N01310:48
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.
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.
'Tis a Theological Consideration of this Meteor that is now proposed. The Gospel of the Rainbow, is the Theme I have undertaken very briefly to treat upon. I take the Rainbow to be intended, when we read of Bright Clouds. The Glorious One, directed His People to Ask Rain of Him; a moderate Rain in ⟨p. 4⟩the Time that should render it Seasonable and Serviceable. It is hereupon promised, So the Lord shall make Bright Clouds: that is to say, Clouds brightened with the Rainbow; and such as a Moderate Rain, uses to be distilled from. Compare Job XXVII. 11. We often enjoy this Favour of Heaven; but I am now to bring you the Gospel of it. And my Treatise must begin with a Complaint, That the Christian World have taken so little Notice of a Meteor, upon which the Great God that formed all things, has put such a Stamp of peculiar Excellency. It has pleased His Infinite Majesty, to Stamp a Sacramental Character upon it, and make it as a Sacrament of His Covenant with the Children of Men. We all know, that when the Patriarch Noah, with his Family, came out of the Ark, the Glorious GOD comforted him, and his Posterity, with such an Advice as this; Gen. IX. 13.— 17. I set my Bow in the Cloud, and it shall be for a Token of a Covenant, between Me, and the Earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a Cloud over the Earth, that the Bow shall be seen in the Cloud; and I will Look upon it, that I may Remember the Everlasting Covenant between God, and every living Creature of all Flesh that is upon the Earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the Token of the Covenant which I have Established between Me and all Flesh that is upon the Earth. I believe the Bishop of Milan is the only Author in the World, that ever understood this Bow of any other than the Rainbow. Now, certainly after this, Whenever ⟨p. 5⟩a Rainbow is Exhibited, there is a Set of Good Thoughts, with which it should always be Looked upon. But God is not Glorified upon the view of the Rainbow so Commonly, so Devoutly, and with such Good Thoughts, as ought to be: nor does it generally put us upon such Reflections of Christianity, as might be expected from a People of our Illuminations in the Covenant of the Glorious Lord. I must not make a Fruitless Complaint;