"Tis hard for you, as I do hear, though you be under rod, To say to Israel, Go, you, and serve the Lord your God. Though you do many prayers make, and add fasting thereto, Yet if your hands be full of blood, all this will never do. The end that God doth send his sword, is that we might amend, Then, if that we reform aright, the war will shortly end. New England they are like the Jews, as like as like can be; They made lange promises to God, 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 ense 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, we should be quiet straightway. But if that we a smiting go, of fellow-servants so, No marvel if our wars increase and things so heavy go. Tis like that some may think and any, our war would not remain, If so be that a thousand more of natives were but slain. 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 harm. 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 to what I here insert, Because to be a libeller, 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 Willin 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 Foe-ish sort of book, published in 175. The author was a bookseller whose humor it was to describe his fellow traders, customers, and lady visitors-an odd mixture (as in Defoe) of piety 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 metropolis. His descriptions of the ladies are highly amusing. MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. 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 Day of Doom, a little feeble shadow of a man," 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, His pen did once meat from the eater fetch, 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 The second is the through several editions. 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, 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, 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, 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. A PRAYER UNTO CHRIST, THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD. O dearest, dread, most glorious King Do thou my head and heart inspire, Thee, thee alone I'll invocate, To call the Muses to mine aid: Which is the unchristian use, and trade In Christian poets may be found, Where heathen gods with praise are crowned, With frowning Mars and thundering Jove, To give God's praises to the Devil, 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 SONG OF EMPTINESS.-VANITY OF VANITY. Vain, frail, short-lived, and miserable man, A wind, a flower, a vapor, and a bubble, A wheel that stands not still, a trembling reed, And what are friends, but mortal men as we, They draw men's souls into perdition, And when most needed, take them to their wings. Ah, foolish man! that sets his heart upon His wealth's increase, increaseth his desires. These floods, where flames, where foes cannot bereave him, Most wretched man, that fixed hath his love The ear of man with hearing is not fill'd; All earthly things man's cravings answer not, Great are their dangers, manifold their cares, The mean mechanic finds his kindly rest, If wealth or sceptres could immortal make, Where are the Scipio's thunderbolts of war? Stout Hannibal, Rome's terror known so far? If gifts and bribes death's favour might but win. Such is this world, with all her pomp and glory: 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 family 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, as 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. His 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 inconvenience to Mather when he claimed some arrears of salary in England; and some official, ignorant of these refinements, denied his personal identity, in consequence of his having another name. Remarkables in the Life of Increase Mather, 21. + Coelestinus, 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 son 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 long lived in ancient New England.* His life the sixty-sixth of his ministry. Theology was 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 daily expectation 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. J. P. Dabney has published, Am. Quar. Register, xiv. 377, a list of one hundred and eighty-nine graduates of Harvard, 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), has published a series of Ecclesiastical Statistics, including the Ages of 840 deceased Ministers of the Gospel, who were graduated at Harvard College, from 1642 to 1826. Of these, 849 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 23, 1728. 2 Kings ii. 12, My Father, my Father. Boston: Printed by B. Green for Nathaniel Belknap. 1724. venerable schoolmaster Ezekiel Cheever,* and was a precocious student; for at twelve years of age he had read Cicero, Terence, Ovid, and Virgil, the Greek Testament, and entered upon Socrates, Homer, and the Hebrew Grammar. To adopt the old reading of Shakespeare, From his cradle, He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one. A mountain of learning and theology was heaped upon his childhood. When he left college, with a handsome compliment in Latin from President Oakes, he employed himself for several years in teaching. In 1684, at the age of twenty-one, he was ordained, when he preached the first time for his grandfather, the Rev. Mr. Richard Mather, at Dorchester; the next Lord's day for his own father at Boston; and the Lord's day after, for his grandfather Cotton at Boston. His spiritual life was of an earlier date; for in religion, he