N01237:56
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. Time Servers are Spiritual Cowards. There have been men in the World whose principle (however their practice) has been to be of that Religion which is uppermost: They will be of the State Religion be it what it will. The Multitude is apt to be of the Kings Religion. When Jeroboam set up his Superstitious Worship, the generality of the Nation conformed: They went willingly after the Commandment, Hos. 5▪ 11. And when Rehoboam who was King over Judah, forsook the Law of the Lord, it is observed that all Israel did so with him, 2 Chron. 12. 1. There was a man whose Name was Porn, who in the Reign of King Henry VIII. was of his Religion, and in the Reign of King Edward VI. he professed ⟨p. 36⟩himself a Protestant. In the Reign of Queen Mary he turned Papist again. In the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, he would be a Protestant again. Whence if a man was notorious for his Time-serving, it became Proverbial to say, He did Pernare. Such an Infamy has his Temporizing left on his Name. Many will be of that Religion which is the way to preferment. They will Sin against their light rather then loose a place of profit or honour. […] may be for such a trifling honour as a Commission to be a Captain or a Major, or a Justice of Peace, the man will tack about and change his party. Such a Coward (especially if he has been an Hypocritical Pretender to Religion) deserves to be an abhorring of all men: What would such a man do, if it should come to Fire and Faggot? And what will such Temporizing Cowards gain by their base Compliances? Most certainly they will find themselves losers at last, however they may please themselves at present. Christ says, He that will save his life shall loose it, Mat. 16. 24. By saving a Temporal Life loose an Eternal Life which is infinitely better. And oftentimes such Time-servers miss of that Temporal happiness which they promised themselves. Our English Martyrologist gives a remarkable account of a Man who in Queen Mary's days turned a Papist: One Expostulating with him about it, and demanding the reason of his deserting the Truth, I know (said he) that the Protestant Religion is the ⟨p. 37⟩