N00941:27
Meat out of the eater. Or, Funeral-discourses occasioned by the death of several relatives.…
Meat out of the eater. Or, Funeral-discourses occasioned by the death of several relatives. Work accommodated unto the service of all that are in any affliction; but very particularly such as are afflicted with the loss of their consorts or children. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Four lines from I Corinthians]
Boston: printed by B. Green & J. Allen for Benjamin Eliot, 1703
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.
The Second Proposition.
The greater our Faith is, the greater is it like to be the Trial of our Faith. Our God in his dealing with the children of Jacob to Try them, does as Jacob dealt with his Children; Gen. 33. 14. I will lead on softly as the Children are able to go. While we are Children in Faith, we are ⟨p. 14⟩lead on softly; we can't endure such Trials as afterwards, and accordingly we don't suffer such. But when we come to be grown into some stature and measure of our Faith, then God will make us know the proportionable Trial of it. God bestows our Faith on us, and then God adjusts the work of that Faith God gives to one man such a proportion of Faith and to another such an one, but the Trial bears a proportion also. We read, 1 Cor. 10. 13 God is faithful, and won't suffer you to be tempted, or, Tried, above what you are able. When God sees we are able, (for 'tis He alone that makes us Able.) to hold out, to resist, to stand fast, we shall be Tried accordingly. 'Tis said, Heb 10. 32. After the were Illuminated, ye endured a great fight of Affliction. When a man becomes a Paul in Christianity, such a man shall be Tried more than other men. Our Lord, the man JESUS Himself had his Faith confirmed with extraordinary manifestations from Heaven: the next news is, the Devil falls on him with such a Trial of it as never before. Don't wonder then, if the best men should suffer most, and if they suffer most when they are best. One says, ⟨p. 15⟩There are Christians tottering, staggering, and shaking in their Faith; the Devil will it may be let them alone, but when he sees men stand more strong in the Faith he then sees on them. Nothing of this Nature is done […] the ordering of God, and there is the Wisdom of God in permitting and ordering of it. The best of men find the World an Evil World; but never so Evil as when they are just going out of the World, After they have got more Faith and more Acquaintance with God and Christ, and their own Hearts, and are more Weaned from the World, after this, God will Try them, so as never in all their lives before.