N00593:14
Help for distressed parents. Or, Counsels & comforts for godly parents afflicted with ungodly…
Help for distressed parents. Or, Counsels & comforts for godly parents afflicted with ungodly children; and warnings unto children to beware of all those evil courses, which would be afflictive unto their parents. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Two lines of quotation in Latin]
Boston: printed by John Allen for Vavasour Harris, 1695
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.
Solomon himself had but One Son that we Read of; and He too was None of the Best. The only Son and How, of that Great Man, had such unhappy Symptoms upon him, that as we may guess from several Intimations, his Distressed Father before his own Death, was often at a Loss, to think, what he would prove. [Ecel. 2. 13, 19.] Now 'twas very much for the Caution of that One Son, that he Wrote those Excellent Proverbs, wherein we all Enjoy him and Admire him, as the true, Master ⟨p. 7⟩of Sentences. Do but carry in your minds, how solicitous he was, left Rehoboam should by his Male-Administrations Confound the Kingdom, and lest the Kingdom should by some Rooted Prejudice, and by some Hasty Action, cast off Rehoboam; you will therein have a Golden Key to Unlock these Proverbs of Israel.
Solomon himself had but One Son that we Read of; and He too was None of the Best. The only Son and How, of that Great Man, had such unhappy Symptoms upon him, that as we may guess from several Intimations, his Distressed Father before his own Death, was often at a Loss, to think, what he would prove. [Ecel. 2. 13, 19.] Now 'twas very much for the Caution of that One Son, that he Wrote those Excellent Proverbs, wherein we all Enjoy him and Admire him, as the true, Master ⟨p. 7⟩of Sentences. Do but carry in your minds, how sollicitous he was, left Reheboam should by his Male-Administrations Confound the Kingdom, and lest the Kingdome should by some Rooted Prejudice, and by some Hasty Action, cast off Reheboam; you will therein have a Golden Key to Unlock these Proverbs of Israel.
The Text before you, is the first of those Proverbs: and I make no doubt, that Solomon had his own, Only, Silly Son, in his Eye, when he Wrote it; the first part of the Text, his Father had fulfilled in Himself; the last part of the Text, Himself had fulfilled in Rehoboam. The Gladness of a Father, over a Wise Son, and the Sadness of a Mather, over a Foolish One, is in this Proverb Declared; Nevertheless, the Gladness of the Mother as well as the Father, over the Wise Son, and the Sadness of the Father as well as the Mother, over the Foolish One, is herein Implied. In the Concise Proverbs here, there is usually an […], to be so Compared, that something not Expressed, is to be fetched and learnt from each part as plainly to be understood. Yea, the Daughter as well as the Son, is herein also Comprehended.