Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prayer_n	blessing_n	child_n	parent_n	2,068	5	9.3978	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50175	Winter meditations directions how to employ the leisure of the winter for the glory of God : accompanied with reflections as well historical as theological, not only upon the circumstances of winter, but also upon the notable works of God, both in creation and Providence ... / by Cotton Mather ; with a preface of John Higginson.	Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728.; Higginson, John, 1616-1708.	1693 (1693)	Wing M1170; ESTC R24049	51,315	99

for ever yea and this after our being Animated but perhaps before our being any way given unto God in the New-Covenant by our Parents who 't is possible were themselves At that Time Strangers from the Covenant of Promise and so Having no Hope for their miserable Offspring O think on what thou Art and what thou mightest have been But The SECOND Article in our Commemoration may be The Benefits of God relating to the PLACE of our NATIVITY or at least of our HABITATION Where do we Dwell 'T is in a Land Enriched with all sorts of Temporal Conveniencies 'T is not where we must have Endured The Want of all Things not in the Dark Places of the Earth which are filled with Cruelty We Dwell where we have a plenty of Meat of Drink of Apparel and of the Best and it is plain that the Poor do not in any Countrey Live so well as they do in Our's We Dwell where we have the Right of ENGLISH-MEN for our Birthright which is an Inheritance of more consequence than what any other Nation upon Earth is favoured with yea and we have Additional Priviledges as we are NEW-ENGLANDERS whereof we may say as the Jewish Rabbi did of Liberty If the Heavens were Parchment and the Seas were Ink all would be too Little to write the Praises due unto our God upon that account We Dwell where Civility abounds where Knowledge and Learning with Schools and other means for it are promoted where Vice is by wholesome Laws restrained where Humane Society is made Easie and Pleasant by the Orders of it and where Industry is Encouraged But this is not all Mul●o Majora Canamus 'T is in a Land Exalted with all sorts of Spiritual Advantages 'T is not where the People perish because they have no Vision I pray mark it It the world at this Day be Divided into One and Thirty parts about Nineteen of them are Heathen Idolaters about Seven of them are Mahometans hardly Five of them are so much as called Christians And of what has been styled Christendom how small a Moyeti● is rescued either from that Su●erstition or Persecution which destroys all Real Christianity Yea but you and I have The Lines fallen to us in such a pleasant Place We Dwell in a Goshen in a Protestant and a Puritan Soyl and where a Power to persecute is by a Royal Charter for ever kept from coming into the Hands of any that might hereafter incline to use it on us And in what Age Had we been Born a few Ages ago it must have been in a Pagan or in a Popish Age and before PRINTING was Invented when a Bible must have cost a man an Incre●ible Sum of money if he could have got it so and perhaps Hanging or Burning into the Bargain Alas Brethren There is not one of us but what are Descended from the Loyns of many that are now Roaring in the Place of Dragons But as for us we are Born in an Age of Light Yea 'T is in the very Dawns of our Lords Coming to Destroy the Wicked One. I am verily perswaded There are some already Born who shall see the most Glorious Revolutions that ever happened in any former Ages even The Glorious Things that are spoken of Thee O thou City of God! It is a priviledge To be Born so low so far down in the Line of Time To pass on The THIRD Article in our Commemoration may be The Benefits of God relating to the FAMILY which has given us our ORIGINAL and our EDUCATION What Parents have we had perhaps we are not of the House of the Wicked which has the Curse of God upon it but in the Habitation of the Just which is Blessed by the Lord. We have had Parents who have Pray'd for us before they had us as Abraham as Hannah did for theirs Yea perhaps upon their first Apprehensions of our Conception they did solemnly Give us up to God that we might be for ever possessed by His Holy Spirit as the Everlasting Vessels of His Glory But how much then have the Prayers of these our Parents been since concerned for us And how Rich a Portion have we had in that Stock of Prayers Little do Children think what an Invaluable Blessing 't is to have Parents that as Job Sacrificed for his according to the