N00570:70
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.
I'll touch upon one thing more; Observe Whether a People are willing to be at Necessary Charges for the Succouring of their Hedge; or, Whether to save Charges, they do not grow almost careless what becomes of it. We are told, That Covetousness, is the R•ot of all Evil (A destructive Root in a Wall!) and therefore we may be Foretold, that the Hedge will be open, for all kind of Evil to Rush in, upon a People that shall be under the Dominion of such a Penurious, Niggardly, Sordid, Principle. I remember, 'tis the speech of the Golden-Mouthed Ancient, The Covetous, are as a City without Walls. I am certain, They soon make themselves to be so. The Miserable Greeks would not be at the charge, to pay the Watchmen upon their Besieged Wall, and by that wi•ked Covetousness of theirs, their Wall was quickly […] by their Adversaries, who then found that they had a Wealthy City thus fallen into their Hands. How many a fair Wall ha's been foolishly Betrayed by the Covete••s•ess […] those, that yet in Loosing of •he […] ▪ have Lost an Hundred Times more than would have been enough to have kept it up! ⟨p. 48⟩When God sees, that men will Subordinate every thing to a Parsimonious Humour, He delights in crossing them, with such a Multiplication of Breaches in their Hedge, as will make them Spend, it may be Ten Times more than they hoped to S•are: it may be, more than Four-s•ore thousand Pounds, when less than Fourteen, would once have done their matters. To give one Instance; God may make Nations of Pagans to be sometimes an Hedge about His People; and their Lively Attempts to Christianize and Civilize these Pagans, might render the Hedge for ever Immarcescible. W•ll, Throw by such a costly undertaking, and you shall see, that God will turn this Hedge into Briars and Thorns, which will tear us to Pieces with Wars, Forty Times as costly as all those means, which might have made them, The Lords, and Our own, for ever. It is for some such causes, as this, that whether, the rest of my Discourse have been Applicable to my own Country, o• no, I must so far Apply This Article of it, as to […], that when you find it accomplished, you will Remember, that you once had this […] part of New Englands Peac Liber, […], be lost, it will be by […] a Covetous Disposition to Save a […] Occasion the […] of all.