Cotton Mather

4. A certain gentleman [if nothing in the following story contradict that name] was employed in obtaining from the Grand Council of Plymouth and England, a Patent in the name of these planters for a convenient quantity o…

There was a time when the court of election being, for fear of tumult, held at Cambridge, May 17, 1637, the sectarian part of the country, who had the year before gotten a governour more unto their mind, had a project no…

But though I know that the reverend elders of this church, and some others, do very well apprehend that the church cannot enquire into the proceedings of the court; yet, for the satisfaction of the weaker, who do not app…

This acknowledging disposition in the governor made them all acknowledge, that he was truly 'a man of an excellent spirit.' In fine, the victories of an Alexander, an Hannibal, or a Caesar over other men, were not so glo…

The wiser people being troubled at these trifles, they took the opportunity of Governour Winthrop's being there, to have the thing publickly propounded in the congregation: who in answer thereunto, distinguished between…

Nevertheless, there was one civil custom used in (and in few but) the English nation, which this gentleman did endeavour to abolish in this country: and that was, the usage of drinking to one another.

The gentleman that succeeded Mr. Endicot was Mr. Richard Bellingham, one who was bred a lawyer, and one who lived beyond eighty, well esteemed for his laudable qualities, but as the Thebans made the statues of their magi…

But after all, his humility appeared in having always but low expectations, looking for little regard and reward from any men, after he had merited as highly as possible by his universal serviceableness.

The self-denying gentleman, who had imployed his commission of governour so little to the disadvantage of the infant-colony at Connecticut, was himself, ere long, by election made governour of that colony.

Jewish proverb, Ne Habites in urbe ubi caput urbis est Medicus:

Moreover, he successively buried three wives;

Have not many of us been Devils one unto another for Slanderings, for Backbitings, for Animosities? For this, among other causes, perhaps, God has permitted the Devils to be worrying, as they now are, among us. But it is…

And there was one passage of his charity that was perhaps a little unusual: in an hard and long winter, when wood was very scarce at Boston, a man gave him a private information that a needy person in the neighbourhood s…

He was, indeed, a governour, who had most exactly studied that book which, pretending to teach politicks, did only contain three leaves, and but one word in each of those leaves, which word was, MODERATION.

Hereupon there was appointed an able and faithful committee of gentlemen, who printed, from copper-plates, a just number of bills, and flourished, indented, and contrived them in such a manner, as to make it impossible t…

The people have a negative upon all the executive part of the civil government, as well as the legislative, which is a vast priviledge, enjoyed by no other plantation in America, nor by Ireland'no, nor hitherto by Englan…

Now, upon a deliberate review of these things, his Excellency first reprieved, and then pardoned many of them that had been condemned; and there fell out several strange things that caused the spirit of the country to ru…

and had occasion to think on the Italian proverb, ' To wait for one who does not come; to lye a bed not able to sleep; and to find it impossible to please those whom we serve; are three griefs enough to kill a man.

He has sometimes said that he could be willing to walk twelve miles on his feet, on condition he might have an opportunity to preach a sermon: and he seldom did preach a sermon without tears.

which Varo distinguished unto Incognit and fabulous, preceding the historical, and we should shortly have as wretched narratives of the first persons and actions in this land, as Justin gives of the Jews, when he makes M…

Hence, though he were a zealous enemy to all vice, yet his practice was according to his judgment thus expressed: 'In the infancy of plantations, justice should be administered with more lenity than in a settled state; b…

yea that we never assemble without a Satan among us. As there are some Divines, who do with more uncertainty conjecture, from a certain place in the Epistle to the Ephesians, That the Angels do sometimes come into our Ch…

Since the Devil is come down in great wrath upon us, let not us in our great wrath against one another provide a Lodging for him.

the spirit of an Heylin, who seems to count no obloquy too hard for a reformer; and the spirit of those (folio-writers there are, some of them, in the English nation!) whom a noble Historian stigmatizes, as, 'Those hot-h…

10. If the reader would know, how these good people fared the rest of the melancholy winter, let him know, that besides the exercises of Religion, with other work enough, there was the care of the sick to take up no litt…

11. The doleful winter broke up sooner than was usual. But our crippled planters were not more comforted with the early advance of the Spring, than they were surprized with the appearance of two Indians, who in broken En…

Of all which catastrophe's, I suppose none was more sudden than that of Monsieur Finch, whom in a ship from France, trucking with the Massachuset-Natives; those bloody salvages, coming on board without any other arms, bu…

Well, it was not long before the Council of Plymouth in England had, by a deed bearing date March 19, 1627, sold unto some knights and gentlemen about Dorchester, viz: Sir Henry Rowsel, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcott,…

Fifthly, The schools of learning and religion are so corrupted, as (besides the unsupportable charge of education) most children, even the best, wittiest, and of the fairest hopes, are perverted, corrupted, and utterly o…

the gospel has carried with it a fulness of all other blessings; and (albeit, that mankind generally, as far as we have any means of enquiry, have increased in one and the same given properties and so no more than double…

They then sent their agents to view the country, who returned with so advantageous a report, that the next year there was a great remove of good people thither: on this remove, they that went from Cambridge became a chur…

So they jogged on for many years; and whereas, before the year 1644, that worthy gentleman, George Fenwick Esq., did, on the behalf of several persons of quality, begin a plantation about the mouth of the river, which wa…

The well-known Mr. Davenport, and Mr. Eaton, and several eminent persons that came over to the Massachuset-bay among some of the first planters, were strongly urged, that they would have settled in this Bay; but hearing…

4. Well may New-England lay claim to the name it wears, and to a room in the tenderest affections of its mother, the happy Island! for as there are few of our towns but what have their name-sakes in England, so the reaso…

He was a person for study as well as action; and hence, notwithstanding the difficulties through which he passed in his youth, he attained unto a notable skill in languages: the Dutch tongue was become almost as vernacul…

3. There was another most wonderful preservation vouchsafed by God unto this little knot of Christians. One Mr. Weston, a merchant of good note, interested at first in the Plymouth design, afterwards deserted it; and in…

Wrestle with the Lord. Receive no denial. Earnestly protest, Lord, I will not let thee go, except thou bless this poor child of mine, and make it your own! Do this, until, if it may be, your heart is raised by a touch of…

Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own liberty. There is a liberty of corrupt nature, which is affected both by men and beasts, to do what they list; and this liberty is inconsistent with authority, imp…

The New-Englanders are a People of God settled in those, which were once the Devil's Territories; and it may easily be supposed that the Devil was exceedingly disturbed, when he perceived such a People here accomplishing…

Ah, children, be afraid of going prayerless to bed, lest the Devil be your bedfellow.

If we admit instrumental musick in the worship of God, how can we resist the imposition of all the instruments used among the ancient Jews?'yea, dancing as well as playing, and several other Judaic actions? or, how can w…

The Jews have a saying worth remembering: Whoever doesn't teach his son some trade or business, teaches him to be a thief. As soon as ever I can, I will make my children apprehensive of the main end for which they are to…

Wilderness is a temporary condition through which we are passing to the Promised Land.

That there is a Devil, is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil.