N00593:57
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.
IV. Have you done all This? Then Despair not, though you do not presently Reap the Fruit of all. Delays are no Denials; Nullum Tempus occurrit Regi. It may be, That after you are Dead and Gone, must be the Month wherein the Wild Asses are to be found, by the Grace of Heaven. The Angels may a long while hence, bring the Tidings to Heaven after you, That the Ungodly Child which you Left behind you, is now Turned unto God; So will you join in the Triumphs of Heaven over it, saying, This may Child was Dead, and is Alive, was Lost and is Found; Glory, Glory to God in the Highest for ever.
IV. Have you done all This? Then Despair not, though you do not presently Reap the Fruit of all. Delayes are no Denials; Nullum Tempus occurrit Regi. It may be, That after you are Dead and Gone, must be the Month wherein the Wild Asses are to be found, by the Grace of Heaven. The Angels may a long while hence, bring the Tidings to Heaven after you, That the Ungodly Child which you Left behind you, is now Turned unto God; So will you join in the Triumphs of Heaven over it, saying, This may Child was Dead, and is Alive, was Lost and is Found; Glory, Glory to God in the Highest for ever.
Or, Suppose you have seen your Ungodly, Children Die before […] without Evident Marks of a Saving Change upon them: However still Hope the best. A famous man would say, If I see a Child that hath either a Godly Father, or a Godly ⟨p. 35⟩Mother, I shall have Hope for Him a Long while: But if he has a Godly Father and Mother too, I'll never Leave Hoping for him, till I see him Turned off the Gallows. Who can tell, what the Grace of God may have done for them, in their Last Minutes? It may be, Between the Stirrup and the Ground. Yea, and if They should be Lost, who can tell, what the Lord may do for the Third Generation. Tho' the Son of Samuel were not as he should be, yet his Grand Son was a most Notable Prophet of the Lord. Or, if some of These be Lost, may not your Blessings be doubled in Others of your own? One Solomon makes amends for an Amnon, & an Absalom too. But, after all, you may say with David,