N00896:63
The excellency of a public spirit discoursedThe excellency of a publick spirit discoursed
The excellency of a public spirit discoursed: in a sermon, preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, May 27. 1702. Being the day for election of counsellors in that province. / By Increase Mather. ; [Four lines of quotations]The excellency of a publick spirit discoursed: in a sermon, preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the province of the Masachusetts Bay in New England, May 27. 1702. Being the day for election of counsellors in that province. / By Increase Mather. ; [Four lines of quotations]
printed by B. Green for Nicholas Boone, 1702
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
The liberty which you have this day to Choose who shall be the Governors Assistants, is a great and singular privilege. No other Plantation has the like. Now to use it well is the most probable way to have it continued. There are those that envy our happiness in this respect. The wicked men that solicited to have our former Charter taken from us, are endeavouring that our Present Charter should be taken from us also. We may by two things provoke the Lord to suffer them to prevail; one is by unthankfulness for so great a mercy. By despising it, as if so great privileges as those our present Charter confirms to us were of no value. If the Lord should be provoked to take them from us, they will be thought valuable by those that have very sinfully slighted and cast contempt on them. An Eminent man (since gone to a better world) wrote me, that if the people in New-England ⟨p. 29⟩were not thankful for the privileges of their present Charter, all their Friends in England would think them unworthy of more, and be discouraged from being concerned in their behalf. The other evil which will endanger the loss of them is the not using our privileges well. If when a people may Choose good men that w•ll seek their Welfare to be their Rulers, they will have others rather, it is just with God to punish them accordingly. Historians have observed concerning the Romans, that they brought ruin upon themselves by making a bad choice of Rulers, when they had liberty to Elect whom they would.
The liberty which you have this day to Choose who shall be the Governours Assistants, is a great and singular priviledge. No other Plantation has the like. Now to use it well is the most probable way to have it continued. There are those that envy our happiness in this respect. The wicked men that sollicited to have our former Charter taken from us, are endeavouring that our Present Charter should be taken from us also. We may by two things provoke the Lord to suffer them to prevail; one is by unthankfulness for so great a mercy. By despising it, as if so great priviledges as those our present Charter confirms to us were of no value. If the Lord should be provoked to take them from us, they will be thought valuable by those that have very sinfully slighted and cast contempt on them. An Eminent man (since gone to a better world) wrote me, that if the people in New-England ⟨p. 29⟩