N00765:54
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.
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.
Whether a Non-conformist Minister can be justly Reproached, for his faithful and watchful Endeavours, to reclaim his Neighbours, from hazarding their own and their Children's Virtue, by Vanities, which have had no Good Report by the Virtuous in all Ages, but been decried, not only by Fathers, by Councils, by Divines of the Church of England, but also by Papists, both Preachers and Courtiers, and by the very Pagans?
Whether a Non-conformist Minister can be justly Reproached, for his faithful and watchful Endeavours, to reclaim his Neighbours, from hazarding their own and their Childrens Vertue, by Vanities, which have had no Good Report by the Vertuous in all Ages, but been decried, not only by Fathers, by Councils, by Divines of the Church of England, but also by Papists, both Preachers and Courtiers, and by the very Pagans?