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england_n	church_n	young_a	youth_n	24	3	7.6715	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70554	Early piety, exemplified in the life and death of Mr. Nathanael Mather, who ... changed earth for heaven, Oct. 17. 1688 whereto are added some discourses on the true nature, the great reward, and the best season of such a walk with God as he left a pattern of.	Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728.; Mather, Samuel, 1651-1728.	1689 (1689)	Wing M1097A; ESTC R20873	63,808	161

Seventeenth of Jeremiah and the Ninth He was Dejected yet not Despairing and he discôvered a wonderfully Gracious when he had not a Joyful Frame He was all made up of Longings and Breathings after all the fulness of God when he could not or would not pretend unto any Confidence of his Acceptance with the Lord. In the time of his Health he had not been without the comfortable Perswasions for which he follow'd hard after God. In one place I find him saying on such a day I had Fears lest I did not love the Blessed God but yet I was sure I desired to keep his Commandments Another time so For Three quarters of an Hour I pleaded earnestly for assurance of the Love of God unto me and I said As many as received Christ Jesus to them he gave power to become the Sons of God And I did receive Jesus Christ as the Free Gift of God and received him to save me on his own Terms I chose him to be my Priest and Prophet and King. Now I begg'd of him that he would manifest his Acceptance of me and give me the Spirit of Adoption I had then I hope some Assurance But when Sickness came he was loth to own a clear Title to the Rest of God Yet before he died he suffered some sober Intimations of his hopes to fall from him There was a good Man in this Land whose last words yet were It had been good for me that I had never been born The words of this humble Self-loathing Young-Man were of another strain In the last Night that we had him with us he would have his Watcher to read The Song of Simeon unto him Now lettest thou thy Servant depart in Peace And in the Morning after he said I have now been with Jesus Christ which from such a little Speaker as he we could not have his Explication of In one of his last Minutes a faithful Minister said unto him Find you not Comfort in the Lord Jesus Christ To which he made only this discreet and humble Answer I Endeavour to do those things which will issue in Comfort and then he quickly surrendred up his Redeemed and Renewed Soul unto him who had loved him and washed away his sins in his own blood Thus he went away to the heavenly Society where he is beholding the Face of God in Righteousness and solacing himself in the Company not only of his blessed Grandfathers and Vncles and all the Spirits of the Just but of the amiable Jesus himself which is by far the best of all His Tears are all dried up his Fears vanished away and his Hopes more than answered in Joys unspeakable and full of glory His Elder Brother having thus written of him now satisfies himself in the Duty therein done to God and Man and would keep waiting for his own Change until Thy Free Grace O my God shall give unto the most miserable Sinner in the World an admission into Emanuel 's Land. Cotton Mather Finished Octob. 29. 1688. One that had an Acquaintance with him did him the Justice of weeping over his Grave such an Epitaph as this INclosed in this sable Chest The Host once of an heavenly Guest Here lyes Vpright Nathanael True Off-spring of God's Israel Him Dead how term we from his Birth Who liv'd in Heaven whilst on Earth His Head had Learnings Magazine His Heart the Altar whence Divine Whole Hecatombs which Love had fir'd Of high Praise and warm Pray'r aspir'd His Life the Decalogue unfolded A Meat-off'ring his Speech well moulded His rare Devotion such now seen A sign of Ninety at Nineteen Years but in Bloom Grace at full growth Angels you Know and Think his Worth. Thus Time Youth's Glass Turn'd e're 't was Run And Ages too before begun Rest glorious Dust and let thy perfum'd Name Sound in the Trumpets of Immortal Fame For thô Times Teeth Mausolaean Monuments deface They 'll never gnaw thy Name which with the Stars has place Pos uit R. Hale FINIS SEVERAL SERMONS CONCERNING WALKING WITH GOD AND THAT In the Dayes of Youth PREACHED At Boston in new-New-England By Cotton Mather Pastor of a Church there 1 King. 18. 12. But I thy Servant fear the Lord from my Youth 1 Chron. 34. 3. While he was yet young he began to seek after the God of David his Father LONDON Printed by J. Astwood for I. Dunton at the Black Raven in the Poultrey over against the Compter 1689. THE WALK OF HOLY and HAPPY MEN. GEN. V. