Winter meditations directions how to employ the leisure of the winter for the glory…

'Tis, as I remember, Polydore Virgil who relates, that when Mathildis was, during the Depth of Winter, straitly Besieged, in Oxford, She arrayed her self and her followers all in white, the colour of the Snow upon the Ground, and by the Advantage of that Colour escaped through' the Besiegers unto a place of Safety. That which I desire, is, a free passage for the Truths, and the Ways, and the Works of God, into the minds of my Neighbours; and I have therefore taken the Advantage of putting a Winter Complexion upon them; I have Clothed them in the Colours of the Winter. And in this ESSAY, I have after a sort Moralized the Fable of Antiphanes, That there is in a certain Scythian Region such a Frost, that the Words uttered in the Winter there Congeal so as to be not heard until the Summer following shall dissolve them: for 'twas at Boston-Lecture, in the Month of December last, that the Heads of these Winter-Meditations, were first Preached; and it is now in the Month of November following that they are Printed, on the same Designs of Religion, that gave them their Original.

'Tis, as I remember, Polydore Virgil who relates, that when Mathildis was, during the Depth of Winter, straitly Besieged, in Oxford, She arrayed her self and her followers all in white, the colour of the Snow upon the Ground, and by the Advantage of that Colour escaped thro' the Besiegers unto a place of Safety. That which I desire, is, a free passage for the Truths, and the VVays, and the VVorks of God, into the minds of my Neighbours; and I have therefore taken the Advantage of putting a VVinter Complexion upon them; I have Clothed them in the Colours of the VVinter. And in this ESSAY, I have after a sort Moralized the Fable of Antiphanes, That there is in a certain Scythian Region such a Frost, that the VVords uttered in the VVinter there Congele so as to be not heard until the Summer following shall dissolve them: for 'twas at Boston-Lecture, in the Month of December last, that the Heads of these VVinter-Meditations, were first Preached; and it is now in the Month of November following that they are Printed, on the same Designs of Religion, that gave them their Original.

When the Excellent Bartholinus, published his Book, De Usu Nivis, it was accompanied with an Epigram, something to this purpose, Libros Authoris, quieunque recenset et Amos, Amos quot poterit, tot Numerare Libros.