N00441:81
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.
I Let Serious THOUGHTS be the first part of our Antidote.
Contentment is like Charity; it, Thinks no Evil. And if we were full of, Good Thoughts, it would core our Discontent. We should indeed keep a Guard upon all our Thoughts; and not permit 'em to run […] into the Woods, by giving 'em up, to Think, We know not what? Those Rambling Figments, which rise within us, when the Cogitative Power is not Governed by, The Law of Christ, are the Chaos our of which we create all our Discontent. We must use to, Think by Rule; and when the special Exercises of either our General or particular Calling, do not […] for our […] Thoughts, we must not let all the Interval space between our more stated Businesses be over grown with the Words of none but Vain Thoughts; We must fetch back our Desultory & Impertinent Imaginations, from their Vagaries, and we must fetch in some useful ⟨p. 62⟩Meditations into our Souls, which a Divine and a […] Chemistry, would make even the meanest Occurrences to afford unto us.
Contentment is like Charity; it, Thinks no Evil. And if we were full of, Good Thoughts, it would core our Discontent. We should indeed keep a Guard upon all our Thoughts; and not permit 'em to run 〈…〉 into the Woods, by giving 'em up, to Think, We know not what? Those Rambling Figments, which rise within us, when the Cogitative Power is not Governed by, The Law of Christ, are the Ch•os our of which we create all our Discontent. We must use to, Think by Rule; and when the special Exercises of either our General or particular Calling, do not 〈…〉 for our 〈…〉 Thoughts, we must not let all the Interval space between our more stated Businesses be over grown with the Words of none but Vain Thoughts; We must fetch back our Desultory & Impertinent Imaginations, from their Vagaries, and we must fetch in some useful ⟨p. 62⟩