When Jonathan is called to court, shall we as standers by, Be still and have no word to speak, but suffer him to die? If that you say you cannot help, That shall lose some carnal things, you if you do speak for God; And here you go the nearest way to taste deep of his rod. Tis true there are some times, indeed, of silence to the meek; Not ever, for the Lord doth say, there is a time to speak. Be vigilant then for to see the movings of your heart, And you will know right well the time when you shall act your part. I would not have you for to think, The rulers in the country, I But that which I intend hereby, is, that they would keep bounds, And meddle not with God's worship, for which they have no ground. And I am not alone herein, there's many hundreds more, That have for many years ago spake much upon that score. Indeed I really believe, it's not your business To meddle with the Church of Christ There's work enough to do besides, And I do think that now you find Indeed I count it very low, To ask the rulers for their leave to serve God in his ways. I count it worse in magistrates to use the iron sword, To do that work which Christ alone will do by his own word. The Church may now go stay at home, there's nothing for to do; Their work is all cut out by law, and almost made up too. Now, reader, least you should mistake, in what I said before Concerning ministers, I think to write a few words more. I would not have you for to think that I am such a fool, To write against learning, as such, or to cry down a school But 't is that Popish, college way, that I intend hereby, Where men are mew'd up in a cage; fit for all villainy. But I shall leave this puddle stuff to neighbours at the door, That can speak more unto such things, upon a knowing score. And now these men, though ne'er so bad, when they have learn'd their trade, They must come in and bear a part, whatever laws are made. I can't but wonder for to see And stir them up to do that work, those that they judge are saints. There's one thing more that I believe and count school learning best. But I shall leave this dirty stuff, and give but here a hint, Because that you have Cradock's book, and may see more in print. There are some few, it may be, that are clear of this same trade; And of those men, I only say, these verses are not made. Now for the length of time, how long these wars are like to be, I may speak something unto that, if men will reason see. The Scripture doth point out the time, and 'tis as we do chuse, For to obey the voice of God, or else for to refuse. The prophet Jeremy doth say, when war was threat'ned sore, That if men do repent and turn, God will afflict no more. But such a turning unto God, as is but verbally, When men refuse for to reform, it is not worth a fly. "Gospel Liberty, in the Extensions and Limitations of it," Lond. 1648, 4to., by Walter Cradock, is probably the work referred to. Another Cradock, Samuel, a non-conformist divine, born 1620, died 1706, however, published" Gospel Liberty: his Glad Tidings from Heaven;" no date. Both were authors of a number of sermons and religions works. Though you do many prayers make, and add fasting thereto, Yet if your hands be full of blood, The end that God doth send his sword, New England they are like the Jews, They did proclaim free Liberty, For since they came into this land, According as the times to go, and weather is abroad, So we can serve ourselves sometimes and sometimes serve the Lord. But let us hear what God doth say, to such backsliding men, That can with ease to break their vows, and soon go back again. JER. 34. He saith he will proclaim for them, a freedom to the sword, Because they would not fear him so. This liberty unto the sword, Tis better for our magistrates, By breaking of those bands in two that look an evil way. You do profess yourselves to be If that the peace of God did rule, If we do love our brethren, As we would they should do to us, But if that we a smiting go, No marvel if our wars increase and things so heavy go. Tis like that some may think and any, If so be that a thousand more Alas! these are but foolish thoughts, God can make more arise, And if that there were none at all. he can make war with flies. It is the presence of the Lord, must make our foes to shake, Or else it's like he will e'er long know how to make us quake. Let us lie low before the Lord, in all humility, And then we shall with Asa see But if that we do leave the Lord, do hear more news of harın. Let's have our faith and hope in God, and trust in him alone, And then no doubt this storm of war it quickly will be gone. Thus, reader, I, in love to all, leave these few lines with thee, Hoping that in the substance we shall very well agree. If that you do mistake the verse for its uncomely dress, I tell thee true, I never thought that it would pass the press. If any at the matter kick, it's like he's galled at heart, And that's the reason why he kicks, because he finds it smart. I am for peace, and not for war, and that's the reason why I write more plain than some men do. that use to daub and lie. But I shall cease and set my name I hate it with my heart. From Sherbon* town, where now I dwell, my name I do put here, Without