N00441:104
Fair weather. Or Considerations to dispel the clouds, & allay the storms, of discontent
Fair weather. Or Considerations to dispel the clouds, & allay the storms, of discontent: in a discourse which with an entertaining variety, both of argument and history, lays open, the nature and evil of that pernicious vice, and offers diverse antidotes against it; / by Cotton Mather. ; Whereto there is prefixed a catalogue of sins against all the commandments, whereof all that would make thorough work of repentance, especially at this day when the God of heaven so loudly calls for it, should make their serious and sensible confessions before the Lord; with an humble and fervent address unto this whole people, there-about.Fair weather. Or Considerations to dispel the clouds, & allay the storms, of discontent: in a discourse which with an entertaining variety, both of argument and history, layes open, the nature and evil of that pernicious vice, and offers diverse antidotes against it; / by Cotton Mather. ; Whereto there is prefixed a catalogue of sins against all the commandments, whereof all that would make thorough work of repentance, especially at this day when the God of heaven so loudly calls for it, should make their serious and sensible confessions before the Lord; with an humble and fervent address unto this whole people, there-about.
Boston: printed by Bartholomew Green for Benjamin Harris, 1692
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.
There are two things which the Reader has with many Pressing Terms been thus Discoursed upon; the One is more General; namely, A REFORMATION to be pursued in all one Churches; the Other is more Special: namely, A CONTENTATION to be maintained in all our Spirits; And behold, what an Accent I now have to put upon these WORDS of God, from those WORKS of His, which have happened in our Neighbourhood, since the Writing ⟨p. 84⟩of these Meditations! I may now give you that Invitation of the Psalmist, Come, Behold the Works of the Lord, what Desolations He hath made in the Earth! Alas, When shall the next sentence come to be fulfilled? Good God! When shall we see, He maketh Wars to cease unto the Ends of the Earth?
THere are two things which the Reader has with many Pressing Terms been thus Discours•d upon; the One is more General; namely, A REFORMATION to be pursued in all one Churches; the Other is more Special: namely, A CONTENTATION to be mentained in all our Spirits; And behold, what an Accent I now have to put upon these WORDS of God, from those WORKS of His, which have happened in our Neighbourhood, since the Writing ⟨p. 84⟩of these Meditations! I may now give you that Invitation of the Psalmist, Come, Behold the Works of the Lord, what Desolations He hath made in the Earth! Alas, When shall the next sentence come to be fulfilled? Good God! When shall we see, He maketh Wars to cease unto the Ends of the Earth?
If our CHURCHES do not now more then ever Study to Reform every thing that may be offensive to the Sacred & Flaming eyes of the Blessed Jesus in them, & Revive their Zeal, their Watch, their Care against every R••e of Bitterness, which Professors may have insensibly Rising in their Hearts and Lives; We are certainly Blind before Lightning, We are Deaf to Thunder! The Lord Jesus throughout all our late War with the Indians in our East, had hitherto marvellously preserved and protected our Churches, and only Broke up such Plantations as had been too much without the due Respects or Effects of His Glorious Gospel. But what a doleful Thing is there now come to pass? A Church of Saints in now lately in a manner Dissipated, by a Sudden, Furious, Treacherous