N02149:459
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.
The next Lords-Day, he Preached the Sermon [On, Act. XVI. 27, 28.] And behold, soon after it, there came such to him, as informed him, That at that very Time, the Temptations to Self-Murder were impelling of them with an Horrible Violence But GOD had Blessed that Happy Sermon for; their Deliverance! They afterwards joined to his Church.
But that the Account of Dr. Mathers Ministry, may be given in the most Affectuous as well as the most Expressive way, We will here insert what was given of it; in a Sermon to his Flock, a few Days after his Expiration.
On Sep. 8. 1723. there was a Sermon Preached unto the Old North-Church; whereof the Beginning was This.
My Design this Day is, to preach over some Thousands of Sermons; and yet I design but one Short Sermon for you. My Design this Day is, to Preach over the Sermons of another Man; and yet the Sermon shall be honestly and entirely my own. My Design is, if it be possible, to give a little Pungency unto a Ministry, whereof our GOD has now deprived us; and apply over again the Goods, which the late Master of our Assemblies had used upon us, or to clench the Golden Nails, which he has for more than Threescore Years together been driving into us. I remember, the Ingenious Rosenbergius, in his Rhodologia, mentioning that Quality of the Rose, That it soon withers, and feels the Blast of Death upon it; and being thereby led unto Thoughts on that Epigram. [Humanum in Terris nihil est quod non sit humandum; Avolat hinc Animus, Coetera Sarbet bumus:] He cannot forbear a long Digression, by way of Parentation for his Deceased Father; On which he employs near Thirty Pages of Lamentation. As he Reverse of This, having in the Decease of mine, beheld, That all Flesh is Grass, and all the Glory of Man, as the Flower of the Field; I would no more insist on That; but fly away to think on, The Word of the Lord which endureth forever; and particularly endeavour, that the Word of the Gospel, as he Preached it unto you, may, endure for ever in your Affectionate Remembrance of it; yea, and be Remembered, yet further than so, by being in the Hands of your Children after