N01015:16
A faithful man, described and rewarded. Some observable & serviceable passages in the life…
A faithful man, described and rewarded. Some observable & serviceable passages in the life and death of Mr. Michael Wigglesworth. Late Pastor of Maldon [i.e., Malden]; who rested from his labours, on the Lords-Day, June 10th. 1705. In the seventy fourth year of his age. : And memorials of piety, left behind him among his written experiences. : With a funeral-sermon preached (for him) at Maldon; June 24. 1705. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Two lines of quotation in Latin]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Benj. Eliot, 1705
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.
A Church at SMYRNA was one of the Seven, to which our Enthroned Lord, most graciously ⟨p. 2⟩directed Seven Epistles. They that look for a Prophetical Interpretation of the Seven Epistles, as answering to Seven Periods in the Line of Time from our Lords Ascent unto His Advent, may help themselves through' their Hard Task as well as they can. The Historical Interpretation suffices the more Judicious Interpreters. Our Lord, going to bid His Beloved John write the Things which were to be hereafter, bids him first of all to write the Things which then were. Our Lord would, [And how agreeable the method!] first Instruct and Reprove and Reform His People; and then communicate unto them His Divine and Secret Purposes. The Apostle, that had been a Preacher to the Churches in the Lydian Asia, now does the part of a Writer to them.
A Church at SMYRNA was one of the Seven, to which our Enthroned Lord, most graciously ⟨p. 2⟩directed Seven Epistles. They that look for a Prophetical Interpretation of the Seven Epistles, as answering to Seven Periods in the Line of Time from our Lords Ascent unto His Advent, may help themselves thro' their Hard Task as well as they can. The Historical Interpretation suffices the more Judicious Interpreters. Our Lord, going to bid His Beloved John write the Things which were to be hereafter, bids him first of all to write the Things which then were. Our Lord would, [And how agreeable the method!] first Instruct and Reprove and Reform His People; and then communicate unto them His Divine and Secret Purposes. The Apostle, that had been a Preacher to the Churches in the Lydian Asia, now does the part of a Writer to them.
One of them was at Smyrna. Ecclesiastical Story tells us, That an horrid Storm of Persecution befell the Church at Smyrna, soon after our Lord had sent unto them the Premonitions of it; A Storm, which was not assuaged until the Martyrdom of that brave old man, their Pastor Polycarp. A Letter of that Church yet in our hands, does relate, How cruelly the Martyrs of Smyrna were tormented, and after all their Torments they were thrown unto Wild Beasts to be devoured. And we find, that these Cruelties were pushed on, by the Envies and Slanders of the Jews, as well as by the Savage Fierceness of the Gentiles.