The Way to Prosperity, Mantissa
MANTISSA.
THus have the Words of God been Calling upon us, to beware of Loosing His gracious Presence. Now the Presence of God, will either go or stay with His Gospel; and the Principal Danger of New-England lies in its giving an ill Entertainment unto that glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus. Let us then see wether the Works of God, have not also been calling upon us to take heed of that Epidemical Evil; and let what has befallen some of our Neighbours, in our dayes be produced as a Warning unto us to avoid any Contempt of that Gospel, which others have smarted for the Slighting of.
I would fill the Remaining pages of this sheet with a Discourse fetch't from a Reserved Collection of MEMORABLE PROVIDENCES, not improper to be produced on this Occasion.
MATTH. X. 14. 15.
Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your Words, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Iudgement, than for that City.
To Despise and Reject the Glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, is an Evil, than which none is more evil; and yet nothing is more ordinary than this extraordinarily sinful Sin; which Unbeleef may be accounted, as Tertullian of old esteem'd Idolatry, the Praecipuum …rimen Humani generis, the grand Crime of Mankind. Low thoughts about the Person, and the Office, and the Beauty of the Lord Jesus; contemt…uous Apprehensions of His Truths and His wayes, and His Ordinances; these are the Things which bring the most Signal slery Wrath of God upon the Children of unperswadeableness. The peculiar Controversy of God with man, in the managing of which the most High God inflicts upon particular persons, at once a Blasting on their Estates, and a Blindness on their Spirits here, as the Prologue to the Hottest Vengeance of Eternal sire in the dismal vaults of Hell below, is not so much on the score of all their other Profanity & Iniquity, as this one thing, They sleight the Redeemer of their souls. And this is that thing, by which whole Nations & Peoples bring swift Destruction upon themselves; that thing for which all the Seals, all the Trumpets, all the Vials in the Apocalypse, have brought in the direful plagues of the Almighty upon the Pagan and the Papal, after the Ruine of the Iewish World. They have maintained a vile Praejudice against the Saving and the Ruling Hands of a Gracious Mediator. O that, besides the other innumerable Rebukes of Heaven upon mankind for this Madness in their hearts, the following Instances of Divine Displeasure may awaken us to Take heed of an evil heart of Unbelief.
Exemple I.
¶ AMong all the Nations of wild Salvages by which the vast Territory of New-England was inhabited, scarce any was more potent or populous than that of the Narragansetts. Unto those miserable Heathen was the Gospel, and a Gospel without charges too, offered by some English preachers of it, but they peremptorily with much affront & contempt refused the Glad tidings of Salvation by Iesus Christ, praeferring their own devillish Rites & gods before the New Thing tendered unto them. An holy man, then famous throughout our Churches, hereupon let sall a speech to this purpose, I speak altogether without the Spirit of God, if this nation be not speedily & remarkably destroyed. And so it happened. This Nation, much against the advice of the more aged men among them, engaged in the late bloody armed Conspiracy with the other Indians in the Countrey to cut off the English: in prosecution of which, after they had done many Acts of Hostility, the English Army took the just provocation in the depth of Winter to assault the strong Fort & Swamp in which was their General Rendezvouz. The Number of our Forces was much inferiour unto theirs, but with a wonderful Valour, & memorable Success, on our part, the Day was carried against the tawny Infidels. Their City was laid in Ashes, two and twenty of their Cheef Captains were kill'd, with we know not how many Hundreds or Thousands of the common Indians; after which, mortal Sickness & horrid Famin pursued the Remainders of them; so that there are scarce any of them that we know of, to be now seen upon the face of the Earth.
Exemple. II.
¶ The Ringleader of the last Warr which the Indians asslicted the English in this Land withal, was Philip the Prince of the Wompanoags. That gracious and laborious Apostle of the Indians, the Reverend Iohn Eliot, made a Tender of the Gospel to this Monster, who after the Indian mode of joining signs with words, pulling off a Button on the good man's Coat, told him, He did not value what he said so much as that: and he moreover hindred his subjects from embracing the Christian Religion through a fear which he expressed, That it might obstruct something of their Civil absolute unlimited Obedience to him. After his Invasion of the English with some unhappy Success, the Hand of God so fell upon him, as that after many Calamities, one of his own Vassals upon a disgust at him, for killing an Indian who had propounded an Expedient of Peace with the English, ran away from him, informing our Forces where he was; and they came upon him in the Thicket, just as he was telling his Counsellours of his Dream the night before, that the English had taken him, and while he endeavoured an Escape an Indian shott him thro' the heart, whereof he dyed immediately, nor are any considerable part of his people now to seen any wher out of their own place.
Exem. III.
Some time since there were Sundry well disposed persons in Virginia, upon whose affectionate Letters, full of desires, that they might enjoy the meanes of eternal Salvation, diverse worthy Ministers were sent from hence unto them, Mr. Thomson, Mr. Knowles, & Mr. Iames; who after a passage so tedious & dangerous as made them almost suspect their Call, at length arrived there, where God gave them a blessed Success of their labours, with a loving & a liberal Entertainment in the Countrey: Yet it was not long before the Rulers of the Plantation drove them away by an Order, That all such as would not Conform to certain things, which the consciences of these Gentlewere known to scruple, should leave the Countrey by such a day. Before that black day came, the Indians, who for some hundreds of Miles had entred into a Confoederacy to cut off all strangers, made a dreadful massacre of the English, & 300 at least were suddenly kill'd by the natives there: A grievous Mortality by Sickness did also accompany the said Massacre, so that many removed from thence, & many of the Rest glorified & magnified the Iustice of God, thus avenging the Quarrel of His Refused Gospel.
Finis.
End of the text · Cotton Mather, The Way to Prosperity (1690)