N00441:30
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.
Introduction: AN Humble and Faithful TESTIMONY For God, unto the Children of my People.
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.
I must confess that our Churches have some Omens upon them, which do sometimes give me Apprehensions Blacker than the Ink I write with; nor can any thing but a Remarkable Recovery out of those Decays, which have been upon, The power of […] among •s, alter those direful Omens. We do perhaps value our selves upon the purity and privilege, which we have in our Church Administrations; but our God sa•s unto us concerning. These, as unto his people once about their Ornaments, Put them off, that I may know what to do unto you. That is, Believe that They will not save us, if we have not, The Fruits of Repentance. ⟨p. 18⟩We may perhaps also promise our selves our shares in that Resurrection of the Witnesses, which I hope, the Operations of God are now upon. B•• it may be, we do not, well weigh, of what sort, The Day of the Lord, will be, Believe me, 'twill be accompanied with such Earthquakes of War, Death, and Uproar, as none of us are sure that we shall our-live the Ruins. O that our Churches would then vigorously set themselves upon some Extraordinary Methods of Self-Reformation, which indeed are now the only Methods of Self-Preservation! I assert, That The Doing of something Extraordinary this way, is the work of THIS, Gloomy, Cloudy, Stormy Day: and it is probable, that the man who is cold in this matter, will be cold, Formal, Sapless, in all his Ordinary Duties. But that which makes me write the more prest•ngly about this matter is, That Apostatized Churches have rarely yet been known, to Reform themselves […] have had their course, & Desolations have Ensured. And now think, O New-England, what has particularly come upon the Churches of […], Ephesus has now a few Cottages but no Christians in ⟨p. 19⟩it. Smyrna has much Traffic, but scarce any Gospel there. Pergamus has left in it, perhaps about a dozen Families, of Superstitious and Miserable Greeks. Thyatira has bloody and brutish Turks filling of it: Sardis, once a Metropolis, is now a Beggarly Village. Philadelphia is overrun with Slavery and Idolatry; and […], is utterly Desolate. Or, if a Later and sadder Example will more affect us; What are we (except in our Sabbaths better than the Churches in France? Yet have they lately seen their Temples destroyed, their Pastors Ban shed, and fell Dragons, like since Dragons, let Loose upon them. From these, no Escape has been allowed unto them;