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Enoch walked with God. BEhold in these words the Picture of a great and a good Man which indeed like a well-made Picture looks upon yea more than so speaks unto us all nor is it a common Picture for this also that the Walk as well as the Face of the Person is represented in it This Chapter contains a Catalogue of those Antediluvian Patriarchs in whom the Church of God and the Line of Christ was continued from Adam to Noah The ancient Heathens expressed their broken Traditions of our Noah in rude Notions of one Janus a Man a god and I know not what with two Faces on him because Noah had the Prospect of two World● before him We may all share with Noah in this Priviledge the Affairs of the Old World as well as of the New do arrive to our Notice in this Chapter particularly we have a Muster of renowned Men that lived before the Flood Indeed about the most of them there is little recorded besides their Age and their End. Ecclesiastical History relates that a Person of Quality accidentally coming into a Meeting-house where the Minister was reading the fifth Chapter of Genesis those words recurring so often in it And he Dyed And he Dyed they struck to they stuck in the Heart of him and caused him that was a mortal to become a very serious Man God grant that another clause in the Chapter may have this day as good an effect upon us all One of the Worthies in this Roll Enoch by Name can have no Report made of his Death but instead thereof we find a twofold Remark made upon him First We have the Character of Enoch 'T is once and again said of him He walked with God a peculiar sanctity-he seems therein to be set forth as an Instance of Secondly We have the Blessedness of Enoch 't is said He was not for God took him A Translation is intended by that Phrase as it is by the Apostle elsewhere explained It seems that this notable Preacher of Truth and Witness for God at last withdrew from the sight of Men They asked they wondred what was become of him and probably they sought in all corners for him 'till they understood that the Angels of God had carried him away Not only the spirit but the body too of this excellent man has now been among the Angels in Heaven for some hundreds above four thousand Years But it is now time to Observe Doct. To walk

no more by him And yet must acknowledge that the little understanding which God has given me in the Hebrew or Greek Tongues was by that my Brother as the instrument So that I have cause whilst I shall live to honour his Memory His Death makes me remember the Poets words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I cannot but know that if I should not fear and serve the God of my Brothers and of my Fathers and of my Grand-Fathers the nearest Relations I ever had in the World will be Witnesses against me at the last day The Lord give us a joyful meeting in the day of Christ. London February 5 th 1689. Samuel Mather THE INTRODUCTION MY Reader will quickly discern what it is that I attempt the doing of and I suppose he will then see no occasion of enquiring Why. The Apology's wherewith Writers usually fill the Prefaces of their Books Do come of Evil either the Vanity of the Composers is discovered or the Candour of the Perusers questioned in them That I Write the Life of a Christian cannot be faulted by any one who Considers That the Lives of Pious Men have been justly esteemed among the most useful Histories which the Church of God Enjoyes or that the best Pens in the World have been employ'd in thus helping the Just unto Eternal Memory Our Lord will have as mean a thing as one Act of Devotion and Charity in a poor Woman to be mentioned wherever His Gospel comes That I write the Life of a Brother will not be reckoned absurd by them who understand what Patterns I have both Ancient and Modern for my doing so James Janeway among the rest has had our Thanks for what an Account he has given of his Brother John. Indeed if I should not thus Raise up for my departed Brother a Name in Israel I were not worthy to Wear a Shoo or to have a Face unspit upon My Natural Relation to him doth oblige me to bestow an Epitaph upon his Grave that the Survivers may not forget whose Dust they tread upon But I am by that which Ambrose calls a Greater and Better Fraternity concerned to Embalm the Memory of One who maintained such a Walk with God as he did until God took him to Himself It has been observed That they who Live in Heaven while they are on Earth often Live on Earth after they are in Heaven It were lawful for me to desire and Study such a thing on the behalf of my Brother whose Early Piety is at once my own Shame and Joy But I pursue an higher End than this designing rather to procure Followers than to bespeak Admirers of this good Example That this is my Main Scope in what I am now doing of I declare sincerely and very solemnly And hence I have not here made an Oration in his Praise but given barely a Narrative of his Life and this mostly by Transcribing of his own Memorials in all affecting the plain style of a Just Historian I do therefore Address this Exemplary Life unto the young People of new-New-England and especially unto those of North-Boston who are the Lambs that I have Received a peculiar Charge from the Lord Jesus about the Feeding of To you do I present this Mirrour wherein you may see