N01717:52
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.
BUT there is a Greater Abomination, which I turn yet again to take some notice of.
THIS Passage, Where there is no Vision, the People Perish, is by Luther so interpreted, The People run fierce, and mad, and mutinous. 'Tis what I am going to speak of. A Grievous Vision is declared unto me!
IT is not unlikely, that grievous Distresses may grow upon us. We are already got pretty far into them; A Distressed People! Now, 'tis Possible, (and its being barely Possible, is enough to bespeak a seasonable Admonition!) that the Distresses growing into an Extremity, there may be found some Raging Waves of the Sea, which may be for the Raising of Mutin••s; Mutinous, and Seditious, and Rebellious Actions may be madly rushed upon. What cannot be without Horror thought upon! Every Man that Fears GOD, and Honours the King, and Loves his Brethren, will approve of what I am now going to say unto you. I do now faithfully and solemnly say unto you; That if any Men shall be so wretched, as to make such Criminal Mutinies, it had been good for the Country, yea, and for themselves too, that these Wretches had never been born. They themselves must Perish, as their Fathers Theudas and Judas did, in the Days of the Taxing, and the People that are drawn away with them, will come to nought, and be dispersed. The strokes which the Sword of Justice, must of necessity give them, will produce a Pity in the Body ⟨p. 26⟩of the People, for these unhappy Creatures. But, if the Pity should, which you may be sure, It won't! — proceed so far as to Abet and Shelter them, the whole Country becomes Obnoxious to the dreadful Resentments of the Crown, and of the Nation which we depend upon. And if, as the Antiochians, after a mad Crew among them, had committed a cursed Outrage, sent the most eminent Minister they had among them, to intercede at the Court of the Emperor Theodosius for them, we should send never so Many and Mournful Intercessors, 'twill be well if we come off so well as the poor People of Antioch. O our dear People, Hearken, Hearken, to the Warnings of GOD. And let none of you dare to do any Thing but what becomes the Peaceable in Israel; Be careful to lead Peaceable Lives in all Godliness and Honesty; and let Kings and all that are in Authority, have all the Obedience that the Law prescribes, paid unto them.