N01484:176
A sorrowful spectacle. In two sermons, occasioned by a just sentence of death, on…
A sorrowful spectacle. In two sermons, occasioned by a just sentence of death, on a miserable woman, for the murder of a spurious offspring. : The one declaring, the evil of an heart hardened, under and against all means of good. : The other describing, the fearful case of such as in a suffering time, and much more such as in a dying hour, are found without the fear of God. : With some remarkable things, relating to the criminal; proper for all to be informed of. / By Cotton Mather, D.D. and F.R.S. ; [One line from Acts]
Boston: printed by T. Fleet & T. Crump for Samuel 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.
4. AND lastly. We must also lay down this for an undoubted Truth, That the Sufferings of the damned cannot give God Perturbation or Disrest. Tho' GOD has no Pleasure that the Wicked should die, yet if they die in their Sins it gives Him no Inquietude, Uneasiness or Disturbance. He is ⟨p. 13⟩Over all blessed for ever. GOD lives in a full Complacency and in everlasting Rest. Uninterrupted, and never to be diminished is His Satisfaction in Himself: With Him is the Fountain of Light, and there can be no Darkness at all near Him.
GOD is liable to no Passion, or disorder of Affection. Heaven is the Temperate Region. Humane Passions have their Transports and their Pain; and to accommodate Himself to us and affect us God speaks of Himself after the manner of Men; but let us beware of thinking GOD altogether such as ourselves. What is imperfect in us, we must infinitely remove from GOD, when we conceive and speak of Him. We may as well make to ourselves a Graven Image of Humane Form and call it GOD, because that GOD has spoken of Himself as having an Eye to see, an Ear to hear, a Mouth to speak, and a Hand to strike; as conceive of GOD after the Imperfection of our own Souls in the workings of their Affections. The first would be only ⟨p. 14⟩to make a Dead Lifeless Image of GOD; the last to impute Evil and Moral Disorders to Him.
GOD is liable to no Passion, or disorder of Affection. Heaven is the Temperate Region. Humane Passions have their Transports and their Pain; and to accomodate Himself to us and affect us God speaks of Himself after the manner of Men; but let us beware of thinking GOD altogether such as ourselves. What is imperfect in us, we must infinitely remove from GOD, when we conceive and speak of Him. We may as well make to ourselves a Graven Image of Humane Form and call it GOD, because that GOD has spoken of Himself as having an Eye to see, an Ear to hear, a Mouth to speak, and a Hand to strike; as conceive of GOD after the Imperfection of our own Souls in the workings of their Affections. The first would be only