N00393:381
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.
Let us all be now Exhorted, that the Praise of God, may be duly accounted by us, as the End of our Life, in our Prayers for it. Let us not shoot beside our Mark, or live beside our End. Let us pray that we may live, and let us live that we may praise. It is the most lamentable plight in the world, that a man should spend his Life in Sinning against God, rather than in Praising of Him. But alas, This is the case of Multitudes, Multitudes among us. How few of us [Consider of it seriously] How few of you that ⟨p. 123⟩are now before the Lord, ever seriously thought with your selves, What is the Errand that I am come into the world upon? Hast thou not lived above a Score of years in the world, and never yet seriously thought, What is it that God sent me hither for? Every man here, I suppose, desires to live; let your Prayers express those Desires; and say after the Psalmist, Ps. 32. 8. My Prayer is to the God of my life. But more than so, Let those Desires be for the sake of your Praises; and say after the Psalmist again, in Ps. 119. 17. Deal bountifully with thy Servant that I may live and keep thy Word.
Three things are you to be advised unto; yea Four things are to be importunately pressed upon you.
Three things are you to be advised unto; yea Four things are to be importunately prest upon you.
First, Mark and Prize your Opportunities to be Praising of God. Every man has his Opportunities. Some have an Instrument of a Thousand Strings; but the meanest of us all has an Instrument of Ten strings, for our God to be praised with. Let every man often enquire, What are my Opportunities to glorify God? And let every man always conclude, My Opportunities are my Treasures.