N01717:13
Concio ad populum. A distressed people entertained with proposals for the relief of their…
Concio ad populum. A distressed people entertained with proposals for the relief of their distresses. In a sermon at Boston; made in the audience of His Excellency the governor, and the General Assembly of the Massachusetts-Bay, New-England. 12 d. Im. 1719. / By Cotton Mather, D.D. and F.R.S. ; [Two lines from Isaiah]Concio ad populum. A distressed people entertained with proposals for the relief of their distresses. In a sermon at Boston; made in the audience of His Excellency the governour, and the General Assembly of the Massachusetts-Bay, New-England. 12 d. Im. 1719. / By Cotton Mather, D.D. and F.R.S. ; [Two lines from Isaiah]
printed by B. Green for Benj. Eliot, 1719
Title page typeset from the transcription.
The Valley of Vision IN The Valley of Achor. BOSTON 12 d. Im. 1719.
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 has been the Felicity, wherewith Our Land has been sometimes highly favoured, That tho' it has been a Valley for the Low Circumstances of it, Yet it has been a Valley of Vision, for the Discoveries of the Best Things with which it has been Illuminated. Thy Land, O Immanuel!
I will not say, That it is come to be with Ours, as it was in that Land, when it was Lamented, There was no open Vision. There is at least One Vision that is Open to a General View, and is generally seen by all that have the sight of any thing at all: A Vision so plain, that he may Run who Readeth it. The Vision which every One sees is this; A Day of Trouble, and of Treading down, and of Perplexity by the Lord of Hosts, upon this Valley of Vision, and of Crying to the Mountains. Every body sees and says, We are a Miserable People, if there be not something done to help us.
BUT what will this Vision of our Misery signify, unless to Aggravate it, if it be not accompanied with a Vision of the Remedy? And if there be no Seers to propose the Ways & Means of our Deliverance out of our Perplexity?
A Wise Man under the Inspiration of GOD, has told us, what is like to become of a People, that have no Vision among them; None to see what their Dangers are, and see what Methods are to be taken for a Rescue from them.