Number of them all do pray for every one of them and that by Name every Day But more than so we have had Parents that have Restrained us when our Corrupt Natures would have been Exorbitant nor Leaving us to be Children of Belial with an Indulgence like that of Eli's We have had Parents that have Instructed us and caused us to ●●come well Catechised in the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ with a Diligence like that of David and Bat●●sheba for their Solomon We have had Parents that have even Travelled for us in Birth again that Christ might be Formed in us And what a Favour of Heaven have we had in the Heavenly Examples of s●e● Parents They have shown us The Path of Life by their own Walking in that Path before our Eyes Let us Imitate their Seriousness their Prayerfulness their ●●●●●fulness their Holiness their Watchfulness and we shall at last Arrive to ●liss being therein Gathered unto our Fathers Whereas most of the Children in the World have Parents by whose Influence they Go to the Generation of their Fathers where they shall never see Light Yea 't is possible that we have had Parents who have Liberally brought us up by their Cost and Care we have been Educated in the Sciences whereby we may be made singularly Serviceable to Mankind singularly Honourable among our Neighbours And I may add That some of us who in our Childhood Lost our Parents have yet found that our God is the Father of the Fatherless God has graciously stirr'd up others to do the part of Parents for us when we were shiftless Orphans To proceed The FOURTH Article in our Commemoration may be The Benefits of God relating to the PROVISION which Divine Providence has made for us and ours Our Lord said once unto some of His Ministers When I sent you without Purse Lacked ye any thing And they said Nothing Even we whose Maintainance hath been Left unto the Arbitrary and Alterable Humours of a Fickle Multitude and who perhaps have never made any Agreement with that Multitude about our Maintenance yet have hitherto been strangely Supply'd in all our Straits Many of our Neighbours have but Impoverished Themselves by not Communicating unto their Teachers in all good Things and if the Devils who are the Rulers of this Dark World could have had their Wills we must have been Leggared been Famished Yet we have seen that we have Served a Good Lord He has as for the Tribe of Levi Blessed our Substance and He has been a Shepherd that would not suffer us His Under Shepherds to Want But have not all our Faithful People also had the like Experiences

Winter Meditations DIRECTIONS How to employ the Liesure of the WINTER For the Glory of God Accompanied with Reflections as well Historical as Theological not only upon the Circumstances of the Winter But also upon the Notable Works of GOD Both in Creation and Providence Especially those which more immediately Concern every Particular Man in the whole course of his Life And upon the Religious Works wherewith every Man should acknowledge GOD in and from the Accidents of the WINTER By Cotton Mather With a Preface of the Reverend Mr. John Higginson Boston Printed and Sold by Benj. Harris over-against the Old-Meeting-House 1693. To the Right VVorshipful Sir JOHN HARTOP Knight and Baronet SIR WHen the Sons of the Patriarch were Travelling into that Country which was the Garden of the World he ordered them To take of the best of the Fruits of the Land and carry a present unto a Great Person there 'T is into the Paradise of the European World that a Little Book is now Travelling over the Atlantic Ocean Hei mibi quod Domino non licet ire suo And tho' it carry not of the best of the Fruits of the Land for it may without wrong to Me be tokl you that many parts of the Land afford far better yet the Fruits which it carries have this Rarity to Recommend them That they grew in the midst of the barren Winter but considering with my self to whom I should make a present of these Fruits the Character which YOU have among the Reformed Churches of God a thousand Leagues distant from the Island of your Abode presently determined this DEDICATION Might we in this American Wilderness more enjoy the Presence as I hope we cannot but enjoy the Good Will of persons like You Accomplished we should have a Compensation made us for all the desperate Hardship of our Winters but in the mean time we will Invite you to partake with us in our WINTER MEDITATIONS when we cannot have you to partake with us in our Winter Difficulties Altho' the Lines are fallen to You in the Pleasant Places of a more Temperate Climate yet the White Mantle of Snow