N00431:241
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.
An APPENDIX Touching Prodigies In NEW-ENGLAND.
AS an Appendix to the Endeavours used in the foregoing Treatise, to Commemorate the Wonderful Works of God, and at the same time to awaken this Country unto such a Devotion and Repentance as the Works of God are calling for: It ought to be seriously enquired, Whether we have not been by any Prodigies Warned of the Evils near unto us? tho' it must be confessed, that our Hearts were Prodigiously obdurate and insensible, if we needed any, while we have Moses and the Prophets. The written Word of God is that Firmament, spread over the Spiritual, which answers the Expansum in the Natural World; and the Threatenings with the Histories therein shining •nd Thundering, would give to a sinful People ⟨image ?⟩as great a premonition of impendin Plagues, as the most Portentous Armies in th Air, or Comets in the Aether of the Universe. Yet even Insolit Accidents of Nature, as well as Faithful Cautions of Scripture have been employed for our awakening in our late stupidity. Indeed there are some from whom we might have expected a less unreasonable Scepticism, who deride all Prodigies; but these Gentlemen, like Those who deny Original Sin, do in their own Disputation confute themselves, by Giving, yea, by Being an Instance of the very thing, which they oppose. Nay, Let no more than the Authorities and Varieties recited by the Great Zuinger, in his Elaborate Theatre, upon the Head of Prodigies, be fairly considered, and I know not whether you will allow them to be called Gentlemen, that shall be so Disingenuous as to make a Ridicule of all in this kind, that has been hitherto Reported and Believed. I acknowledge, That there ought to be much Accuracy in the Observation of Prodigies; and that those things ought not always to be accounted Prodigies which are Extraordinaries; and that it is a simple thing to believe every word; and since I have seen the Nonconformists Reproached for their minding of Prodigies, by the loose Pens of certain Writers, whom, weighing well their Accomplishments, ⟨image ?⟩