A50170:104
The triumphs of the reformed religion in America the life of the renowned John…
The triumphs of the reformed religion in America the life of the renowned John Eliot, a person justly famous in the church of God, not only as an eminent Christian and an excellent minister among the English, but also as a memorable evangelist among the Indians of New-England : with some account concerning the late and strange success of the Gospel in those parts of the world which for many ages have lain buried in pagan ignorance / written by Cotton Mather.The triumphs of the reformed religion in America the life of the renowned John Eliot, a person justly famous in the church of God, not only as an eminent Christian and an excellant minister among the English, but also as a memorable evangelist amoung the Indians of New-England : with some account concerning the late and strange success of the Gospel in those parts of the world which for many ages have lain buried in pagan ignorance / written by Cotton Mather.
Boston: printed by Benjamin Harris and John Allen for Joseph Brunning, 1691
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.
He was a modest, humble, but very reasonable N•n conformist un•o the Ceremonies, which have bin such unhappy Apples of strife, in the Church of England; otherwise the dismal thickets of America, had ne•er seen such a person in them. He could not count it lawful for him ordinarily to perform his Ministerial Acts of solemn and public Prayer, by reading or using any Forms of Prayer composed by other persons for him, as thousands of Preachers do at this day. And th•s, not only because an Ability to express the case of a Congregation in prayer, is a Ministerial Gift, which our Lord forbids his Ministers to Neglect; and a Minister that should only Read Forms of Sermons composed for him, would as truly discharge the Duty of Preaching, as one that sh•• only read such Forms of prayers, would the duty of praying in it; but also because he could no• find that any Forms of prayer were used in an• ⟨p. 63⟩part of the Church, until about four hundred years after Christ; nor any made for more than some single Province until s•x hundred years; nor any imposed until eight hundred, when all manner of Abominable Things began to be found in the Temple of God; and he had over and above, his particular Dissatisfactions at the English Liturgy, for weighty causes rather increased than abated since his first notice of them. He could not wear a Surplice in and for the Worship of God; as well-knowing the Original of that unholy Vestment, and agreeing with Dr. Abbot; who was no Fanatic, and yet says in his Book of Antichrist, That all Priestly Garments, whereby Ministers are distinguished, from the rest of the Church, are a special part of the character of the Beast. He could not use the Cross in Baptism; forasmuch as Dr. Taylor himself confesses, 'tis An Uninstituted Ceremony retained as a part of External Worship; and so 'tis as much a violation of the Second Commandment in the Law of our God, as the oil, cream, salt and spittle, with which that Institution has been defiled by the Roman Catholics. Indeed, he thought with Learned Parker, That the Cross is the greatest Devil among the Idols of Rome. He could not Kneel before the Eucharist; inasmuch as it was a usage introduced about the thirteenth Century, merely to suit and serve the Idolatry of the Transubstantiation.