offence your real friend. it is PETER FOLGER April 23, 1676. WILLIAM HUBBARD. WILLIAM HUBBARD was born in 1621, and was of the first class who graduated from Harvard in 1642. He became minister of Ipswich,† where he Willen Hubbard. was visited in 1686 by John Dunton, who gives a good account of his hospitality, amiability, and • Nantucket. The Life and Errors of John Dunton, citizen of London," a De Fou-ish sort of book, published in 1705. The author was a bookseller whose humor it was to describe his fellow traders, customers, and lady visitor an odd mixture (as in Defoe) of plety and love-making. In 1686, he visited Boston with a venture of books, Puritan stock, which sold well. He describes the Mathers and others. From his account, gallantry was greatly in vogue in the old Puritan metropolia His descrip tions of the ladies are highly amusing. acquirements. He published a Narrative of the troubles with the Indians from 1607 to 1677, and a number of serions; and died Sept. 14, 1704. He wrote a History of New England, for which the state paid him £50, and which was used by Mather, Hutchinson, who states that it was "of great use" to him, and other writers. It is said to have been saved from the flames in the attack on Governor Hutchinson's house, by Dr. Andrew E. Eliot, and was presented by his son to the Massachusetts Historical Society, by whom it was finally printed in 1815. It comprises the history from the discovery of the country to the year 1680. MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH was, in his day, one of the most successful of our early writers. He was born about 1631, and after completing his studies at Harvard, in 1651, appointed a tutor in the college. He soon after "made his remove to Meldon," where he was ordained, and remained a "faithful pastor, for about a jubilee of years together." Frequent attacks of illness to which his slight constitution disposed him, for he was, as one of his friends informs us, in a preliminary address to the little feeble shadow of a man," Day of Doom, forced him occasionally to suspend his pulpit exertions. These intervals were, however, marked by a change rather than cessation of labor, as during them he composed his "Day of Doom" and other poems. Notwithstanding his weak frame, Muchacht/Wigglesworth he lived to the good old age of seventy-four, dying in the year 1705. Cotton Mather wrote his funeral sermon, and the following EPITAPH. THE EXCELLENT WIGGLESWORTHI REMEMBERED BY SOME GOOD TOKENS His And waits with joy to see his day of Doom. Wigglesworth was the author of The Day of Doom, or a Poetical Description of the Great and Last Judgment, with a short Discourse about Eternity, and Meat out of the Eater, or Meditations concerning the necessity, end, and usefulness of Afflictions unto God's Children; all tending to prepare them for, and comfort them under the Cross. Both are small volumes, and went through several editions. The second is the rudest in versification, and contains some amusing examples of incongruous though familiar illustration. We must not on the knee Be always dandled, Nor must we think to ride to Heaven Upon a feather-bed. We soon are surfeited With strong delicious matter. And, therefore, God who knows our frame, Mingleth our wine with water. Meat out of the Eater, is divided into a number of sections of some ten or twelve eight-line stanzas each. Its style is in general quaint and harsh, but passages occasionally occur like the following, which possess high merit. Soldier, be strong, who fightest Through fiery flames, and water floods, We travel towards heaven, Christ shows a kingdom there prepar'd O heaven, most holy place, And all things else vile, vain, and nought O Christ, make haste, from bands Of sin and death me free, And to those heavenly mansions, For ever are possest Of God in Christ their chiefest good, And from all troubles rest. It is followed by a collection of verses, similar in form and style, the title and contents of which are sufficiently curious to be quoted in full. RIDDLES UNRIDDLED; OR, CHRISTIAN PARADOXES. That cordials rare incloseth: The contents follow on the back of the titlepage. RIDDLES UNRIDDLED; OR, CHRISTIAN PARADOXES. Light in Darkness, Sick men's Health, Strength in Weakness, Poor men's Wealth, In confinement, Liberty, In Solitude Good company. Joy in Sorrow, Life in Death's Heavenly Crowns for Thorny Wreaths, Are presented to thy view, In the Poems that ensue. If my trials had been thine, These would cheer thee more than wine. The Day of Doom is a versification of the scriptural account of the last judginent. It was reprinted in London, and a few years ago in Boston. In the prefatory poetical introduction the author expresses his intention to rescue poetry from heathen classical perversions. A PRAYER UNTO CHRIST, THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD. Do thou my head and heart inspire, To call the Muses to mine aid: Which is the unchristian use, and trade In Christian poets may be found, With frowning Mars and thundering Jove, One of the best passages of the poem, which we quote, is modestly introduced at the end of the volume, "to fill up the empty pages following." A BONG OF EMPTINESS-VANITY