N02149:451
Parentator. Memoirs of remarkables in the life and the death of the ever-memorable Dr.…
Parentator. Memoirs of remarkables in the life and the death of the ever-memorable Dr. Increase Mather. Who expired, August 23. 1723. : [One line from II Kings]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Nathaniel Belknap, 1724
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.
He much despised what they call Quaintness, but affected a Plain and therefore a Short sort of a Style. Though he were such a Scholar, yet his Learning hindered not his Condescension to the Lowest and Meanest Capacity: aiming to shoot not over the Heads, but into the Hearts, of the Hearers. He was very careful to be understood, and concealed every other Art, that he might Pursue and Practice that one Art of Being Intelligible. With Luther, he said, he counted him the Best Preacher. Qui Simplicissime docet. A Simple Diet, he counted the most Wholesome Diet.
He much despised what they call Quaintness, but affected a Plain and therefore a Short sort of a Style. Though he were such a Scholoer, yet his Learning hindred not his Condescension to the Lowest and Meanest Capacity: aiming to shoot not over the Heads, but into the Hearts, of the Hearers. He was very careful to be understood, and concealed every other Art, that he might Pursue and Practice that one Art of Being Intelligible. With Luther, he said, he counted him the Best Preacher. Qui Simplicissime docet. A Simple Diet, he counted the most Wholsom Diet.
It was his perpetual endeavour therewithal to Preach very Scripturally, and like an Hildersham, to back every thing he spoke, with some agreeable Sentence of the Sacred Scriptures Confirming of it. His Judgment was, That the Word of GOD is the Food of Souls; and the more there is of That pertinently Produced, the Better Fed are the Flocks under our Feeding. He judged also, That in the Word of GOD, there is that Voice of the Lord, that is Powerful and full of Majesty. Nor did he think, that any Language could equal it, for the Beauty of it. I am sure, I ought never to Forget a Passage he had in the Sermon he Preached at my Ordination; [On Act. XIII. 2.] Since the SPIRIT of GOD is concerned so much in the Separation of Persons to the Work of the Ministry, how much does it concern them, to be very Spiritual in their Ministry! Let it be their Care to Live Spiritually, and be Spiritually minded Men, and not Grieve the Holy Spirit of GOD by any Irregularities. But let them also ⟨p. 216⟩