The Way to Prosperity, Title page – Preface
The Way to Prosperity. A SERMON Preached to the HONOURABLE CONVENTION Of the GOUERNOUR, Council, and Representatives of the Massachuset-Colony in New-England; on May 23. 1689. By COTTON MATHER.
Jer. 23. 28. He that hath My Word, Let him speak speak My Word faithfully.
BOSTON. Printed by Richard Pierce. for Benjamin Harris. Anno Domini MDCXC.
A Prophesy in the Divine Herbert's Church-Militant.
REligion stands on Tip-toe in our Land,
Ready to pass to the American Strand.
When height of Malice and prodigious Lusts,
Impudent Sinning, Witchcrafts and Distrusts,
(The marks of future Bane) shall fill our cup
Unto the Brim, and make our measure up;
—Then shall Religion to America flee;
They have their Times of Gospel, even as we.
—Yet as the Church shall thither westward fly,
So Sin shall Trace and Dog her instantly.
The Preface,
THe Occasion which first produced the following Sermon, cannot be expressed in better Terms, than those which were used by the Worthy Gentlemen that were the Conservators of our peace, in their humble Address to Their Majesties, bearing Date, May 20th 1689. Wherein among other things they say,
—Your three several Princely Declarations, Encouraging the English Nation, to cast off the Yoke of a Tyrannical and Arbitrary Power, which at that time they were held under, have occurred unto the View and Consideration of the people in this Countrey, being themselves under alike (if not worse) evil and unhappy Circumstances with their Brethren in England; First by being unrighteously deprived of their Charter-Government, & Priviledges, without any Hearing or Tryal, and under utter impossibilities of having Notice of any Writt served upon them; and then followed with the Exercise of an illegal and Arbitrary power over them, which had almost ruined a late flourishing Countrey, and was become very grievous & intolerable; besides, the growing miseries, and daily fears of a total Subversion, by enemies at home, and Invasion by forreign force; the people thereby excited, to imitate so noble and heroic an Exemple, being strongly and unanimously spirited, to intend their own safeguard and Defence, resolved to sieze upon and secure some of the principal persons concerned, and most active in the ill management of the illegal and arbitrary Government, set over them by Commission. Accordingly upon the eighteenth day of April last past, arose as one man, siezed upon Sr. E. Andros the late Governour, and other of the evil instruments, and have secured them for what Justice, Order from your Majesties shall direct.—Thus that Address.
Upon the late Revolutions thus described, ensued various debates about the further Steps that were needful to be taken for the service of Their Majesties and this afflicted Countrey; Which Debates quickly issued in the Return of our Government, into the Hands of our Ancient Magistrates; who with the Representatives or Deputies of the several Towns in the Colony, made another Address unto Their Majesties, bearing date, Iune 6. 1689. in which Address there were these Words,
—Finding an Absolute Necessity of Civil Government, the People generally manifested their Desires and Importunity once and again, That the Governour, Deputy Governour and Assistants, chosen and sworn in May 1686. according to Charter & Court as then formed, would assume the Government;—
—the said Governour, Deputy-Governour, and Assistents, then Resident in the Colony, did Consent to accept the present Care and Government of this people, according to the Rules of the Charter, for the preservation of the Peace and common safety, and the putting forth further Acts of Authority, upon Emergencies: until by Direction from England, there should be an orderly Settlement; which we hope will Restore us to the full Exercise thereof, as formerly; notwithstanding we have, for some time, been most unrighteously, and injuriously deprived of it.
That Royal Charter being the sole Inducement and Encouragement unto our Fathers and predecessors, to come over into this Wilderness, and to plant the same at their own Cost and Charge.
In Answer to this Address, His Majesty in a most gracious Letter, bearing Date the 12th of August 1689. unto the Government here, uses these Expressions,
Whereas you give Us to understand, that you have taken upon you the present care of the Government, until you should receive Our Order therein, We do hereby Authorize and Empower you to Continue in Our Name, your Care in the Administration thereof, and Preservation of the Peace, until We shall have taken such Resolutions, and given such Directions for the more orderly Settlement of the said Government, as shall most conduce to Our Service, and the Security and Satisfaction of Our Subjects within that Our Colony.
It was in the time of our greatest Heats and Straits, and at a time appointed for a General Assembly of this great Colony, that the ensueing Sermon was expected from me. Through the Grace of God, the Sermon Then was not altogether unacceptable to some who desired the Publication of it. But I gave not my full Consent unto their Desire, until now, they had an Opportunity (with their Renewed Importunity) to join it with another Discourse which they have obtained from me; and tho' the little Differences which were among us, when the Sermon was preached, are now so well Composed, yet I slatter my self with an opinion, that the things here insisted on, will not, should not be judg'd Unseasonable.
