N00524:27
The day, & the work of the day. A brief discourse, on what fears…
The day, & the work of the day. A brief discourse, on what fears we may have at this time to quicken us; what hopes there are at this time to comfort us: and what prayers would be likely to turn our prayers into hopes. With reflections upon time and state, now come upon the Church of God, and collections of certain prophecies relating to the present circumstances of New-England. Uttered on a fast, kept in Boston, July 6th. 1693. / By Cotton Mather.
Boston: printed by B. Harris, 1693
Title page typeset from the transcription.
The Day, and the Work of the Day. › Proposition 1 › Inquiry 1: The First Enquiry.
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.
What is the Prayer that must have no Restraint?
I Answer, PRAYER, is the presenting of our Desire to God in Christ, for His Mercy, in his Time and His Way, and His Measure, to be obtained. That we may speak yet more distinctly.
First, The Object of Prayer, is GOD in CHRIST. It were a detestable Idolatry to make a proper Prayer, (which is, The Acknowledgement of a first cause) unto any besides that God, whose Name alone is JEHOVAH, the Infinite and Eternal First Cause of all Things; a Daniel would sooner be torn to pieces with Hungry Lions, and the Children of God would sooner broil to Death in the Furnace heated by the Type of Antichrist, than commit such an Idolatry. It is the Rule in Math. 4. 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only thou shalt serve; and the Devil himself could not gainsay that Rule. Who should be the Object of Prayer, but the Hearer of Prayer? Now the Hearer of Prayer, must needs be an Omnipresent ⟨p. 14⟩One, able at once to receive the Supplications of many Thous••s from all Quarters of the Universe; and He must be an Omnipotent One, able to Rescue all, to Supply all, the miserable. But there is none besides our God, Who fills Heaven and Earth; none besides our God, For whom nothing is too hard; and hence This our God challenges it as His Title, in Psal. 65. 2. O Thou Hearer of Prayer! Why so? Because 'tis He alone, to whom we may say, O Thou Helper of men! Yea, but This God is not now to be Addressed from sinful men, but in and by and through the Lord Jesus CHRIST. He that is the Truth, hath with it said unto us, in