N00528:90
Winter-meditations directions how to employ the leisure [sic] of the winter for the glory…Winter-meditations directions how to employ the liesure [sic] of the winter for the glory…
Winter-meditations directions how to employ the leisure [sic] of the winter for the glory of God. : Accompanied with reflections, as well historical, as theological, not only upon the circumstances of the winter, but also, upon the notable works of God, both in, creation, and providence: especially those, which more immediately concern every particular man, in the whole course of his life: and upon the religious works, wherewith every man should acknowledge God, in and from the accidents of the winter. / By Cotton Mather. ; With a preface of the Reverend, Mr. John Higginson.Winter-meditations directions how to employ the liesure [sic] of the winter for the glory of God. : Accompanied with reflections, as well historical, as theological, not only upon the circumstances of the winter, but also, upon the notable works of God, both in, creation, and providence: especially those, which more immediately concern every particular man, in the whole course of his life: and upon the religious works, wherewith every man should acknowledge God, in and from the accidents of the winter. / By Cotton Mather. ; With a preface of the Reverend, Mr. John Higginson.
Boston: printed by Benjamin Harris over-against the Old-Meeting-House, 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.
Well then, when the Winter comes, we must Acknowledge that it is from God. It is as we read, Psal. 147.17. Gods Cold, and for that cause we may not call it Cruel Cold; at least it must be a cruel Catechresis, by which we call it so? nothing done by God, should be Esteemed Cruel. Even so, 'tis Gods Winter, the Almighty God is to be Reverenced as the Orderer of it all.
Is the Winter now Rolled about? Then Know, That God is the MAKER of the Winter. 'Tis Enquired, in Job. 38.28,29. Hath the Rain a Father? Out of […] came the Ice? and the ⟨p. 26⟩Hoary Frost of Heaven, who hath Gendered it? So, when the Winter is upon us, we may Enquire, whence comes this Cold, and snow, and Rain, and all the rest? But we see them all fall from Heaven; & unto the God of Heaven should we ascribe the making of all. As the Winter is of Gods Promise; Whether the Antediluvian World had any proper winter or no, yet the Lord presently after the Flood, engaged concerning our present World, Summer & Winter shall not cease: Thus, the Winter is of Gods Making too. The Numberless Number of Saline Particles, from whence at least some circumstances of the Winter do arise, do all of them say, Tis the Lord that has made us, and not we ourselves. There seems to be a […] store of Corpuscles a little akin to Nitre, exhaled from the Terrestrial Globe, and roving about in sundry parts of the Atmosphere (of the Figure which Philoponus tells us, Democritus assigned unto Frigorific Atoms) and these may not a little contribute unto many things that we feel in our cold. But still, who made them all? And thus, not only those mighty Rands of Ice (that Magnum Duramen Aquarum, as Lucretius Calleth it,) Encountered by such, Navigators as Janus Munckius, who saw these Icy-Islands floating Twenty Fathom above Water; or as Baffin, who round some above Water, between two & three Hundred foot High; or those that sometimes occur in the River of Canada, where Icy-Islands have been seen, computed Fourscore Leagues in Length; but every little Ice-Cycle is the Workmanship of God.