at some Times covering that Happy Island also bespeaks for it the old Name of Albion and if at such Times the Lessons which then we have here had at our Fingers Ends may give You as Acceptable an Entertainment as they would a Seasonable One my Satisfactions will even make me forget the Time of the Year A most Excellent Pen long since did publickly describe You as a Person who were by Your Faith In Cacumine Olympi constitutus supra Ventes et Processas above the Blasts and Storms of this Unquiet World But. I perswadè my self that a Treatise produced in the Months that are full of Natural Blasts and Storms will have in it nothing Disagreeable to that Serenity of Soul wherein Your Faith has placed You. The Day comes on apace when the World which was once Drowned propter Ardorem Libidinis will now be Burned propter Teporem Charicatis I have here made for a few of my Friends an Essay To fetch out one Cord by another and albeit it would not be easie for to find All that should Less Need the Admonitions of this Essay than You yet I believe that Few will Receive it with so much Candor Goodness and Kind Resentment A Renowned Person once got himself an Immortal Sirname only by an Invention to come fairly at a Common Enemy over and thorough Interposing Snow-drifts I am here endeavouring to help my Neighbours with an Invention how they may Encounter their Spiritual Enemies the Flesh the World and the Devil not only In but even By the circumstances when God Says to the Snow Be thou upon upon the Earth By this Undertaking I have neither Pursued nor Deserved any further Name for my self and yet I am upon this Occasion ambitious to Earn and Wear that Name of Sir Your most Sincere and Very Humble Servant COTTON MATHER TO THE READER IT is one of the Heavenly Counsels of Aged Pard to Young T●●oth● which reacheth to all Ministers and Christians in all Ages 1 Tim. 4.7 Exercise thy self unto Godliness Now that is done by a frequent practice of those Duties which have a Tendency to the promoting of the Power of Godliness in our selves and others and which through the Blessing of God will not fail to attain that End amongst which there are none more useful than Meditation Self-Examination and Secret Prayer These are not only Enjoyned by the Word but Confirmed by the Experience of all the Saints bearing witness to this great Truth that there is no maintaining the Life and Power of Godliness without a diligent practice and frequent Exercise of the fore named Holy Duties and therefore any Contribution of help towards any of these and in particular that of Meditation deserveth a thankful acceptance from all the People of God The Object of Meditation God revealing himself in his Word and Works is of a large Extent the particularizing of some of the Works of God in Creation and Providence considered with the adjunct of Time wherein they do Exist and Expressing what the Word says of those Works in their Times and Seasons is of singular use to six the Volatile and Voluble Mind of Man unto profitable Medications with Application to our selves as a Godly Man once said Shew me any C●●cture and I will sh●w thee God The Works of God in their general Nature and special kinds are the proper Subject of Natural Philosophy for Physica est Ars bene Naturandi Natura es●●res nata e● p●●●●●is Principiuns est Materiale Formale i.e. the Material and Formal Causes do constitute the Nature and make up the Essence of every Creature of God in it self considered but the same Creatures Works considered in relation to the Supream Efficient and Final Cause as they are from God as their First Cause and for God as their Last End so they belong to Theology and so the Holy Scripture doth abundantly treat of them shewing Gods Efficiency running through and influencing all Second and Subordinate Causes and entring into every Effect and then the same Efficiency preserving the Being and Power of Working in all the Creatures directing all their Motions thorough all above all their next interior Ends to God himself as the last End of all Hence every Creature hath its Existence and Operations as it is Ens a prime ad Primum and thus the Holy Scriptures do every where proclaim God as the First and the Last Isa 44.1 Rev. 1. in relation to all the Creatures for of him and through him and to him are all things unto whom be Glory for ever Amen Rom. 11.36 It is further observable the Scripture doth not only treat of the Works of God themselves but of the Circumstance of Time not meerly as Time is Fluxus Nunc or duratio rerum but as it s under a Divine Predetermination of the Seasons of Ti●e