N00428:34
The serviceable man. A discourse made unto the General Court of the Massachusetts colony,…
The serviceable man. A discourse made unto the General Court of the Massachusetts colony, New-England, at the anniversary election 28d. 3m. 1690. / By Cotton Mather Minister of the Gospel. ; [Two lines of Latin quotation]
Boston: printed by Samuel Green for Joseph Browning, 1690
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 there is another Honour that the Serviceable man is the Subject of; and that is, the Service it self, which God helps him to do: When God singles out a man for this and that Service to His People, 'tis an Honour from Heaven bestowed upon him; the very Angels of the third Heaven do account it so. Tis a Disgrace inflicted by God upon a man when He so lays him aside, as to accept of no Service at his hands; very dishonourable was the Fate of an unhappy Prince, whose Name you know, in Jer. 22.28 Is He a Vessel, wherein is no pleasure? wherefore they are cast out, he and his Seed. So tis a special and signal Honour, for a man to be remarkably serviceable in his Generation. They are the Achievements or the Services of men, which afford unto them their only Honours. When the Honours of a worthy Person were to be recounted, we read ⟨p. 18⟩in Acts 9.39. They showed what she had made. It is not, what we have got, but it is what w• have done, that renders us truly Honourable Now this is the privilege of the Serviceable Man; when once the Heart of a man comes to be set upon the doing of good, commonly the good God will say upon it, w•ll, it shall be so: thou shalt even do what I see thy heart set upon. Tis the word of our Saviour, To him that has it shall be given.
But there is another Honour that the Serviceable man is the Subject of; and that is, the Service it self, which God helps him to do: When God singles out a man for this and that Service to His People, 'tis an Honour from Heaven bestow'd upon him; the very Angels of the third Heaven do account it so. Tis a Disgrace inflicted by God upon a man when He so layes him aside, as to accept of no Service at his hands; very dishonourable was the Fate of an unhappy Prince, whose Name you know, in Jer. 22.28 Is He a Vessel, wherein is no pleasure? wherefore they are cast out, he and his Seed. So tis a special and signal Honour, for a man to be remarkably serviceable in his Generation. They are the Atchievements or the Services of men, which afford unto them their only Honours. When the Honours of a worthy Person were to be recounted, we read