N00725:380
Decennium luctuosum. An history of remarkable occurrences, in the long war, which New-England hath…
Decennium luctuosum. An history of remarkable occurrences, in the long war, which New-England hath had with the Indian savages, from the year, 1688. To the year 1698. / Faithfully composed and improved. ; [One line of quotation in Latin]
printed by B. Green for Samuel Phillips, 1699
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.
He makes a sort of Decimation among the Offenders, and by what He does to some, He declares what He might justly do to all the rest. We must all ascribe it unto the mere Sovereign mercy of God, that we are not every one of us, broken in the place of Dragons, as these desolate Captives were. That which the Scripture calls, The place of Dragons, I Remember one of the Jewish Rabbi's Expounds, A Wilderness. Truly our Wilderness hath been, The place of Dragons. But, while we Observe these things, we shall not be Wise, if we do not Learn, Oh! what an Evil and a bitter thing is our Sin! And what horrendous miseries must we Expect among the Devils, if we die with our Sin unpardoned!
He makes a sort of Decimation among the Offenders, and by what He does to some, He declares what He might justly do to all the rest. We must all ascribe it unto the meer Soveraign mercy of God, that we are not every one of us, broken in the place of Dragons, as these desolate Captives were. That which the Scripture calls, The place of Dragons, I Remember one of the Jewish Rabbi's Expounds, A Wilderness. Truly our Wilderness hath been, The place of Dragons. But, while we Observe these things, we shall not be Wise, if we do not Learn, Oh! what an Evil and a bitter thing is our Sin! And what horrendous miseries must we Expect among the Devils, if we dy with our Sin unpardoned!
VI. In the WAR that hath been upon us, Whoso is wise, may observe, a Work, a Strange Work of Heaven, as it were Devising of ways, very strangely to Distress all sorts of people, in all sorts of Interests. Truly the very Character of our Calamity, hath all along been This; The Great God has written still upon it, we may Read upon it in a very Legible Character, those words, in Jer. 18.11. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I Frame Evil against you, I devise a Device ⟨p. 226⟩against you. It hath been, as if ways had been deliberately, and exquisitely Studied, and as if with much Contrivance plotted for to bring us all within the Reach of the general Calamity. We have now Languished through' Ten Years, which have been the Saddest, and the Darkest, and the Stormiest Years, that ever we saw. If the History of these Ten Years were to be written, I am thinking, What should be the Title; Truly, It might be Entitled, as Ezekiels Roll was, Lamentation, and Mourning, and Wo. Yea, you shall now have the History of these Ten Years written for you; I'll give it you, in as Expressive words as can be; even in those words,