Parentator. Memoirs of remarkables in the life and the death of the ever-memorable Dr.…

The Superior Gentlemen in the Oppressed Country, thought, that a Well-qualified Person, going over with the Addresses of the Churches to the King, might, by the Help of such Protestant Dissenters as the King began upon Political Views to cast a fair Aspect upon, Obtain some Relief to the Growing Distresses of the Country; And Mr. Mather was the Person that was pitched upon. Being in Distress about this Important Affair, he did as he use to do. In the Day of Prayer which he kept upon it, he put it upon this Issue; That he might know the Direction of the Glorious GOD, by the Inclinations of the Church he belonged unto, when the matter of his going for England, should be Proposed unto them. The next Day, the matter was proposed unto the Church; and he said unto them, If you say to me, Stay, I will Stay: But if you say to me, Go, I will cast myself on the Providence of GOD and in His Name I will go. I know not how to discern the Mind of GOD but by your Inclinations. To his Wonderment, They that at another time would have almost as soon parted with their Eye, as have parted with him no were willing to it; They Unanimously Consented. They Feared what would quickly be done by Bloody and Crafty Men, if he did not in ⟨p. 104⟩this Honourable way get unto some Distance from them. And they Hoped that he might be an Instrument of some Deliverance for a Land like to be Desolate and Overthrown by Strangers. What should be made of the Political Views in the Court at this Time, Who can say? Upon the Numbering of the People, it was then Reckoned, there were about One and Thirty Hundred Thousand which at Present Professed Adherence to the Established Church: About Eleven Hundred Thousand, Protestant Non-Conformists, of several Denominations; And about Ninety Thousand (if so many) Roman-Catholics. Though the Non-Conformists might for a while fly to a Tree that gave them some Shelter from their Idumoean Unreasonable Persecutors, yet they were Discrete and Honest enough to have kept their Stops; and it could never enter into the Kings Mind, that they would go so far as to Assist the RomanCatholicks in gaining the Power, with Foreign Aids, to Devour them all.

The Superiour Gentlemen in the Oppressed Country, thought, that a Well-qualified Person, going over with the Addresses of the Churches to the King, might, by the Help of such Protestant Dissenters as the King began upon Political Views to cast a fair Aspect upon, Obtain some Relief to the Growing Distresses of the Country; And Mr. Mather was the Person that was pitch'd upon. Being in Distress about this Important Affair, he did as he use to do. In the Day of Prayer which he kept upon it, he put it upon this Issue; That he might know the Direction of the Glorious GOD, by the Inclinations of the Church he belong'd unto, when the matter of his going for England, should be Proposed unto them. The next Day, the matter was proposed unto the Church; and he said unto them, If you say to me, Stay, I will Stay: But if you say to me, Go, I will cast myself on the Providence of GOD and in His Name I will go. I know not how to discern the Mind of GOD but by your Inclinations. To his Wondrment, They that at another time would have almost assoon parted with their Eye, as have parted with him no were willing to it; They Unanimously Consented. They Fear'd what would quickly be done by Bloody and Crafty Men, if he did not in