N00500:133
Ornaments for the daughters of Zion. Or The character and happiness of a virtuous…Ornaments for the daughters of Zion. Or The character and happiness of a vertuous…
Ornaments for the daughters of Zion. Or The character and happiness of a virtuous woman: in a discourse which directs the female-sex how to express, the fear of God, in every age and state of their life; and obtain both temporal and eternal blessedness. / Written by Cotton Mather ; [Four lines in Latin from Tertullian, followed by a six line translation into English]Ornaments for the daughters of Zion. Or The character and happiness of a vertuous woman: in a discourse which directs the female-sex how to express, the fear of God, in every age and state of their life; and obtain both temporal and eternal blessedness. / Written by Cotton Mather ; [Four lines in Latin from Tertullian, followed by a six line translation into English]
printed by S.G. & B.G. i.e 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.
NEVERTHELESS if our Virtuous Woman become a Parent, we shall see what a Virtuous Mother, she will approve her self.
NEVERTHELESS if our Vertuous Woman become a Parent, we shall see what a V•rtuous Mother, she will approve her self.
I. She is no sooner sensible, that she has Conceived, but she Presently and Solemnly, and Perhaps with Fasting as well as Prayer, applies her self to the God of Heaven, That He would with His own Holy Spirit Fill and Shape what is in her; and that what is to be •orn of her, may be, An Holy Thing ▪ She accounts the Treasure now Lodged in her, to be of more Account than all the Riches of a Thousand India's; inasmuch as tis a Never-dying SOUL, by which the Almighty God may be forever Glorified. And as •herefore she carefully avoids all that may prejudice the Formation of the Infant in her, so she l•ves in afore-hand with a due Earliness, and Earnestness, that the Infant may be, Sanctified in ⟨image ?⟩the womb ▪ She is not Inordinately set upon having an infant of O•e S•x, more than another; but her great Concern is that which a Big bellied Woman once recorded in a Legacy left Written as her Desire for her Unborn Infant, That she may be a Mother to one of Gods Children! Suppose it be a Daughter, which usually (and perhaps needlessly) is less longed for; ye• if it may• be a Bethiah, that is, A Daughter of the Lord, or, a Diana, that is, A Daughter of God, she ha•s her Choice; and she is freely willing that God should have the Proportioning of Sexes in the World