N00617:49
The Christian thank-offering. A brief discourse on the returns of gratitude & obedience whereto…
The Christian thank-offering. A brief discourse on the returns of gratitude & obedience whereto men are obliged, by the mercies of God. Made on a solemn thanksgiving, kept in a private meeting of Christians, on the occasion of some deliverances. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Five lines of quotation]
printed by B. Green for Michael Perry, 1696
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Consider, Thirdly: If we do not Return the Service of Obedience unto the Lord JESUS CHRIST for His Mercies, we are chargeable with an odious Ingratitude; and Ingratitude […] indeed the most odious thing Imaginable. […] say, Ingratum dixeris; et omnia dixeris: As Good call a man, a Viper, or the Detestablest Thin• you can imagine, as to say, He is Unthankful I remember, the Prophecy concerning the R• turn of the Israelitish Nation to a good […] in the Latter Days, Expresses it so, in Hos. 3. […] They shall Fear the Lord, and His Goodness; […] is, as a Converted Jew teaches me to Expo•• it, the Messiah, the Good Thing promised in Eighty Fifth Psalm. Sirs, Our Lord JESUS CHRIST, is a Lord so Good, that He is G•• ness it self; and how Ungrateful are we, if […] ⟨p. 27⟩do not Serve such a Lord! A Slave, that shall have his Meat, his Drink, his Clothing and Lodging from a Good Master, is to be Beaten with many Stripes, if he be not like the Servant, of whom the Centurion his Master, said, I say •o him, Do this, and he doth it. It was a Custom even among the Heathen, as our Lord Himself observes, that such as were their Benefactors, (their Baal Hanans, and their Hannibals, their Gracious Lords) they would make them their Governors, and Swear Allegiance unto them. And shall we then refuse to Serve our Lord in Heaven, the Lord of Heaven, who supplies all our wants, and is our Benefactor every moment? The Prophet Elisha, in 2 King. 4. 1•. thought •t would have been a breach of Good Manners, if he had not asked a Courteous Hostess, Behold, thou hast been careful of us; What shall be done for thee? Surely then, we should say with ourselves, What shall be done, what Service is there to be done for the Lord JESUS CHRIST, who has been always careful of me? What a sordid man, was that Egyptian Butler, who forgot the Joseph, that had been so useful unto him? And is it not as […] a thing for us to Forget the God of our […]? It was a base Temper that Nabal showed, when David must say of him, in