N00765:53
A cloud of witnesses
A cloud of witnesses; darting out light upon a case, too unseasonably made seasonable to be discoursed on.
Boston: printed by B. Green and J. Allen?, 1700
No title page in the transcription: set from the catalogue record.
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.
Whence comes it that the Casuist informs me not, that the Ball and the Play, are any other than Indifferent Things? But think you to be Excused from the Judgments of God, because your Faith has been pinned on the Sleeve of, an Alamods Casuist, who has a mind to render himself complaisant unto your Inclinations, rather than […] ⟨p. 8⟩to St. Augustin, and St. Chrysostom, and St. Cyprian, and other Fathers of the Church, who Flatter you not, because they Need you not.
Whence comes it that the Casaist informs me not, that the Ball and the Play, are any other than Indifferent Things? But think you to be Excused from the Judgments of God, because your Faith has been pinn'd on the Sleeve of, an Alamods Casuist, who has a mind to render himself complaisant unto your Inclinations, rather than 〈…〉 ⟨p. 8⟩to St. Augustin, and St. Chrysostom, and St. Cyprian, and other Fathers of the Church, who Flatter you not, because they Need you not.
But, because this was a Church-man, we will hear no more from him. Let us at last hear a Courtier.
M. Rabutin, in his Instructions to his Children. [In his Memoirs, Tom. 2 p. 155.] has these passages. I have ever believed Balls to be dangerous. Of this, not only my Reason, but my own Experience made me sensible; and tho' the Authority of the Fathers of the Church in this Case, be very considerable, yet that of a Courtier may be of greater weight. The coldest Constitutions are inflamed there. They that are Old, cannot go to them, without making a ridiculous Figure, nor the Young, tho' within the Rules of Decency, without Exposing themselves to great Dangers. It is my Opinion, then, That A CHRISTIAN OUGHT NOT TO BE AT A BALL; And I think it the Duty of the Guides of Consciences, to Interdict it fox ever unto those who are under their Direction. A Question upon the whole.