N00732:35
The surest way to the greatest honour
The surest way to the greatest honour: discoursed in a sermon, delivered in the audience of His Excellency the Earl of Bellomont, captain general and governor in chief, and the Council, and representatives of the General Assembly of the province of the Massachusetts-Bay, convened at Boston in New-England, May 31st. 1699. Being the day for the election of counsellors in that province. / By Increase Mather.The surest way to the greatest honour: discoursed in a sermon, delivered in the audience of His Excellency the Earl of Bellomont, captain general and governour in chief, and the Council, and representatives of the General Assembly of the province of the Massachusetts-Bay, convened at Boston in New-England, May 31st. 1699. Being the day for the election of counsellors in that province. / By Increase Mather.
Boston: printed by Bartholomew Green for Samuel Phillips, 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.
2. The Image of God appears in that Holiness which some are adorned with. Holiness is the Divine Nature. He is Glorious in Holiness. That's His chief Glory. Therefore if a man does Love and Honour God, he hath, and cannot but have a singular delight in them that ••ar his Image, in this respect. The Scripture giveth this as the Character of a sincere Servant of God, he is one, in whose Eyes a vile person is […] but he honours them that fear the Lord. Psal. 15. 4. Yea, though it may be, he is great, and they are mean in the World; if he •eeth the fear of God, and so the Image of God in them, he has a love and honour for them on that account. David, though the Greatest man in the Nation, would honour such persons so far as to make them his Companions. Psal. 119. 63. I am a Companion of all the• •hat fear thee, and of them that keep thy Precepts. A man whose heart honours God, respecteth every Good, Holy man as such. He does not respect men merely because they are of his party, or particular persuasion in matters not Essential to Salvation. Suppose him to be Episcopalian, Congregational, Presbyterian, Antipedebap•••, in his Opinion, if he is a Godly man, he […] Godliness wherever he seeth it. As ⟨p. 16⟩Jerome said of Austin, when there was some difference of Opinion between them, Dilig• Christum in Augustino, I see Austin is an Holy man, and I cannot but Love Christ in Austin, though I differ from him in some matters of Opinion. The man that has a Regenerate Soul in him, cannot choose but love and honour them in whom •he Regenerating Grace of God is conspicuous. He (faith John) that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him; by this we know that we love the Children of God, when we love God. • Joh. 5. •, 2. so by this we may know that we love and honour God, when we love and honour his Children as such, because they do in respect of Holiness resemble him more than others in the World do.