The Witchcraft Delusion in New England: Its Rise, Progress, and Termination, (Vol. 1 of 3)Mather, Cotton
History
The Witchcraft Delusion in New England: Its Rise, Progress, and Termination, (Vol. 1 of 3)
Mather, Cotton
Witchcraft -- New England
I. The Devil in his _Temptations_ will set the Delight of this world
before us; but he'll set a fair, and a false _Varnish_ upon those
Delights. They were some unknown _Perspectives_, which the Devil had,
both for the Refracting of the _Medium_, and for the Magnifying of the
_Object_, whereby he gave our Lord at once a prospect of the whole
Roman Empire; but what was it? It was the _World_, and the _Glory_ of
it; he says not a word of the _World_, and the _Trouble_ of it. No
sure; not a word of that; the Devil will not have his Hook so barely
expos'd unto us. The Devil sets off the Delights of Sin, which he
offers unto us, with a stretched and raised Rhetorick; but he will not
own, _That in the midst of our Laughter, our Heart shall be sorrowful;_
and _That the end of our Mirth shall be Heaviness_. There is but one
Glass in the Spectacles, with which the Devil would have us to read,
those passages in _Eccles._ 11. 9. _Rejoyce O young Man in thy youth,
and let thy Heart chear thee in the Dayes of thy youth, and walk in the
ways of thy Heart, and in the sight of thine Eyes._ Thus far the Devil
would have us to Read; and he'll make many a fine Comment upon it;
he'll tell us, That if we'll follow the Courses of the World, we shall
swim in all the Delights of the World. But he is not willing you should
Read out the next words; _But know thou, that for all these things God
shall bring thee into judgment_. O he's loth we should be aware of
the dreadful Issues, and Reckonings that our Worldly Delights will be
attended with. He sets before us, the _Pleasures of Sin;_ but he will
not say, _These are but for a Season_. He sets before us, _The Sweet
Waters of Stealth?_ but he will not say, _There is Death in the Pot_.
He is a _Mountebank_, that will bestow nothing but Romantic Praises
upon all that he makes us the Offers of.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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