N01899:236
India Christiana. A discourse, delivered unto the Commissioners, for the Propagation of the Gospel…
India Christiana. A discourse, delivered unto the Commissioners, for the Propagation of the Gospel among the American Indians : which is accompanied with several instruments relating to the glorious design of propagating our holy religion, in the Eastern as well as the Western, Indies. : An entertainment which they that are waiting for the kingdom of God will receive as good news from a far country. / By Cotton Mather, D.D. and F.R.S.
printed by B. Green, 1721
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.
Most Reverend Sir,
FROM Your Letters, which you wrote on the Thirty-first of December, in the Year 1717. I could not but observe in the first place, That You are a Person adorned with a Mind agreeable to JESUS CHRIST, and suitably walking in the power of His Spirit; And One the Care of whose Heart it is, that the work of GOD for the Conversion & Salvation of Souls, may be well-founded, and continually make Improvements, not only with you in the West-Indies, but also that the same work with us in the East-Indies may be daily on the growing hand; Yea, that it may get into the Minds of all far and near; whereby a People deluded by the craft of Satan, may be soon brought from their Idolatry into the True Worship of GOD; and forsaking their Pagods, may make it their Main Intention, that their Hearts being full of Faith, the most Holy GOD may dwell as in His Temple there.
That this affair, tho' it be yet struggling in its Infancy, should nevertheless excite in you, most Reverend Sir, upon your hearing of what GOD is doing here, so much of Joy, and of Delight, and of Good Will, We cannot but render our Greatest Thanks unto GOD, who has been pleased to give us the Friendship of such a Man; Yea and that besides you, there should be others of the like Mind and Heart with you, whose Piety disposes them to rejoice with us, in such Beginnings as are always attended with some Grievous Difficulties; and more than this, with their Prayers and Counsels Labour to open a more happy and easy way for the Progress of the work which the present Mission is concerned for.
That this affair, tho' it be yet struggling in its Infancy, should nevertheless excite in you, most Reverend Sir, upon your hearing of what GOD is doing here, so much of Joy, and of Delight, and of Good Will, We cannot but render our Greatest Thanks unto GOD, who has been pleased to give us the Friendship of such a Man; Yea and that besides you, there should be others of the like Mind and Heart with you, whose Piety disposes them to rejoyce with us, in such Beginnings as are always attended with some Grievous Difficulties; and more than this, with their Prayers and Counsils Labour to open a more happy and easy way for the Progress of the work which the present Mission is concerned for.