N00731:76
The folly of sinning, opened & applied, in two sermons, occasioned by the condemnation…The folly of sinning, opened & applyed, in two sermons, occasioned by the condemnation…
The folly of sinning, opened & applied, in two sermons, occasioned by the condemnation of one that was executed at Boston in New-England, on November 17th. 1698. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, in Cambridge, and preacher of the Gospel at Boston in N.E. ; [Two lines from Romans]The folly of sinning, opened & applyed, in two sermons, occasioned by the condemnation of one that was executed at Boston in New-England, on November 17th. 1698. / By Increase Mather, praesident of Harvard Colledge, in Cambridge, and preacher of the Gospel at Boston in N.E. ; [Two lines from Romans]
Boston: printed by B Green for Michael Perry over against the Town House, 1699
THE FOLLY OF Sinning. › Sermon 2 › Proposition 3: PROPOSITION. III.
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.
Alas! Sinners have not the wisdom to consider this. Joshua said to the Children of Israel, Choose you whom you will Serve, but I and my House will serve the Lord. Thus when it is said to a Sinner, choose whom thou wilt have to be thy Master; he makes the unhappiest choice that possibly can be: he chooseth the worst Master that ever any one did serve: For he chooseth to be a Servant of Sin: he had ⟨p. 83⟩rather be a Slave than a Free man; yea, a Slave to Sin and Satan, then the Lords Free-man.
Alas! Sinners have not the wisdom to consider this. Ioshua said to the Children of Israel, Chuse you whom you will Serve, but I and my House will serve the Lord. Thus when it is said to a Sinner, chuse whom thou wilt have to be thy Master; he makes the unhappiest choice that possibly can be: he chuseth the worst Master that ever any one did serve: For he chuseth to be a Servant of Sin: he had ⟨p. 83⟩rather be a Slave than a Free man; yea, a Slave to Sin and Satan, then the Lords Free-man.
5. It is the property of a fool to contend with one that is too strong for him. A Wise man will sit down and consider with himself, whether he is able with ten thousand, to meet with him that cometh against him with twenty thousand. Luk. 14.31. Better sit still then rise and fall. But Sinners have not the understanding to consider this. They are so foolish as to set themselves against one that is Infinitely too strong for them. Is a Sinner a fit match for the Almighty? Is he able to make his patty good with that God before whom the Nations are as the drop of a bucket, and counted as the small dust of the balance, yea less then nothing and vanity? Is he able to make his party good with that God, who holds all the water of the Sea in the hollow of his hand, and who measures Heaven with a span. O Sinner, consider with thy self, what thou will do, when God shall strike thee with those hands which have made heaven and earth. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy, are we stronger than he?