Johannes in eremo. Memoirs, relating to the lives, of the ever-memorable, Mr. John Cotton,…

I saw to multiply continually, our Dangers, of our Loosing no small Points in our First Faith, as well as our First Love, and of our Giving up the Essentials of that Church Order, which was the very END of these Colonies; I saw, a Visible Shrink in all Orders of Men among us, from that Greatness, and that Goodness, which was in the First Grain, that our God brought from Three Sifted Kingdoms, into this Land, when it was a Land not Sown; That while the Papists in Europe have grown better of late years, by the Growth of Jansenism among them, while the Protestants have Prodigiously Waxed Worse, for a Revolt unto Pelagianism, and Socinianism, or what is Half way to it, has not been more Surprising to me, than to see that in America, while those parts which were at first Peopled by the Refuse of the English Nation, do sensibly amend in the Regards of Sobriety and Education, those parts which were Planted with a more Noble Vine, do so fast give a Prospect of ⟨p. 18⟩affording only the Degenerate Plants of a Strange Vine. What should be done, for the Stop, the Turn, of this Degeneracy? It is Reported of the Scythians, who were, doubtless, the Ancestors of the Indians first Inhabiting these Regions, That in Battles, when they came to stand upon the Graves of their Dead Fathers, they would there Stand, Immovable, till they Died upon the Spot: And, thought I, Why may not such a Method now Effectually Engage the English in these Regions, to Stand Fast in their Faith and their Order, and in the Power of Godliness? I'll show them, the Graves of their Dead Fathers; and if any of them do Retreat, unto a Contempt or Neglect of Learning, or unto the Errors of Another Gospel, or unto the Superstitions of Will-Worship, or unto a Worldly, a Selfish, a Little Conversation, they shall undergo the Irresistible Rebukes of their Progenitors, here fetched from the Dead, for their Admonition: and I'll therewithal advertise my NEW-ENGLANDERS, That if a Grand child of a Moses become an Idolater, he shall, [as the Jews Remark upon Judg. 18. 30 be destroyed, as if not a Moses, but a Manasseh, had been his Father. Besides, Plus Vivitur Exemplis quam Praeceptis!

I saw to multiply continually, our Dangers, of our Loosing no small Points in our First Faith, as well as our First Love, and of our Giving up the Essentials of that Church Order, which was the very END of these Colonies; I saw, a Visible Shrink in all Orders of Men among us, from that Greatness, and that Goodness, which was in the First Grain, that our God brought from Three Sifted Kingdoms, into this Land, when it was a Land not Sown; That while the Papists in Europe have grown better of late years, by the Growth of Jansenism among them, while the Protestants have Prodigiously Waxed Worse, for a Revolt unto Pelagianism, and Socinianism, or what is Half way to it, has not been more Surprising to me, than to see that in America, while those parts which were at first Peopled by the Refuse of the English Nation, do sensibly amend in the Regards of Sobriety and Education, those parts which were Planted with a more Noble Vine, do so fast give a Prospect of