N00395:12
Work upon the ark. Meditations upon the ark as a type of the church
Work upon the ark. Meditations upon the ark as a type of the church; delivered in a sermon at Boston, and now dedicated unto the service of all, but especially of those whose concerns lye in ships. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Four lines of quotations]
Boston: printed by Samuel Green, 1689
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.
SECT. I.
Among all the many Subjects which a Preacher of the Gospel has to insist upon, I know not whether any would carry a greater mixture of pleasure and Profit, than that of the Types which exhibited Evangelical Mysteries unto Israel of old; in treating upon which, the Advantage that we Now have •o compare the Shadow and Substance, will afford unto us a rich variety of Observations thereupon, which none but one that shall come and see, •an imagine the value of. The Learned Rothwel, •eing advised by a Clergy-man mere Great than Wise, to forbear meddling with the Types, as Themes not convenient for him to study upon▪ •ade that very prohibition, but as an Invitation […] expect, something of a more than common Import ⟨image ?⟩in them; and accordingly falling upon the Meditation of them, he found (I suppose) no part of his Ministry more satisfactory to himself, or Savoury to others, than what he there Employed. It was not upon any Apprehensions which I have yet seen cause to change▪ that I did my self, divers months ago, single •ut the Types for one of my Two or Three or Four Weekly Sermons ordinarily to be taken up withal; but having on Lords-Days in the Afternoons, discoursed more than a few Times thereupon, I find them like the Waters in Ezekiels Vision, Growing and Rising still, the further we wade into them. I am convinced that the gracious Valerius Herbs, g who hath writ Book to prove, that in every Chapter of the Bible, there is to be found something of our Blessed Jesu, might easily prove his Assertion, with a very great Redundancy of Demonstration; and that every paragraph of the Bible is a spot of Ground where before we dig far, we shall find the Pear of Great Price.