N00593:55
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.
Help for Distressed Parents. Offered, at the LECTURE in Boston, 14.… › Case 1: The first CASE.
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.
However, Let all particular Parents continue in Prayer, with Fasting, that the Spirit of God may infuse His Verticordious Grace, into their own Posterity. Yea, Do it, with such undeniable Agony of Soul, as to say before the Lord, what Jacob, when Wrestling for the Salvation of his Children did, Lord, I will not go, except thou Bless me. Distressed Parents brought their Diseased Children unto the Lord Jesus Christ of old, and He helped them all. Yea, one came to our Lord, saying, [Mark 4. 17] Lord, I have brought unto thee my Son, which hath an Evil Spirit. Another came to our Lord, saying, [Matth. 15 22.] Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have a Daughter grievously vexed with a Devil. And the Event was marvellous! Thus, go plead before the Lord! Lord, I have a Child that hath un Evil Spirit; ⟨p. 32⟩There is a Lying Devil, a Wanton Devil, a Drinking Devil, a Playing Devil, a Proud Devil, in this poor Child of mine: O magnify thy Grace, by Casting this Devil out, and Saving the Soul of my poor Child, from the Fire, into which the Devil is throwing of it. It may be, the Lord will do it for thee. While Austin was yet an Ungodly Child, his Gracious Mother kept crying to the Lord for him, at such a rate, that an Eminent Minister said unto her, Fire i nonpotest ut Filius istarum Lachrymarum pereat; that is, It cannot be, that a Child of so many Tears should perish after all.
However, Let all particular Parents continue in Prayer, with Fasting, that the Spirit of God may infuse His Verticordious Grace, into their own Posterity. Yea, Do it, with such undeniable Agony of Soul, as to say before the Lord, what Jacob, when Wrestling for the Salvation of his Children did, Lord, I will not go, except thou Bless me. Distressed Parents brought their Diseased Children unto the Lord Jesus Christ of old, and He helped them all. Yea, one came to our Lord, saying, [Mark 4. 17] Lord, I have brought unto thee my Son, which hath an Evil Spirit. Another came to our Lord, saying, [Matth. 15 22.] Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have a Daughter grievously vexed with a Devil. And the Event was marvellous! Thus, go plead before the Lord! Lord, I have a Child that hath un Evil Spirit;