N01237:29
A discourse concerning the grace of courage, wherein the nature, beneficialness, and necessity of…
A discourse concerning the grace of courage, wherein the nature, beneficialness, and necessity of that virtue for all Christians, is described. Delivered in a sermon preached at Boston in New-England. June 5th. 1710. / By Increase Mather, D.D. ; [Two lines from I Corinthians]A discourse concerning the grace of courage, wherein the nature, beneficialness, and necessity of that vertue for all Christians, is described. Delivered in a sermon preached at Boston in New-England. June 5th. 1710. / By Increase Mather, D.D. ; [Two lines from I Corinthians]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Samuel Phillips, 1710
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.
2. The Servants of God have difficult Duties before them; and therefore they had need of Courage, that so they may hold out in the way of Duty. They have a long Journey to go, and the Way which they must go in is Difficult and Dangerous: It is like the Wilderness which the Children of Israel passed through when they were going to the good Land, it was a terrible Wilderness, in which was fiery Serpents and Scorpions and Drought. And it may be the Lord to Exercise the Patience and Courage of his Servants, will keep them a long Time in this woeful Wilderness; in which they must Encounter with distressing Difficulties. The Children of Israel were detained Forty Years in the Wilderness of Arabia; and what Difficulties did they meet with in that Forty Years Temptation▪ ⟨p. 13⟩Sometimes they were ready to give out, resolving to go no further; but to return to Egypt again: Such Faltering and Fainting is for want of a due measure of Courage. Wherefore the Scripture says, Let us not be weary in Well-doing; for in due season we shall Reap, if we Faint not, Gal. 6. 9. A Weak man will soon be weary, and faint; but a Strong man will hold out. A man that has a great measure of Fortitude and Strength of Soul, will be so far from being deterred from his Duty, as that his Spirit will rise with Opposition and Difficulty in his way; as David's did when he was derided for his Zeal: I will yet be more Vile, said he, 2 Sam. 6. 22.
2. The Servants of God have difficult Duties before them; and therefore they had need of Courage, that so they may hold out in the way of Duty. They have a long Journey to go, and the Way which they must go in is Difficult and Dangerous: It is like the Wilderness which the Children of Israel passed thorow when they were going to the good Land, it was a terrible Wilderness, in which was fiery Serpents and Scorpions and Drought. And it may be the Lord to Exercise the Patience and Courage of his Servants, will keep them a long Time in this woful Wilderness; in which they must Encounter with distressing Difficulties. The Children of Israel were detained Forty Years in the Wilderness of Arabia; and what Difficulties did they meet with in that Forty Years Temptation▪