N00524:81
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.
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.
Secondly. Let not Fear be cast off: Are we not Afraid, Lest when the Storms of Divine Vengeance do burst and break upon our own Sinful Nation, some Drops of the Storms do fall upon our Heads. The Profanity, the Debauchery, the Superstition, wherewith our Nation has been infected, have Long been making a Loud Cry in the Ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth; So that he seems to say, as in Jer. 5. 9. Shall not I visit for these things, saith the Lord: Shall not my Soul be avenged on such a Nation as this? And when the Holy God shall visit for those things, it will be well, if Showers of Blood be not Rained on a Land, where the Blood of His Dear Son has been treated as an Unholy Thing. Hence 'tis that many Thinking Men, in the Nation at this Day, are Looking upon one another with paleness in their Faces▪ and wishing, O that we had Wings like a Dove! But especially, when they Look back upon the fierce Persecutions, which formerly flamed in that Land against the Pure Worship of our Lord, they conceive that they may see, Wrath coming unto the uttermost. And how ⟨p. 58⟩shall a share in that Wrath upon the Mother, be now avoided, by the most Resembling of all her Daughters?
Thirdly. Let not Fear be cast off: Are we not Afraid, Le•t the Cup of that Fury, which has already dissipated as Glorious Churches as any of Ours, be likewise given unto ours. We have most Appalling Intimations given unto us, not only in the Wasting and the Doleful Disasters that have come upon the other Plantations of the English America; such Disasters as cause the most considerable Personages among them, to write from thence unto us, The Divine Providence almost seems to have forsaken this side of the World, and Left us unto the Treasures of Wrath, which we have been Long Laying up! But also in the Scatterings, that have elsewhere befallen, The Holy People. We may value our selves upon our Ecclesiastical Settlements & Ornaments, & upon the wonderful Appearances of God, in the first production of them: whereof a CHURCH HISTORY might indeed most profitably be [and is] Endeavoured Yea, but our Lord may say unto us, I have not found thy Works perfect before God! And who