N01237:48
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.
Let me then mention to you some Characters of one that has this Grace.
1. He is one that will bear a Faithful Testimony to the Truth, and against the Errors and Corruptions of the Time and Place in which the Divine Providence has disposed of him. There are some Truths which are the special Truths of the day. These the Scripture calls, The present Truth, 2 Pet. 1. 12. The great Truth of the Time in the Apostles days, was, That the Promised Messiah is come, and that Jesus of Nazareth is He. If a man did own that Truth, his Estate, Liberty, and Life was in danger to be taken from him. It argued a noble Courage to be in those that would profess their belief of it. And therefore in those days for a man to speak those few words, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, was as great and a greater evidence of a true Conversion, than any Relation of a work of Grace, is in these days. 1 Joh. 4. 15. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God. So far as men could Judge it was so. In after ages to assert the God-head of our Saviour was the Truth of the Times. After that to appear for the Truths relating to the Prophetical Office of Christ in opposition to the Traditions of men. And after that truths relating to the Priestly Office of Christ, that He is the alone Priest of the New-Testament, who has made a full Atonement for the Sins of his People by the Sacrifice of Himself, on whose Merit we must depend, ⟨p. 29⟩and not on any Works or Righteousness of our own; these have been the special Truths of the Times, which many Martyrs have been Sealing with their blood in opposition to Popery. In these Latter Ages truths which respect the Kingly Office of Christ as he is the only Head of his Church, have been and are the Truth of the Times which we ought Courageously to bear our Testimony unto.
1. He is one that will bear a Faithful Testimony to the Truth, and against the Errors and Corruptions of the Time and Place in which the Divine Providence has disposed of him. There are some Truths which are the special Truths of the day. These the Scripture calls, The present Truth,