N01310:144
Thoughts for the day of rain. In two essay's
Thoughts for the day of rain. In two essay's: I. The Gospel of the rainbow. In the meditations of piety, on the appearance of the bright clouds, with the bow of God upon them. II. The Saviour with his rainbow. And the covenant which God will remember to his people in the cloudy times that are passing over them. / By Cotton Mather., D.D. ; [Seven lines of quotations]
printed by B. Green, 1712
Title page typeset from the transcription.
The SAVIOUR with His Rainbow. At BOSTON-Lecture. 12. d. 5. m. 1711.
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.
They are such as these.
First. The Church cannot be drowned. The Church of God may read that Motto on the Rainbow; Jer. XLVI. 28. I will not make a full end of thee. Our Saviour will always have a Church, yea, a Visible Church, in the World. Tho' it may fly for some Ages into the Valleys of Piedmont, yet even there it shall be Visible. No Flood shall utterly swallow it up. A Number of People visibly Embracing the Truths, and obeying the Laws of the only Saviour, will be always upon the Face of the Earth. We read, Psal. CXXV. 1 Of a Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. I will not say, This ⟨p. 53⟩was a Covenant for the Literal Mount Zion; for this has been Removed; the Hill was dug down, with a vast Labour of three years, in the Days of the Maccabaean Simeon. The Jews on certain Accounts of Policy, dug down their Zion with their own Hands. But, O Church of our Blessed JESUS, Thou art that Mount Zion. The most Ancient of all the Mountains, the most Lasting of all the Hills; Eternally Impregnable! No Flood can roll over the Top of the Holy Hill of Zion. There is a word in the BIBLE, which has been as an Ark for the Church of God, in the most Cloudy and Stormy Ages of it; That word, Mat. XVI. 18. I will build my Church, and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. I Incline to think, that our Saviour alludes to what occurred in the Flood which once Overthrew the Foundations of the Wicked. In that Flood, we read, The Fountains of the Great Deep were broken up; and, The Waters prevailed exceedingly upon the Earth; they prevailed, and the Mountains were covered. Yet the Family of the Just One perished not. Sirs, It will be so! Tho' the Bars of the Bottomless Pit should be broken up, and should pour out a Flood of Mischiefs on the Church, yet there shall not issue out such a Flood from thence, as to drown the Family of our Saviour. The Flood shall not prevail so far as to drown the Church in the World. Our Lord Sits King on the Floods, and sets Bounds to them; they shall not prevail to carry all before them. Had it not been for this Word, the Church had been drowned in the Days of Diocletian,