N00498:66
A midnight cry an essay for our awakening out of that sinful sleep, to…
A midnight cry an essay for our awakening out of that sinful sleep, to which we are at this time too much disposed; and for our discovering of what peculiar things there are in this time, that are for our awakening. In a discourse given on a day of prayer, kept by the North-Church in Boston. 1692. / By Cotton Mather. ; Now published for the use of that church, together with a copy of acknowledgements and protestations made in pursuance of the reformation, whereto we are to be awakened. ; [One line of Latin text]A midnight cry an essay for our awakening out of that sinful sleep, to which we are at this time too much disposed; and for our discovering of what peculiar things there are in this time, that are for our awakening. In a discourse given on a day of prayer, kept by the North-Church in Boston. 1692. / By Cotton Mather. ; Now published for the use of that church, together with a copy of acknowledgments and protestations made in pursuance of the reformation, whereto we are to be awakened. ; [One line of Latin text]
Boston: printed by John Allen for Samuel Phillips, 1692
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.
Fourthly. We are Speechless, and should we be so, if we were not fast Asleep? If […] were falsely charged upon Job. in Chap 15.•• Thou restrainest Prayer before God; it may be too Truly charged upon ourselves. O! there is too little Prayer a going among us, for such, A Day of Trouble, and Rebuke, and Blasphemy, and of no strength to bring forth, as is now come upon us. P•late most insolently said unto our Lord, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to kill thee, or save thee. But our Lord may Righteously complain of us, Their Life and their Death, is in my Hands, yet they will not speak unto me. How many Closets are there that are not visited and perfumed ⟨p. 40⟩with Secret Prayers from Day to Day? Yea, tis Reported, that some Church-Members have been so fearfully Distempered, as to dispute whether Secret Prayer were incumbent on them▪ An Indication of a most Horrid L•••ness sent into the Soul! Are those true […] that can argue so? What? have they no Secret Sins then to be bewailed, no Secret Wants to be relieved, no Secret Wounds to be opened, and no Secret Temptations to be cried against? And no such Command of our Lord as that, Enter into thy Closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, Pray to thy Father which is in secret. How many Houses also are there, that have not Private Prayers every Day performed in them? Altho' besides what the •ery Light of Nature dictates, That they who […] and R•st, and it may be Sin, together; •ould likewise every day Pray together; we have the Law of Scripture for every Master of a Family, Continue in Prayer, and watch […] the same. Which is but an Allusion to •he Continual Sacrifice of Old, which was every Morning and Evening brought unto the Lord. […] is affirmed, that the very Indians, which are now preying upon our East, have so much Christianity, learned from the Papists among them, That they have Private Prayer •n their Wigwams every Day. O My God, I Mourn in my Complaint, That among our Baptised Neighbours, there should be so many families that call not upon thy Name. If our ⟨p. 41⟩