OF VANITY. Vain, frail, short-lived, and miserable man, And what are friends, but mortal men as we, They draw men's souls into perdition, These floods, where flames, where foes cannot bereave him, Most wretched man, that fixed hath his love The car of man with hearing is not fill'd; All earthly things man's cravings answer not, The mean mechanic finds his kindly rest, If wealth or sceptres could immortal make, Where are the Scipio's thunderbolts of war! If gifts and bribes death's favour might but win. Such is this world, with all her pomp and glorys Go boast thyself of what thy heart enjoys, Omnia prætereunt præter amare Deum. INCREASE MATHER-COTTON MATHER. COTTON MATHER had the fortune or misfortune to be born into the world to sustain a great reputation. The Mather fainily had struck its roots deep in the New England polity. Richard Mather, the grandfather, came to America an emigrant non-conformist divine in 1636, and immediately took an important ecclesiastical position as pastor in Dorchester. His son, Increase Mather, born at that town in 1639, developed the learning of the name. He was a graduate of Harvard, of which institution he became President in 1685, in his forty-sixth year, when he had fully established himself in Church and State as the preacher of the North Church in Boston, and the opponent of the government of Charles II., in support of the Colonial Charter. He was employed in England on public affairs during the difficult period of the Revolution of 1688, bringing back with him a new royal charter, under which he had the privilege of nominating his friend, Sir William Phips, a3 Governor to the King. In that age, when learned men gave greater dignity to their names in sonorous Latin, he was called Crescentius Matherus, and his studies entitled him to the honor, for he passed two thirds of the day amongst his books, and left behind him eighty-five publications, a considerable number, which was to be very far outdistanced by his bookish son. These productions of Increase Mather are chiefly sermons in the theological style of the day. Ilis Cases of Conscience concerning Witchcraft, published in 1693, bears an historical value. The last work of Increase Mather was his Agathangelus, a preface to his son Cotton's Coelestinus. It has this touching ad * Which famous John Wilson anagrammatized into En! Christus merces tua. The appellation was once an inconve nience to Mather when he claimed some arrears of salary in England; and some official, ignorant of these refinementa, denied his personal identity, in consequence of his having another name. Remarkables in the Life of Increase Mather, 91. +Calestinus A Conversation in Heaven, quickened and assisted, with Discoveries of things in the Heavenly World. And some Relations of the Views and Joys that have been dress or "Attestation," which does honor to the father and the man. The landscape of heaven here exhibited is drawn by one who, for two-and-forty years, has, as a 801 with a father, served with me in the gospel. It will be much if these forty-two periods do not finish our peregrinations together through the wilderness. For my own part, I am every hour looking and longing for the pleasant land, where I am sure I shall not find things as I do here this day. And having been somewhat comforted and strengthened by the prospect, which is here, as from the top of Mount Pisgah, taken of it, and entirely satisfied in it, I commend it as one of my last legacies to the people of God, which I must leave behind me in a world which has things come and coming upon it, which blessed are they that are escaped from. Increase Mather married a daughter of John Cotton, of eminent rank in the old New England Divinity, who gave the Christian name to his son. Where two great names their sanctuary take, He died in his eighty-fifth year, in 1723, and in the sixty-sixth of his ministry. Theology was long lived in ancient New England. His life was written by his illustrious son with great spirit and unction.t granted unto several persons in the confines of it. Introduced by Agathangelus, or, an Essay on the Ministry of the Holy Angels, and recommended unto the people of God, by the reverend Dr. Increase Mather; waiting in the dally expecta tion of his departure to that glorious world. Boston: printed by 8. Kneeland, for Nath. Belknap, at his shop, the corner of Scarlett's Wharffe and next door to the Mitre Coffee House. 1723. 18mo. pp. 162. Mr. Jos. Dabney has published, Am. Quar. Register, xiv. 877, a list of one hundred and eighty-nine graduates of Har vard, chiefly clergymen, who, up to 1842, had reached or passed the age of eighty-four. There are four graduates of Harvard centenarians. Dr. Farmer, in the same work (x. 89), bas published a series of Ecclesiastical Statistics, including the Ages of 840 deceased Ministers of the Gospel, who were Tduated at Harvard College, from 1642 to 1626. Of these, 843 died at seventy and upwards. There are 17 at ninety and upwards. Parentator. Memoirs of Remarkables in the Life and the Death of the Ever Memorable Dr. Increase Mather, who expired August 28, 1728. 9 Kings 11. 12, My Father, my Father. Boston: Printed by B. Green for Nathaniel Belknap 1796 |