Work Upon the Ark, Title page – Introduction
Work upon the Ark.
Meditations upon the ARK As a Type of the CHURCH; Delivered in a SERMON at Boston, And now Dedicated unto the Service of All, but especially of those whose Concerns Lye in Ships.
By Cotton Mather.
Ecclesiam pro Nave gero; mihi climata Mundi,
Sunt Mare; Scripturae, Retia; piscis, Homo.
foreign. i. e. Quaero Ratem Nobae, ut mortis Discrimina Vitem, Naz. Carm in Epise.
Boston Printed by Samuel Green, and Sold by Joseph Browning at the corner of the Prison Lane. 1689.
Quae Navis Vetustissima, Capacissima, Sanctissima, Ditissimaque omnium fuit?
INgens illa Arca Noae, cui totius Orbis Homines, & Opes, inclusae fuerunt. Nota hic TYPUM universae Ecclesia,—in quam nos aggregemus, ut tuti simus à venturo Irae Dei diluvio, Nam extrà hanc Nulla salus: &
Non Deus huic Pater est cui non Ecclesia Mater.
Heidfeld Sphin. P. 340.
THE Introduction
SECT. I.
AMong all the many Subjects which a Preacher of the Gospel has to insist upon, I know not whether any would carry a greater mixture of pleasure and Profit, than that of the Types which exhibited Evangelical Mysteries unto Israel of old; in treating upon which, the Advantage that we Now have to compare the Shadow and Substance, will afford unto us a rich variety of Observations thereupon, which none but one that shall come and see, can imagine the value of. The Learned Rothwel, being advised by a Clergy-man more Great than Wise, to forbear medling with the Types, as Themes not convenient for him to study upon, made that very prohibition, but as an Invitation to expect, something of a more than common Import in them; and accordingly falling upon the Meditation of them, he found (I suppose) no part of his Ministry more satisfactory to himself, or Savoury to others, than what he there Employ'd. It was not upon any Apprehensions which I have yet seen cause to change, that I did my self, divers months ago, single out the Types for one of my Two or Three or Four Weekly Sermons ordinarily to be taken up nithal; but having on Lords-Dayes in the Afternoons, discoursed more than a few Times thereupon, I find them like the Waters in Ezekiels Vision, Growing and Rising still, the further we wade into them. I am convinced that the gracious Valerius Herber, gwho hath writ a Book to prove, that in every Chapter of the Bible, there is to be found something of our Blessed Jesus, might easily prove his Assertion, with a very great Redundancy of Demonstration; and that every paragraph of the Bible is a spot of Ground, where before we dig far, we shall find the Pearl of Great Price.
SECT II.
It was in This Course of Treating on the Types, That Noans ARK was one of them, which fell under my consideration: and more than a score of persons professing a Trade not altogether unaccommodated in the Thoughts then delivered, One of whom namely Mr. Gill, is a person to whose plous expences, not a few of the Books published among us, owe so much of the Light the… enjoy, that His desire alone ought to have been gratify'd, though there had been no more; These, before the week was out, sent me their Desires that I would give them a Copy of the Sermon; which I now entertain them with: Imploring the God of Heaven, That His Truths may have a due Impression upon them and their Families; that they may never make Shipwrack of the Faith; but, that they may for ever have a Room in the Ark of the Lord Jesus. It should be the care of every Pastor, to lay Truth as much as he can in the way of his People; and when we have an opportunity to PRINT as well as to Preach, it is an increase of our Talents, to be humbly Received and Improved. Let none blame it, that so many Books come abroad continually; for as Austin long since wished, That by many Books the same Truth, not in the same Style, might arrive to the minds of many men; so 'tis as reasonable for Husbandmen to complain of too much Corn, as for Christians to complain of too many Books, which may bring the Food of Truth unto them; the main thing Amiss is, that my Homely Composures trouble the Press, while there are so many more Elaborate, Judicious, Useful Ones, of my Fathers and Brethren, throughout this Countrey, that are suppressed by a modesty as large as the measure under which men should not put a lighted Candle: But it will often happen so, That the Best Work makes the Least Noise, about the Ark of God.
SECT. III.
