N00731:85
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
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.
1. This Doctrine calls upon us to be deeply humbled for Sin. What has a fool to be proud of? No Sinner has cause to be proud of any thing, but to come down and sit in the dust before the Lord all his days. It is an humbling thing to be left to an act of folly, but what then is it to have an heart full of nothing else but folly? so has the Sinner. Rom. 7 18. I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good ⟨p. 92⟩thing. They that are only flesh, that have nothing but nature in them, have nothing but sin and folly dwelling in them; and they have been guilty of innumerable acts of extreme folly, the thought whereof ought to humble them. Every Sinner may make Sauls confession. 1 Sam 26.21. I have sinned, I have played the fool, I have erred exceedingly. Sinners have been doing nothing but playing the fool all their days. For what have they been doing? What have they been thinking of? What have their cares been exercised about all their days? only or chiefly about their Bodies, and not their Souls; not how they may make sure of Heaven, but how they may live, and get Estates on the Earth. This their way is their folly. Psal. 49.13. And they into whose hearts God has put spiritual wisdom, have cause sad enough to walk humbly all their days, remembering what fools once they were. Remember what you were in times past. Eph. 2▪11. How sinful, how foolish! There was a Time when you had no spiritual wisdom in you; a time when you were in ignorance; a time when you knew not God. Let us remember those days. and the folly of them, and let the thought of them ⟨p. 93⟩keep us humble as long as we shall have a day to live. Moreover, there is a great deal of folly still remaining in the wisest and holiest heart on the earth: We see it in David, a man wise like an Angel of God, yet what pride and folly did he discover in causing Joab to number the people, which he himself was very sensible of afterwards, confessing his sin and folly, and begging pardon for it. 2 Sam 24.10. Lord, take away the iniquity of thy Servant, for I have done very foolishly. We see the like in Hezekiah. What foolish pride did that wise and good man discover to be in his heart, when the Ambassadors from Babylon came to him. God left him that he might know what was in his heart; And he saw such pride and folly there, as brought him upon his knees before the Lord.