The serviceable man. A discourse made unto the General Court of the Massachusetts colony,…

This prayer, is the Result of an observation made, upon that Goodness, and Kindness, Pity, which appears in the usual Providence of the most High, towards them that are serviceable to the people of God.

This prayer, is the Result of an observation made, upon that Goodness, and Kindness, Pitty, which appears in the usual Providence of the most High, towards them that are serviceable to the people of God.

This then is our DOCTRINE. The God of Heaven has Good Thoughts for those men, whose Good Works render them Serviceable to His People.

I. 'Tis to be taken for granted, as we go along; That our God has, A People in the World; and indeed He ever had so. The World has always been Blessed with a People, ⟨p. 8⟩who have chosen the Lord Jehovah for their Best Good, and their Last End; a people who have chosen the Lord Jesus for the Redeemer of their Souls, a people who have Believed and Practised according to the Scriptures of Truth: 'tis the people, whose Denomination is that, in Isa. 63.18. The people of thy Holiness; or Gods Holy People. The people of Israel was once His people, but upon their Abdication from God; we have now among the Gentiles, a Surrogate Israel. Such a people, and a Church of them too, there has been upon Earth, in all Ages Visible. If the Existence of such a people were ever to be questioned, it was when the barbarous and horrible Darkness of Popery, had covered the face of Europe; and yet even then too, we are not at a loss to find such a people, in the very Bowels of the Papal Empire. The Popish Historians themselves do confess, that the Waldenses were a people who from the very days of Constantine had withdrawn from the conceived Corruptions in the Apostatical Church of Rome. Nor were they called Waldenses, because Waldo was their Father, but because they had their Dwellings in the Valleys, that are ever famous for them.