N00527:91
Warnings from the dead. Or Solemn admonitions unto all people
Warnings from the dead. Or Solemn admonitions unto all people; but especially unto young persons to beware of such evils as would bring them to the dead. / By Cotton Mather. ; In two discourses, occasioned by a sentence of death, executed on some unhappy malefactors. ; Together with the last confession, made by a young woman, who dyed on June 8. 1693. One of these malefactors.
printed by Bartholomew Green for Samuel Phillips, 1693
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.
II. Behold, One Ground of the Mortality, which we daily Behold upon the Rising Generation in our Land. What multitudes among us, do we see Die in Youth! This Land is making the Lamentation that was made by the Church of old, The Lord ha's called an Assembly against me, to Crush my Young men, How many Scores of Young men have sometime […] ⟨p. 57⟩been lost from one Little Town, within two or three Years, by the Disastrous Plagues and Wars that have been upon us! And how many of our Young men that have Travelled into other Countries, have there fallen under the Terrible Hand of God! Unto us may our God say, as He said unto Israel of old, Your, Young men have I Slain. But what for, I pray? Now, Methinks, the Wickedness, & Especially the Uncleanness too rise among our Young People, should be acknowledged, among the Causes of these Calamities. What said the Prophet in Isa. 9.17. The Lord shall have no Joy in their Young men, for every one is an evil door. So little Joy indeed ha's our God in our Young People, that He is every day saying over them, Indians, Do you come; Frenchmen do you come; Fevers, do you come; & cut off as many of those young People, as come in your way! Dreadful case! But, O Lord, what means the Heat of this thine Anger, against my poor miserable Generation? Truly, you see the Rise of all this Mischief. Tis because there are so many Evil Doers in this Generation. But of all the Evil-doers, among our Young people, there is one more frequent, or more fatal, than the Uncleanness, wherein so many of them do manifest ⟨p. 58⟩their Wickedness. It is possible, that Old people, may by their Beastly Baseness help to pull down the Fury of a Provoked God upon the Land. It is here said The Hypocrites in Heart have their Life among the Unclean. Why, There may be Old Professors, Old Church-Members, that may be Old Hypocrites in this regard. They seem to be Religious, they will be much at Meetings, they Look devout at the Table of the Lord, they will be very Zealous and Precise about some little Niceties; Yea, but they are most Wanton Satyrs in Secret places; their Wantonness makes them Stink, before the Son of God, who will have the Churches to know, that He Searches the Hearts & Tries the Reins of the Children of men. Such thing as these, are the Achans of the Land. But it is the Young people that are this way the most Extravagant. How few Oh!