N01717:35
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.
And be convinced of This, That you may not have, what you cannot have. If you will not Hearken to this Advice, I must say, The Poor, They are foolish; they know not the way of the Lord, nor the Judgment of their GOD.
WHAT I shall next proceed unto, may be an agreeable Appendix, unto what has been thus urged for. But I will make a Distinct Article of it; It shall be the Fourth Thing, which every one that has the least Vision of any thing at all, must needs be Apprehensive of.
INDUSTRY, I say, INDUSTRY, which is indeed but a piece of Honesty, is what a People that would not Perish, must keep alive among them. It is the Sluggard unto whom it is foretold, Prov. VI. 11. Thy Poverty shall come in as a Traveller; that is to say, Suddenly, and Unlooked for, Unthought of; And thy want as an Armed Man; that is to say, Irresistibly, and so as to make thee ⟨p. 15⟩fall before it. Let our People be an Industrious People, and we shall be in a fair way to be a Flourishing People. The Diligent Hand, I can tell you, it will do Marvellous Things; Things, which will appear little short of Magical: [You know the Story of it!]— And the Blessing of GOD will attend it, with an Enriching Efficacy. Truly, None that are Able to Work, should have the Bread of Idleness allowed unto them. Our Long Winters afford more of Leisure to the Laborious Husbandman, than he wisheth for. But were not a greater Variety of well contrived Winter-Employments for him, then to be wished for? If the Poor will but Work, they would make a better hand of it in this Country, than in almost any under the Cope of Heaven. What Pity 'tis, that such an Hive should have any Drones in it! The Notable Behaviour of some Industrious Women in this Town, Industrious Women, perhaps Desolate and Forsaken Widows, who so credibly Support themselves that they also Do Good unto those about them; Certainly, it speaks unto all our People, who are not so absurd and silly, as to think, That Business is more of a shame than Idleness. There are Thousands of Hands in this Country, who are capable of being set about many Profitable works; of all their Labour there would be a Profit: And if they were in some other Parts of the World, the Hands might not refuse to Labour; But here the Mean Thessalonian Account must be given of them, They Work not at all.