N00393:373
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.
But yet,
Secondly, By way of Correction.
If these Desires are with Impatience, much more if they are through' Impatience, they become sinful before the Lord. The embittered spirits of Christians, have been sometimes too phone unto such Desires. It was an inordinate passion in Moses, when a froward people under his charge provoked him to say, in Numb. 17. 14. Kill ⟨p. 119⟩I pray thee out of hand. Had God granted his Desire, he had lost Thirty years of eminent Service in the World. It was an irregular passion in Elijah, when the persecutions of wicked men so tired him, as to make him say, in 1. King. 19. 4. O Lord, take away my life. It hath been an Observation, that Many good and great men sit under Elijah's Juniper tree. As culpable was the Passion of Jonah, when the Withering of a Gourd had that Effect upon him in Cap. 4. 8. He wished to die. The like pang, of Impatience, did that Pattern of Patience, Joh, fall into: he spake as if he could hardly forbear Laying. violent hands upon himself. Even so far do the […] unbridled Wishes of many run. There […] of Death is a sort of Revenge on God; they would as it were deprive God of the glory which He might have of them. Compose these desires, O ye raging Souls; compose these […] fires. Allay this Fever, this frenzy. Its not only an irreligious but an unnatural passion which you are carried away withal. You desire to dye: Well, are you sure that the Death which you desire now, will not prove a Death which you shall Deplore throughout eternal Ages. It is said of the Believer in Psal. 91. 19. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my Salvation. It is a very disordered heart that will be dissatisfied with so great a mercy.