N00441:74
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.
A Sacred Exorcism, upon Sinful DISCONTENT. Uttered on December 24.… › II. The Evil of DISCONTENT.
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.
Discontent will heap all sorts of Bad Things upon us. For, it utterly deprives us, of our Comfort in those things which we are already the Subjects of. 'Tis Content alone, that will make a man really Rich and Great. A man truly is the Possessor of nothing, which he is not Contented with. It is said. A little that a Righteous man, has, is better than the Riches of ⟨p. 56⟩many Wicked. Why so? because a Righteous man is a Contented man. Most of our Indigencies and Necessities, are but in our Conceit; Now Content gives a man, a conceit of Enough, in his Little. Whereas, if a man has never so much about him, he will be a poor man, as long as Discontent shall worry him. Our Naked Eye, will show us five or six Hundred Stars at once in our Hemisphere, glittering over us; but if we hold no bigger a thing than a Groat close to our Eye, it will hinder us from seeing those Lamps of Heaven at all; all is dark. Why, we have glorious Constellations of Comforts on every side of us; but our Discontent lays one perite Inconvenience or other close to our Eye, that all is darkness about us, & we are e•en ready to say, We c•n see nothing that God has done for us! What signified all the Widow of Sar•pta's Preservations, Provisions, and Protections, in a very Calamitous Time, unto her, while Discontent was Complaining, My Son is dead! What signified all the Miraculous things done for Jonah, (whom the Jews count the Son of that Widow,) while Discontent was complaining, My ⟨p. 57⟩Gourd is gone? O 'tis a most ungrateful thing, this Discontent!
Discontent will heap all sorts of Bad Things upon us. For, it utterly deprives us, of our Comfort in those things which we are already the Subjects of. 'Tis Content alone, that will make a man really Rich and Great. A man truly is the Possessor of nothing, which he is not Contented with. It is said. A little that a Righteous man, has, is better than the Riches of ⟨p. 56⟩many Wicked. Why so? because a Righteous man is a Contented man. Most of our Indigencies and Necessities, are but in our Conceit; Now Content gives a man, a conceit of Enough, in his Little. Whereas, if a man has never so much about him, he will be a poor man, as long as Discontent shall worry him. Our Naked Eye, will show us five or six Hundred Stars at once in our Hemisphere, glittering over us; but if we hold no bigger a thing than a Groat close to our Eye, it will hinder us from seeing those Lamps of Heaven at all; all is dark. Why, we have glorious Constellations of Comforts on every side of us; but our Discontent layes one perite Inconvenience or other close to our Eye, that all is darkness about us, & we are een ready to say, We cn see nothing that God has done for us! What signify'd all the Widow of Sarpta's Preservations, Provisions, and Protections, in a very Calamitous Time, unto her, while Discontent was Complaining, My Son is dead! What signify'd all the Miraculous things done for Jonas, (whom the Jews count the Son of that Widow,) while Discontent was complaining, My