the Exercises of a Virtuous Youth not only prescribed but also practised before your Eyes You shall see as what should be done so what may be done by a Young Person in order to Everlasting Felicity see him and hear him as One come from the Dead saying Do as I have done The Father of him whom I describe has Laboured exceedingly for the Conversion of the Rising Generation in New-England and his CALL to them has been Printed and Reprinted here among us Thô the News of a Sons Death must needs be afflictive to him when he shall have the Report of it arriving to him in the other England yet I make no doubt but his Parental Griefs will be not a little Mitigated when he shall hehold that Son thus Renewing his CALL by speaking after he is Dead This Young Man did pray much for you while he was Alive that you might be truly Converted unto God he does preach now to you from the Grave or rather from the Sky that you would Remember your Creator in the dayes of your Youth I wish that he may to use Chrysostoms Phrase become a Brother to you by Faith as he is to me by Blood And I extend this my wish with a most Affectionate Application to the Young Gentlemen who belong to the Colledge which he was a Member of As you have had in his Father a Rector whose Generous and Expensive Cares have not been for your disadvantage so you have in his Diligence and his Devotion a Copy which is not altogether unworthy of your Imitation I am setting before you the Exercises and Accomplishments of a Scholar whose chief Study it was to be Wise unto Salvation a Scholar who Laboured while he was Learning all other things not to be Ignorant of Him Whom to know is Life Eternal I am not without Hope that some of you will now resolve as Jerom did when he had read the Life of Hilarion shutting up the Book and saying Well here shall be the Champion whom I will follow When you come to Dye you will certainly commend such a Life as his god grant that none of you may then have cause to sigh Qualis Artifex pereo Or to complain Surgunt Indocti rapiunt Coelum Nos cum nostris Doctrinis mergimur in Infernum That Great Man Hugo Grotius near his End professed That he would gladly give all his Learning and Honour for the Integrity of a poor Man in his Neighbourhood that spent Eights Hours of his Time i● Prayer Eight in Labour and Eight in Sleep and other Necessaries and unto some that applauded his Marvellous Industry he said Ah Vitam perdidi operose nihi Agendo But unto some that asked the be●● Counsel which a Man of his Attainment could give he said Be serious 'T is with this Counsel that I humbly offer you the ensuing History Advertisements THere is just now publisht a Treatise entituled Reformed Religion or Right Christianity described in its Excellent and Usefulness in the Whole Life of Man. Written by 〈◊〉 Barker Minister of the Gospel Price bound 1 ● There will in a few days be publisht A new Martyrology 〈◊〉 the Bloody Assizes now exactly methodized in one Volume comprehending a compleat History of the Lives Sufferings an● Deaths of all those Excellent Persons who fell in the West 〈◊〉 elsewhere from 1678. to 1689. with the Pictures of several 〈◊〉 the Chief of them in Copper-plates To which is added 〈◊〉 Life and Death of George Lord Jefferys Both sold 〈◊〉 John Dunton at the Raven in the Poultrey THE LIFE and DEATH OF Mr. NATHANAEL MATHER I Write the Life and Death of a Young Man whose Ornament will awaken in the Reader an Enquiry like that which

the Atchievments of David produced concerning him Whose Son is this Youth To Anticipate that Enquiry Nathanael Mather had for his Grand-Fathers Two of New-England's Fathers the Famous Richard Mather and the not less Famous John Cotton whose Names have been in the Church of God as an Ointment powred forth and whose Lives bear no little Figure in the Ecclesiastical Histories of our English Israel His 〈◊〉 being yet living it 's too soon to gi●● them their Character yet I may ventu●● to say It 's no disgrace unto him in the Opinion of Men that love Learning and Virtue that he was the Son of Increas● Mather the well known Teacher of a Church in Boston and Rector of Harward Colledge in new-New-England What Gregory Nazianzen judged not improper 〈◊〉 be said about his yet surviving Father in his Funeral Oration upon his Decea●●ed Brother I may without any culpa●●● Adulation on this occasion say of him He is another Aaron or Moses in the 〈◊〉 of his God. Our Nathanael was born on July 6 1669. which I find him Recording 〈◊〉 his Diary when he was fourteen Year● Old with such an humble Reflection ther●●upon How little have I improved this tim● to the Honour of God as I should have 〈◊〉 He wanted not the Cares of his Father to bestow a good Education on him which God blessed for the Restraining him from the lewd and wild Courses by which 〈◊〉 many Children are betimes resigned 〈◊〉 to the possession of the Devil and 〈◊〉 the Furnishing him with the Accomplishments as give an Ornament of Grace 〈◊〉 the Head of Youth He did Live where he might Learn and under the continual Prayers and Pains of some that looked after him he became an Instance of unusual Industry and no Common Piety so that when he dyed which was Octob. 