As the greatest Changes in the World have had a Rise from Engines that seemed no less Trivial than Casual: Printing invented by a Souldier, Powder invented by a Scholar, and the Load-stone, that common and almost contemptible Stone, found out (I know not how) in these latter Ages, have in a manner turn'd the World upside down, and inverted all the affairs of it; So the Great God who forme I all things, has the Interest of His Church, lying at the bottom of all these Mutations. Tis from the encouragement of the Load-stone that we have our Shipping, and by the advantage of our Shipping it is that the Gospel is now arrived unto these Ends of the Earth. The Indians which this Land was once filled with, use to pay no little Respect unto the Crow, because they report that by this Bird the first Corn that ever they had was brought unto them; though now the Crow be among the greatest plunderers of their Fields. There is as much cause for us to bestow some great Regards upon a Ship; for by a Ship it is that the Bread of Life is brought over to the American Strand. Behold, an English Native of America, here making some reflections upon the first SHIP no doubt that ever was in the World; a SHIP to which the biggest Spanish Carrack which carries not above 12 hundred German Lasts, is not to be compared; a SHIP out-vying that of Archimedes, which contain'd twelve thousand Tuns, or that of Philopater, which was two hundred and forty Holy Cubits in Length, with a Breadth and Depth not unproportionable. And we hope it bodes no Ill to America, that in the howling Deserts of it we begin to be thus employed! May the Lord Jesus have an Ark in these thus long unhappy Territories. God forbid the Ark should float back again, and leave this vast Continent again in the entire possession of its late Landlords, the Devils, to make a Gog and Magog of it, in the latter Dayes.
SECT. IV.
It may justly be thought, that the Flood which Noahs ARK was provided against, reached unto America; though at that very point of Time when t'other Hemisphere was drown'd, there seems to have been a Failure of the Waters here; and now the ARK is also arrived hither, with Invitations unto us, to secure our own Eternal Salvation, by a Lodging in the Antitype thereof. They that have written (as Laet and Lerius) concerning the Original of the Americans, do inform us, that they had some knowledge of the Old Flood, before any Europeans gave a visit unto them yea, and of the Last Fire too, if Acosta deceive us not; but we Europaeans that are become Americans, have by our Sacred Histories, both more certain and more useful Notions of it, than could be found in the sorry Traditions, of them that were here before us. Hence 'tis that we can publish a little Sermon, of Work upon the Ark; and we can send word unto our Friends in the other Haemisphaere, that the people whom they esteem under the Earth, even those that are their Antipodes, are bowing their Knees in the Name of the Lord Jesus, who has built an Ark, a Church, for the Reception of them here. There is a Country in America, that has perhaps more than an Hundred Congregations in it, all which, I have cause to think instructed with better Sermons every Week, than that which is here put into the Readers Hands; a Country fill'd with pure Churches, every one of which is an Ark, not on the same Account that Pope Benedict was by the Messengers of a famous Council minded of, when he had Challenged unto his own vile Breast, that Honour, Hic est Arca Noae; but for the Salvation of them that with a due sincerity, repair thereunto. May none of Us, want a place in such an Ark of the Lord Jesus, when the Floods of Great Water come nigh unto us.
SECT. V.
You that are concerned in SHIPS, whether the Building or the Sailing of them, have this Little Treatise offered unto you, with a very particular, and most affectionate Application. Work upon the Ark, is what you may count your selves concerned in; and O that the Truths here tendred unto you, may Find you, and prove the Power of God unto your Salvation!
My Wishes for you are, That Goodness and Mercy may follow you all the Days of your Lives, and that you may dwell in the Ark of the Lord, unto Length of Days. That None of you may be a Cham about the Ark, but that All of you may be bound up in the Bundle of Life. Have I found any thing in Cham, to Deprecate on your behalf? I have so in Noah too, in good old Noah himself. You know what Sin it was that Noah was overtaken with. One of the Ethnic Names, by which Noah was distinguished, was that of Saturn; whom the Ancient Pagans made the Praesident of Drunkenness; and hence they had their Saturnalia, or Drunken Bouts, dedicated unto his Memory. 'Tis not a thing which never happens, that they whose Concerns Ly in Ships, have had more to do with Cups than has been for their Good; and they plead for themselves, as in Salvians complaint, they did of old, Si Noah, our non & Ego? Why mayn't I Drink to Excess, as well as Noah? As well! Why it was not well in Noah; and tho' he had his Ignorance, which you have not, for an excuse, yet this Drunkenness, has issued in a Black Curse upon a great part of his miserable Family. But, blessed be God, the most of you, that are personally known unto my self, are persons exemplary for Sobriety. The Lord make you so, for every other vertue; and grant, That Denying Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts, you may Live Soberly, Righteously, and Godlily in this present World.