N01483:40
Shaking dispensations. An essay upon the mighty shakes, which the hand of heaven, hath…
Shaking dispensations. An essay upon the mighty shakes, which the hand of heaven, hath given, and is giving, to the world. : With some useful remarks on the death of the French king, who left off to make the world a wilderness, and to destroy the cities thereof; on the twenty-first of August. 1715. In a sermon on that great occasion, at Boston, New-England. 13 d. VIII m. 1715. / By Cotton Mather, D.D. & F.R.S.
Boston: printed by B. Green. Sold by S. Gerrish, 1715
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.
It is by a Secret Work of the Glorious LORD on the Spirits of Men, that shakes are ⟨p. 19⟩given, and wondrous Turns brought upon the World. Our LORD secretly disposes the Spirits of Men, to push on Amazing Changes in the Nations. Nations are strongly and strangely Spirited, sometimes one way, sometimes another. The Spirit of a Nation is an Irresistible Thing. It will shake down Thrones, that seem to stand upon Rocks. It will shake a Nation out of a Slavery, as well as into it. It will shake Idolatry into a Nation or out of it. It will bring back abdicated Superstitions, or it will drive them out again. When the Spirit of a Nation shall be set that way, •n Establishment that said, Who shall bring me down to the Ground? Shall see Obadiahs Prophecies Fulfilled upon it. But now the ANGELS of the Glorious LORD; these have an unknown Instrumentality, in Raising or in Laying the Spirits of Nations. In such Things, The Heavens do Rule; that is to say, The Angels of the Heavenly World. O Bless the Lord, ye his Angels, for the use he makes of you, in his Kingdom which Ruleth over all!
But our Next Enquiry must be, ⟨p. 22⟩to the Nations. By their Prayers, they do, as it were, Jog that Almighty Arm, that sets all a-shaking. As we read, Act. IV. 31. When they had Prayed, the place was shaken: So when the People of God in a Place, have been a Praying, it falls to Shaking thereupon. When the Prayers of the Saints have been Offered, with the Incense of our Saviour at the Golden Altar, the Next News is, There are Thunderings and Lightni• and an Earthquake; The Great G• shakes Heaven and Earth, with Horrend• Concussions upon it. Yea, sometimes a few Praying Servants of God; it may be One Isaiah; by lifting up Fervent Prayers; Yea, and in secret Places too;—may obtain shakes upon whole Nations, for whom they are the Remembrancers of the Lord. A Moses distressed for the Congregation of God, may give this Account; In my Distress, I called upon the Lord, & I cried unto my God. What follows? Then the Earth shook & trembled; the Foundations also of the Hills moved and were shaken.