The way to prosperity a sermon / preached to the honourable convention of the…

Pardon me, that I first offer it unto You, that are or may be our Superiors. It was said in Hos. 11. 12. Judah ruleth with God. When Rulers are with God, O happy Government! Unto YOU, much Honoured, ⟨p. 33⟩I would humbly address this Petition, That Your first work may be to think on some considerable Expedient, by which the Presence of God may be secured unto us. A little Consultation may soon produce, what all New-England may bless you for. Yea, tis very much in your Power to do what may have a Tendency to perpetuate the Presence of God unto the succeeding Generations. I cannot for bear uttering the Wish of the great Chytr•us in this Honourable Audience, Urinam potentes rerum Domini majorem Ecclesiae et Scholarum curam susciperent! May a godly and a learned Ministry be every where encouraged: and no Plantations allowed to live without a good Minister in them. May the College be maintained, and that River the wholesome streams whereof have made glad the City of God, and blest us with a privilege above the other Out-goings of our Nation, be kept Running, with Issues beyond those from the Seminaries of Canada or Mexico; may Schools be countenanced, and all good ways to nourish them and support them in every Town, be put in Execution; you shall then probably leave the Presence of God, as a blessed Legacy with such as may come after you. I know not whether we do, or can at this Day, labour under an iller Symptom, than the too general Want of Education in the Rising Generation; ⟨p. 34⟩which, if not prevented, will gradually, but speedily, dispose us, to that sort of Criolian Degeneracy, observed to deprave the Children of the most noble and worthy Europeans, when transplanted into America. The Youth of this Country, are very sharp, and early ripe in their Capacities, above most in the world; and were the Benefits of a Religious and Ingenuous Education bestowed upon them, they would soon prove an Admirable People; and as we know that England afforded the first Discoverers of America in these latter Ages, whatever the Spaniards may pretend unto the Contrary; for it may be proved that both Britons and Saxons, did inhabit here, at least Three or Four hundred years before Columbus was born into the world, which the Annals themselves of those times do plainly enough Declare;