N00524:85
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.
Sixthly, Let not Fear be cast off: Are we not Afraid, Lest Indian Hatchets are to fetch yet more Blows at the Root of our Tree? When the Philistines bore hard upon Saul, 'tis said, His Armour bearer was sore afraid: and what shall we be, that are surrounded with Bloody Philistines? Our God has been doing to us what He denounced, in Deut. 31. 25. I will move them to Jealousy with those who are not a People. I will provoke them to Anger with a Foolish Nation. And those Foolish Nations that yet Survive of that No People, seem Reserved for a further Scourge unto us, who have been so Foolish, as to neglect very much of the Gospelizing of those Nations. ⟨p. 64⟩Had we done as much, as the French have done, for the Proselyting of the Indians, in our East, we had not seen […] whole Province there Consumed by their Depredations; and God knows, how far we may at some time or other •e so Chastised, for our like Omissions, in some other Quarters! A twentieth part of the Treasure spent in our Wars with the Salvages, would have gone far towards the Civilizing, and the Christianizing of them all: and then we had been delivered from such Wars for ever. God is to be praised indeed that so many of His Dear Servants have Travelled so far in that matter. But the most of our People, seem to Blow upon such Undertakings; or at least, have no Spirit for it: So that if Good Old Gildas were alive among us, he would threaten us, as he did his Country-men, when he told them, That God would make the Pagan Saxons, an heavy plague unto them, for their doing so Little towards the Conversion of those miserable Pagans.
Sixthly, Let not Fear be cast off: Are we not Afraid, Lest Indian Hatchets are to fetch yet more Blows at the Root of our Tree? When the Philistines bore hard upon Saul, 'tis said, His Armour bearer was sore afraid: and what shall we be, that are surrounded with Bloody Philistines? Our God has been doing to us what He denounced, in Deut. 31. 25. I will move them to Jealousie with those who are not a People. I will provoke them to Anger with a Foolish Nation. And those Foolish Nations that yet Survive of that No People, seem Reserved for a further Scourge unto us, who have been so Foolish, as to neglect very much of the Gospellizing of those Nations.