N00570:43
The short history of New-England. A recapitulation of wonderful passages which have occurred, first…The short history of New-England. A recapitulation of wonderful passages which have occurr'd, first…
The short history of New-England. A recapitulation of wonderful passages which have occurred, first in the protections, and then in the afflictions, of New-England. : With a representation of certain matters calling for the singular attention of that country. Made at Boston-lecture, in the audience of the great and General Assembly of the province of the Massachusett-Bay, June 7. 1694. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Four lines from Samuel]The short history of New-England. A recapitulation of wonderful passages which have occurr'd, first in the protections, and then in the afflictions, of New-England. : With a representation of certain matters calling for the singular attention of that country. Made at Boston-lecture, in the audience of the great and General Assembly of the province of the Massachusett-Bay, June 7. 1694. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Four lines from Samuel]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Samuel Phillips, 1694
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.
Thirdly; A Good Church-Discipli••, is an Hedge of our God about us. Tis the Compellation of the Catholic Church, in Cant. 8.13. Thou which dwellest in the Gardens. Particular Churches are those Gardens of the Lord. And hence the French-Protestants when they have been going to their Church-Meetings, have some times very agreeably used that Form of Speech, Let us go to Paradise. We have a Country full of Gardens; but, what Hedge, I Pray, about them? Our Discipline is our Hedge; a Discipline, Detaining, Debarring, Secluding from Ecclesiastical Privileges, those who in Works Deny God, though in words they may Profess that they know Him; a Discipline which in a way of Just Proceeding, shall either Keep out, or Throw out, the Roots of Bitterness, whereby many would be defiled. All that ha's a Tendency to make our Churches, no longer, the Actual and Lively Portraitures of Heaven, Representing to the World, Who shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in His Holy Place forever; it ha's a Tendency to pull down our Hedge. Wisdom it self, ha's branded the Folly of them that Pull down their House with their own Hands: for us to part with our Church Discipline, would be with our own Hands, to ⟨p. 24⟩Pull down an Hedge, which cost our Faith s, What a Toilsome Husbandry! We have long since, by our Ascended Lord, been favoured, with a Plot-f•rm of such a Discipline; whereof those Reverend Persons, of the Presbyterian Persuasion, who Published their Jus Divinum, about Forty years ago, do say, That they Agreed with the Things of the greatest Conc••n•ent in it; and that th•se things wherein they d•ffered from it, were of lesser Consequence; whereof their Debates were not (Contentions) Contentions, but (Collations) Conferences. A Discipline, Securing the Rights of Particular Churches, as to the power of Self Reformation; A Discipline, allowing a just Regard unto Councils upon Difficult Emergencies; A Discipline, Admitting no Visible Unregenerates, unto those Tremendous Mysteries, our Sacraments; This is that Hedge, which will be our Glory; and as long as we have this Glory, we shall have a Defence on, as well as in, the Glory.