17th 1688. he was become in less than twenty years An Old Man without Gray hairs upon him To those two Heads with a sorrowful Addition of a Third I shall consine my account of this Young Man in which the Picture to be now drawn has nothing but the Truth and at least so much of Life in it as to look upon every Reader yea speak unto him saying Go and do likewise I. His INDUSTY He was an hard Student and quickly became a good Scholar From his very Childhood his Book was perhaps as dear to him as his Play and hence he grew particularly acquainted with Church-History at a rate not usual in those that were above thrice as Old as He. But when he came to somewhat more of Youth his Tutor who now writes was forced often to Chide him to his Recreations but never that I remember for them To be Bookish was natural unto him and to be plodding easie and pleasant rather than the contrary Indeed he afforded not so much a Pattern as a Caution to young Students for it may be truly written on his Grave Study kill'd Him. The marks and works of a Studious Mind were to be discerned in him even as he walked in the Streets and his Candle would burn after Midnight until as his own Phrase for it was He thought his bones would all fall asunder This was among the passages once noted in his Diary 10 M. 26 D. three quarters of an hour after 12 at Night After the many wearisom hours days months nay years that I have spent it humane Literature and after my many toilsom Studies in those Hours when the General silence of every House in Town proclaimed it high time for me to put a stop unto my workin● Mind and urged me to afford some Re● unto my Eyes which have been almo●● put out by my Intenseness on my Studies after these I say and when 〈◊〉 am ready to do it Oh how unwilling am I to do it considering How litt●● I have served God in the day While he thus devoured Books it came to pass that Books devoured him His weak Body would not bear the Toils and Hours which he used himself unto and his Neglect of Moderate Exercise joyned with his Excess of Immoderate Lucubration soon destroyed the Digestion which his Blood should have had in the last Elaboration of it by that time sixteen Winters had snow'd upon him he began to be Distempered with many Pains and Ailes especially in some of his Joynts which at last were the Gates of Death unto him not without such very afflictive touches of Melancholy too as made him sometimes to Write himself Deodatus Melancholicus This was his way of living shall I say or of Dying And the success of this Diligence was according to the Temper of it Great When he was but Twelve Years Old he was admitted into the Colledge by strict Examiners And many Months after this passed not before he had accurately gone over all the Old Testament in Hebrew as well as the New in Greek besides his going through all the Liberal Sciences before many other designers for Philosophy do so much as begin to look into them He Commenced Batchelour of Arts at the Age of Sixteen and in the Act entertained the Auditory with an Hebrew Oration which gave a good Account of the Academical Affairs among the ancient Jews Indeed the Hebrew Language was become so Familiar with him as if to use the Expression which one had in an Ingenious Elegy upon his Death he had apprehended it should quickly become the only Language which he should have ocasion for His Second Degree after seven years being in the Colledge he took just before Death gave him a Third which last was a promotion infinitely beyond either of the former He then maintained for his Position Datur Vacuum and by his Discourse upon it as well as by other Memorials and Experiments left behind him in Manuscripts he gave a specimen of his Intimate Acquaintance with the Corpuscularian and only right Philosophy By this time he had informed himself like another Mirandula and was admirably capable of arguing about almost every Subject that fell within the Concernments of a Learned Man. Not only Philosophy but also Divinity did he now own a Body of The Difficulties of the Mathematicks he had particularly overcome and the abstruse parts both of Arithmetick and Astronomy were grasped in his Knowledge His Early Almanack and Calculations do something but the MSS. Adversaria left behind him in his Closet much more speak such attainments in him His Cronology was exact unto a wonder and the State of Learning with the Names and Works of Learned Men in the World this American Wilderness hath few that understand as well as he Besides all this for the vast Field of Theology both Didactick and Polemick it is hardly Credible how little of it his Travel had left unknown Rabbinick learning he had likewise no small measure of and the Questions referring unto the Scriptures which Phylology is conversant about came under a very Critical Notice with him Indeed he was a Person but of few words and his Words with his