was a divine almost from his cradle. He had, as a youth, acquired a habit of meditation and religious improvement, modelled upon Bishop Hall's Occasional Meditations, in which the most familiar occurrences are chosen for remark. This quaintness suited the genius of Mather. Every incident in life afforded him a text. He had a special consideration for the winding up of his watch. As he mended his fire he thought of rectifying his life; the act of paring his nails warned him to lay a ide "all superfluity of naughtiness;" while "drinking a di-h of tea" he was especially invited to fragrant and grateful reflections. He appropriated the time while he was dressing to particular speculations, parcelling out a different set of questions for every day in the week. On Sunday morning he commented on himself, as pastor; on Monday, as husband and father; on Tuesday he thought of his relations, "taking a catalogue which began with his parents and extended as far as the children of his cousin-germans," and, by an odd distribution, interchanging them sometimes with his enemies; Wednesday he gave to the consideration of the church throughout the world; on Thursday he turned over his religious society efforts; Friday he devoted to the poor and suffering, and Saturday he concluded with his own spiritual interests.t To these devout associations he added the most humorous turns, not merely improving,-a notion readily entertained-such similes of mortal affairs as the striking of a clock or the dying flame of a candle, but pinning his prayers, on a tall man, that he might have "high attainments in Christianity;" on a negro, that he might be Cheever, a Londoner by birth, was for more than seventy years a teacher in this country-at Newhaven, Ipswich, Charlestown, and at Boston, where he passed the last thirty-seven years of his life, till his death, in 178, at the venerable age of ninety-three. His Latin Accidence had reached its twentieth edition in 1768. He also wrote on the Scripture Prophecies. Cotton Mather says, in one of his carefully twisted elegies, that his numerous pupils employed the parts of speech which he taught them in sounding his praises: "With interjections they break off at last, The story is, that Cheever used to boast of having flogged seven of the judges on the bench. + Life by Samuel Mather, 50-59. washed white by the Spirit; on a very small man, that he might have great blessings; upon a man on horseback, that as the creature served him, so he might serve the Creator; and, at the suggestion of so suspicious an incentive, savoring so strongly of unholy egotism, as a person passing by without observing him, "Lord, I pray thee, help that man to take a due notice of Christ." It may not be unreasonable to trace this habit, with the disposition of mind upon which it grew in Mather, till he carried out the doctrine of special providence to an excess which assumed the worst forms of dyspeptic and morbid suspicion. Pious persons sometimes forget that, while Deity rules the world with particular control, in which nothing is so small as not to be great, it becomes not the ignorance of short-sighted man to be the interpreter. It was probably one form of this not uncommon delusion which led Cotton Mather to enter so vigorously upon the prosecution of witchcraft. Wherever in life he saw an effect, he looked about him for an immediate cause, and would take up the nearest one which suited his taste and humor. He was undoubtedly instrumental in fomenting the murderous proceedings at Salem; it would be harsh to suppose with the deliberate intent of reviving a fading ecclesiastic tyranny and priestly despotism in the land, but certainly with an over-zealous eagerness and inordinate credulity. Wiser men than Mather, in those days, had a certain kind of belief in the posibility of witchcraft. Chief Justice Hule, in 1682, had sanctioned the punishment of death for a piece of intolerable nonsense in England, and witches had been executed in New England before Mather was born. There was just lurking superstition enough about in the country, in the thin settlements and in the purlieus of the wilderness, fostered by the disuse of independent thinking under the dogmatic puritan theology, to be effectively worked upon by a credulous, zealous, unscrupulous advocate; and such, for the time being, was Cotton Mather. Vanity appears to have been his ruling passion, and vanity associated with priestly power and superstition presents a fearful combination for the times. Self-blinded, he was fooled by the most transparent absurdities. He gives an account, in the Magnalia, of the freaks of a young girl, one of the bewitched family of the Goodwins, whom he took into his house, and who played him a variety of silly pranks, his relation of which is exceedingly quaint and amusing, all of them to be explained by the mischievous caprices of the sex, with so capital an object as himself to work upon, but which the learned doctor in divinity magnified in the pulpit-he speaks of "entertaining his congregation with a sermon" on the subject-and the "famous Mr. Baxter" echoed in London, as a “ great instance, with such convincing evidence, that he must be a very obdurate Sadducee, that will not believe it." This was in 1688. His Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft appeared in 1689. The twenty executions of Salem took place in 1692; nineteen were hung, and another pressed to death, by that peculiar institution of the old English Life by Samuel Mather, 107-9. |