N00593:62
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.
Or, Are you Bereaved of Children by Mortality? You may be satisfied concerning your Children […] in their Infancy, That the […] God, will according to His […] unto them, throughout Eternal Ages. My Brethren, This Blessing of […] upon you, by the Lord Jesus Christ […] may inscribe upon their […] that Epitaph, OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN: or that Epitaph RESERVED FOR A GLORIOUS RESURRECTION: or that Epitaph, GONE, BUT NOT LOST. I ⟨p. 39⟩have seen such, in our Dormitories! Let no Believing Parent, upon the Death of Children, say with mistaken Jacob I am Bereaved of my Children, All these Things are against me. No, Do like David, upon the Death of a Child; although' the Death happened before the Circumcision of the Child; Rise from the Earth, Raise your Heart from the Grave where the Child is Laid; Cheerfully submit unto the Will of God, and say, Can I bring the Child back again? I shall go to it, It shall not Return to me. It was Excellently well Expressed, by our Celebrated ELIOT, when he was asked, how he could bear the Death of his Children: My desire was, That they should have Served God on Earth; but if God will choose to have them rather Serve Him in Heaven, I have nothing to object against it, but His Will be done. Be sure, you are now past the Danger of their making you the Parents of Wicked Children: It was foretold unto Eli, in 1 Sam. 2. 33. The man of thine, whom I shall not one off, shall be to Consume thine Eyes, & to Grieve thine Heart: And it is fulfilled upon many among us; many, alas, how many, may say, That they have had more Sorrow for one Living Child, then for seven ⟨p. 40⟩Dead Ones: Oh! 'tis better for our Children to be safely Lodged among the Angels of God in Heaven, than for them to be Sinning against Him Like Devils on Earth.
Or, Are you Bereav'd of Children by Mortality? You may be satisfied concerning your Children 〈…〉 in their Infancy, That the 〈…〉 God, will according to His 〈…〉 unto them, throughout Eternal Ages. My Brethren, This Blessing of 〈…〉 upon you, by the Lord Jesus Christ 〈…〉 may inscribe upon their that Epitaph, OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN: or that Epitaph RESERVED FOR A GLORIOUS RESURRECTION: or that Epitaph, GONE, BUT NOT LOST. I