N00431:127
The wonderful works of God commemorated. Praises bespoke for the God in heaven in…
The wonderful works of God commemorated. Praises bespoke for the God in heaven in a thanksgiving sermon; delivered on Decemb. 19. 1689. Containing just reflections upon the excellent things done by the great God, more generally in creation and redemption, and in the government of the world; but more particularly in the remarkable revolutions of providence which are every where the matter of present observation. With a postscript giving an account of some very stupendous accidents, which have lately happened in France. / By Cotton Mather. ; To which is added a sermon preached unto the convention of the Massachuset-Colony in New-England, with a short narrative of several prodigies, which New-England hath of late had the alarms of heaven in.
Boston: printed by S. Green & sold by Joseph Browning, 1690
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.
The Ministry of these Extraordinary People, does chiefly consist of two things.
One part of it is, the Admonition of those unhappy persons that have provoked God by many notorious Miscarriages, but especially by Apostasy under the late Persecution. They deride the Follies of the Mass, with a surprising ingenuity; and in a vast Assembly of perhaps two thousand People come together to hear these Preachers, if there be any that have abjured the Protestant Religion, they will call them before them, and address them in such powerful Terms, as usually make not not only the whole Congregation shed floods of Tears, but the Apostates themselves to become Penitents: and there comes not one away, who does not positively declare, That he had rather be torn to pieces with wild Horses than ever go to Mass again. No ⟨p. 60⟩man is able to resist their Words! And they make the Penitents now and then confess other particular sins, which they convince them of, though the Transgressors had imagined these Faults impossible to be discovered. A whole Council assembled could not manage any matter with more Authority than They do the Conviction of those, who have gone to Mass, that they may shun the Severities of the French Dragoons.
One part of it is, the Admonition of those unhappy persons that have provoked God by many notorious Miscarriages, but especially by Apostasie under the late Persecution. They deride the Follies of the Mass, with a surprizing ingenuity; and in a vast Assembly of perhaps two thousand People come together to hear these Preachers, if there be any that have abjured the Protestant Religion, they will call them before them, and address them in such powerful Terms, as usually make not not only the whole Congregation shed floods of Tears, but the Apostates themselves to become Penitents: and there comes not one away, who does not positively declare, That he had rather be torn to pieces with wild Horses than ever go to Mass again. No ⟨p. 60⟩man is able to resist their Words! And they make the Penitents now and then confess other particular sins, which they convince them of, though the Transgressors had imagined these Faults impossible to be discovered. A whole Council assembled could not manage any matter with more Authority than They do the Conviction of those, who have gone to Mass, that they may shun the Severities of the French Dragoons.