N01484:84
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.
WE have before us, what calls not only for our Attention, but also for our Astonishment. Who can behold the Son of God in our Flesh; becoming Obedient unto the Death of the Cross, that so the […] which the sinful Children of Men have by their Sin offered unto the Law of God, might be […] by so matchless a Sacrifice! […] ⟨p. 42⟩behold, the Just suffering for the Unjust, and one most Holy, Harmless, Undefiled, […] from Sinners, treated as if He had been the Chief of Sinners? Who can behold this, and not be Astonished at it? The Justice of the Infinite GOD, never Triumphed so Gloriously▪ But one signal Article in the Humiliation of our dear Saviour, was the fulfilment of that Prophecy; Isa. LIII. 12. He was […] with Transgressors. His Adversaries contrived this Ignominy for Him, that there should be Two Capital Offenders Crucified with Him; An Ignominious Infliction, whereof the Pagan Deriders of Christianity, as long after as the Days of Hieroc•es, made their Advantage. The Criminals, doubtless were not simple Thieves; A Flagellation with Restitution would have been all their Punishment, if Theft had been all their Crime. It seems, as if they had been Robbers and Cut-throats; too dangerous Creatures, to have their Live; indulged unto them. What was done ⟨p. 43⟩in, and for, and by, one of these Malefactors, is what will call us to be still Astonished. Of these two Malefactors, wherein some find a Type of those two People, the Jews and the Gentiles; the one continued an obdurate and obstinate Wretch, and as he lived so he died, Abandoned of God. The other became a true Penitent, and an astonishing Monument, of what the Sovereign Grace of God may do for the worst of Sinners in the World. He employed the last six or seven Hours of his Life on the Cross, at such a rate, that one may see the whole Race of Christianity run in half a Day and the Ground wonderfully swallowed in a most expeditious Piety. The common Opinion is, That the Grace of God first found him here; and that he came to the Cross, no other than a finished Villain, but was here in his last Moments turned into a Child and Saint of God. But some rather incline to the Opinion. That the Spirit of God, might […] him, ⟨p. 44⟩