I confess it is a very Bold thing, for one every way so mean as my self, to Address the whole Countrey in such a manner as here I do; but, Si crimen erit, crimen Amoris erit; and if the general Dispositions of the year will not excuse a Breach of Order in me, I have but one thing more to offer by way of Satisfaction for it▪ There was once a people in the world, with whom it was a Custome, That when men would Conciliate the Favour of the Ruler, they were to present his own Son before him, as a Sight which would speak more than any Advocate. Instead thereof, that I may not want the Favour of my Countrey, how blameable soever they may count my freedome with them, I shall only present them with my own Father; whose cheerful Encounter with an hazardous Voyage unto a strange Land, and with innumerable Difficulties and Temptations there, for no other Cause, than that he might Speak FOR them, has at least merited a Pardon for Mee, with whom he has for near two years now left both his Church and Family, if I have transgressed by taking a Liberty of Speaking TO them at the same time, the things which may promote our Enjoyment of the Divine Presence with us. Now, may Salvation be nigh unto us, and Glory dwell in our Land!
Cotton Mather.
The Way to PROSPERITY
It is the Word of the Eternal GOD in II. Chron. XV. 2.
Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah, and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with Him.
IT is a Remarkable Occasion which has brought these Words to be the Subject of our present Meditations; but it was much more a Remarkable Occasion which these Words were first uttered upon. We find them in the Sacred Book of Chronicles, which Chronicles are not the Civil Records, in other parts of the Bible refer'd unto; but an Inspired History of things that concerned the Line of Christ and the Church of God for five hundred more than Three Thousand years. It seems as an Epitome of the Whole, (for so tis in Ierom's Language) to be written as late as the Last of all the Books in the Old Testament; and the Hebrew Bibles give it a place accordingly. The Greeks choose to entitle it, The Book of things (else where) passed by; because, as Lyra notes, according to the Rule of our Saviour, It gathers Fragments that nothing may be lost; and if there were nothing else but the Story which affords our Text unto us, to justifie that Appellation, it were enough: 'tis a Story passed by in the Book of Kings; but worthy to be had in everlasting Remembrance.
The ready Pen of Ezra (for him we conjecture to be the Scribe of the Holy Spirit here, notwithstanding those few Clauses which may be judged to be added by another hand after his Decease, I say the Pen of Ezra) is here informing us, That the people of God had newly been invaded by a vast Army of Cushites; but we are yet at a loss who these Cushites were? Far more Scholars in the World, than there were Souldiers in that Army have hitherto been content with our Translation, which renders them Ethiopians here. But that learned French-man Bochart, by whose happy industry, more than any man's, the Treasures in the Bowels of the Scriptures have been delv'd into, has with irrefragable Demonstration prov'd, That not Ethiopians but Arabians are the Cushites mentioned in the Oracles of God. These Arabians, tho they have not been called Saracens (as has been thought) from their word Sarak, that signifies, to Steal; yet for their Furacious Inclinations, they well deserved such an Etymology; they were a wild sort of men, that liv…d much upon the Rapin and Ruin of their Neighbours; and particularly, a Million of them now designed Ierusalem for a prey. The blessed God gave His people a notable victory over these Invaders, and they were now returning from Gerar (a place between thirty and forty miles off) unto Ierusalem. The Holy Spirit of God excited and inclined a Prophet whose Name was Azariah, to entertain them with a faithful & solid Sermon hereupon; and in my Text you have the Sum and Substance of it.
We may observe,
First, The Praeface of it; and that is very awful and earnest: Hear ye me Asa, and all Judah, and Benjamin. As he was probably none of the greatest, so tis like he was none of the oldest men; for it seems by the eighth verse, that his Father was yet alive, & present at this time. Yet being to speak in the Name of the great and eternal God, he expects, he demands the attention of the whole Army to him.
Secondly, the Design of it; and that is, to decclare both the Rise and Use of their late Prosperity. The Lord is with you, while you you are with Him; or as the Vulgar Latin has it, Inasmuch as you have been with him. What follows, is but an Explication, and Amplification of this. He saw they were taken up with various Businesses and Contrivances; they had their Enemies under Hatches, and their minds were full of Thoughts and Cares, What to do next? But he calls them off to acknowledge the Presence of God, as the cause of their coming off so well in their late Action, and above all things to obtain & secure the presence of God, that they might come off as well, in in their future Enterprises.
I am therefore to call for your Attention unto this Faithful Saying.
DOCT. That The GOD of Heaven will be with a people while they are with Him.
'Tis by the ensuing Propositions, that the Explication of this Truth shall be endeavoured.