N01484:177
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.
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 ⟨p. 14⟩to make a Dead Lifeless Image of GOD; the last to impute Evil and Moral Disorders to Him.
IF we Punish from Anger it roils us: if Pity remain it grieves us. If Joy seizes us, and Love work strongly in us, they overcome us almost: But much more if Wrath and Hatred move us, we suffer most ourselves in the Punishments we lay on others. But it is not so with God: Tho' we read of His Wrath, yet must we not suppose or imagine any Painful Impression on the Divine Mind. He neither feels the Miseries He pities; nor is vexed at the Sins which He detests. The Divine Mind is ever Serene, Calm and Impassible; and we must abstract all that in our Conceptions of Him, which spring out of the Imperfection either of Nature or Happiness.