N00532:48
The great blessing, of primitive counsellors. Discoursed in a sermon, preached in the audience…The great blessing, of primitive counsellours. Discoursed in a sermon, preached in the audience…
The great blessing, of primitive counsellors. Discoursed in a sermon, preached in the audience of the governor, Council, and representatives, of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New-England. May 31st. 1693. Being the day for the election of counsellors, in that province. / By Increase Mather. President of Harvard College in Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston, in New-England. ; [One line epigram in Latin]The great blessing, of primitive counsellours. Discoursed in a sermon, preached in the audience of the governour, Council, and representatives, of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New-England. May 31st. 1693. Being the day for the election of counsellours, in that province. / By Increase Mather. President of Harvard Colledge in Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston, in New-England. ; [One line epigram in Latin]
Boston, : Printed and sold, by Benjamin Harris, over-against the Old-Meeting-House., 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.
USE I.
Hence the contrary unto this of a Peoples being Blessed with Primitive Counsellors is a sore Judgment. It is said that where no Counsel is, the People fall, but in the multitude of Counsellors there is safety. Prov. 11. 14. Where there are good Counsellors, and a multitude of them, we may expect good, and much good, a multitude of Blessings will be on such a People, but where there are none such, nothing but ruin can be hoped ⟨p. 18⟩for. The Removal of wise Counsellors is threatened as a sore Judgment. Isai. 3. 3. When a People is reduced unto that condition, that there are none fit for Counsellors to be found amongst them, their State is deplorable, they are either perfectly undone, or the next door to ruin. Mic. 4 9. Why dost thou cry aloud, is the Counsellor perished? There is cause enough to cry aloud if it be so. They may well make Loud Outcries of their being an undone people amongst whom the Counsellor is perished. And thus it is where there are Counsellors of pernicious principles and inclinations: Such an one there was in Nineveh, where the King of Assyria kept his Court. Neh. 1. 11. There is one come out of thee that imagineth Evil against the Lord, a wicked Counsellor. Perhaps Rabshekeh might be the Counsellor whom the Prophet there reflects upon. However, one he was that advised the King to Persecute the People of God, and to Act Arbitrarily, without any respect to right or wrong. Such Counsellors there were in Persia, who persuaded the Emperor to Establish Iniquity by a Law, and then to Persecute and Murder all such as could not with a good Conscience Conform to that Law,