secure Sinner perhaps is not aware of his own making these daring Adventures. But this must be plainly told unto every man that maintains a Trade of wilful Disobedience unto the Commandments of God: Man, thou art Sounding a Challenge against GOD Himself, thou art every Day Bidding Defiance to the Eternal GOD; Thou art certain of that which which was only a mistake in Jo• of old: God ⟨p. 54⟩counteth me for His Enemy. O that such heedless men and women would sit down in sober sadness to think on the none-such Madness which hath possessed them. Are you not every day (Conscience, do thine Office) Are you not daily allowing your selves in those things, for which you are not ignorant that the Wrath of God comes upon the Children of Disobedience? •f you are not such bold Debauchees as to live in Swearing, in Uncleanness, in Drunkenness, in Sabbath-breaking; and to make nothing of a •ile Chea•, or a flat Lye; yet do you not make Light of a Prayer-less Life? and so, of a Faithless and a Christ-less Life? Now every such Sin of yours has a Tongue in it, a Blasphemous Tongue, that talks against heaven, and saith, I am for the Waging a War & a Fight with God. As they sometimes said in Isa. 5.19. Let the Lord hasten his work that we may see. Such an insolent Bravado do you affront the most High withal. The faithful and holy God has said Cast away from you all your Idols, or I'll break you sore in the place of Dragons: I will burn you in the fiery bottom of Hell for those Rebellions. But every unreclaimed Sinner now, doth as bad as reply Let God do His worst, His Darts are but Stubble and the shaking of his spear is but to be laughed at. Thus ⟨p. 55⟩the unrepenting and unrelenting Sinner, […] knows that he sins, and yet with an high-hand he rushes on, to the doing of those things whereof the Compassionate God saith unto him, O do not those abominable things which my soul hateth. But O venture some unthinking Sinners, consider the doleful plight which you are in, Consider this ye that forget God, lest He tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver you. The blessed God hath positively declared unto you, (in