N00393:282
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. The first, concerning the methods wherein men ought to engage both themselves and their houses in the service of God. The second, concerning the right and best ways of redeeming time in the world. The third, concerning the carriage which we should have under trials used by God upon us. The fourth, concerning the end, which in our desires of life, we should propound unto ourselves. Preached partly at Boston, partly at Charleston. / By Cotton Mather, Pastor of a church in Boston. ; Published by a gentleman lately restored from threatening sickness; as an humble essay to serve the interest of religion, in gratitude unto God for his recovery.Small offers towards the service of the tabernacle in the wilderness. Four discourses, accommodated unto the designs of practical godliness. The first, concerning the methods wherein men ought to engage both themselves and their houses in the service of God. The second, concerning the right and best waies of redeeming time in the world. The third, concerning the carriage which we should have under trials used by God upon us. The fourth, concerning the end, which in our desires of life, we should propound unto ourselves. Preached partly at Boston, partly at Charleston. / By Cotton Mather, Pastor of a church in Boston. ; Published by a gentleman lately restored from threatning sickness; as an humble essay to serve the interest of religion, in gratitude unto God for his recovery.
Boston: printed by R. Pierce. Sold by Jos. Brunning, 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.
Proposition. I.
There is a various Trial which the God of Heaven causes to pass upon His people. No Christian can be without his Trials. But there are especially two sorts of Trials which our God will subject us all unto. First,
There is a various Tryal which the God of Heaven causes to pass upon His people. No Christian can be without his Tryals. But there are especialy two sorts of Tryals which our God will subject us all unto. First,
There are the Trials of Divine Examinations, Which will be critical upon us. Tis said in Psal. 11. 4, 5. The Lords eyes behold, and His eye-lids try the children of men; the Lord founds (as the French Translation hath it) both the righteous and the wicked. Every man in the world falls under the Notice, and so, under the Trial of the omniscient God. The all-seeing Eyes of God, as it were, Examine us, and His Eye-lids knit themselves for a Scrutiny into our Hearts and lives. The blessed God will pass a Judgment, after a Trial upon us; whether we truly love Him and seek Him, or no. We are told in Psal. 7. 9. The righteous God trieth the Hearts and the Reins; an Assertion, and Expression, it may be, more than seven times repeated in the Word of God! The Examination and Observation of God, extends it self to the most interior parts of men; the motions of their very Hearts and Reins come under His exact Cognizance. Every man may so far say after that godly man, in Psal, 17. 3. Lord, thou hast proved my heart, thou hast visited me, thin hast tried me. To use a ⟨p. 88⟩Similitude made Legitimate and Canonical by the Apostle himself, in Heb 4. 13. The Sacrificing Knife of old, never did penetrate so far into the Bowels of the Creatures it was Employed upon; it never said them so naked and open, before the standers-by; as the examining Eye of God makes a discovery of what is in our Souls and our ways.