Sir
You cannot but remember, and I should not have this occasion of telling you so, if you did not well remember, that many months are not passed since you encountered a dangerous fever; by which the vital tie between what must return to God that gave it, and what must return into the earth as it has been there, was very near burned asunder in you; but God had then mercy on you, and not on you only, but on me also, lest I should have had sorrow upon sorrow. It was a darker time in your house, than (through grace) with your soul, when we beheld you lying under what looked like an arrest laid on you by the cold hand of death, and saying, I shall go the gates of the grave, I am deprived of the residue of my years. But the blessing which if you study to be a blessing you can never want, was then your privilege; even, to be much prayed for; and behold, the effect of those our applications to the God of your life! On that very day when your faithful and worthy pastor the Reverend Charles Morton, with your pious neighbors were together praying for you, we had our answer, and you are yet alive. The living, the living, they shall praise God; and you have a blessed opportunity, I hope not without some inclination to be doing so. It was from such an inclination, that your vows did accompany our prayers, and your sickness expired in resolutions, to endeavor the doing of something for the service of the churches here, and this particularly, by the publication of some little book, accommodated to the designs of practical godliness in the persons and houses of this professing people. It is a pity indeed that ever any special trouble, or any special mercy should befall us, without producing some special service to the name of our God, upon whose orders and errands every such dispensation comes. Accordingly, you have commanded me to give you certain discourses, which you thought agreeable to your serious purposes; and these are they. To you first I ought to make the dedication of them; because it is by your desire and expense that they are to pass under any further dedication; they are now therefore no longer mine but yours, and to be entitled, The writing of a well-willer to religion, after he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness. These composures are singled out from other effects of my daily studies, not because of any singular excellency adorning of them; for they are but the first, rude, untranscribed notes of sermons uttered in my ordinary course of preaching more than once or twice commonly in a week; and strangers abroad in the world may without the least wrong to me, believe, that New-England is a country wherein there are every week in the year delivered more than two hundred sermons, to be preferred to the best of these. But these are by you pitched upon, because they are most expressive of the resolutions, and exercises and experiences, which yourself would choose to recommend to the children of your people; and though they may amount to no better than goat's hair and ram's skins, it was thought they might be accepted among small offers to the service of the tabernacle. There was once a great king, to whose triumphs while many others made their more noble offerings, a poor man in some transport of affection, having nothing else, took up his palm-full of water from the street, and offering of that, received from the generous conqueror a gracious recompense. Even such a king is our God! Sir, you have chosen to fetch a thank-offering for Him, from such a kennel, such a puddle (alas, it is no better!) as the head and heart of the greatest sinner in all the rising generation. But I can only say, it is as welcome from me to you, as I believe, it is from you to Him that made us both. It is indeed a piece of self-denial that your commands have obliged me to; for whatever others may think of appearing in print, my own opinion of it is, that unless a man be extremely unacquainted both with himself, and with the world, he will be rather afraid or ashamed of it, than taken with it; let him that wants humbling become an author, and he shall have it, if mean thoughts have not made him utterly insensible. Nothing but a respect to the interest of God and of truth, and a resolve to go cheerfully through much contempt, obloquy, detraction, can make any considerate person to salute mankind in the quality of a writer. But since it is my duty to be (like holy Bradford) always doing good, with tongue, or pen, or purse, I should account it my honor if my pen may be employed for any advancement of practical godliness, though it cost me never so many temptations, as it must cost me not a few.
Accept then, dear Sir, the little book which you have called for; I may more fairly speak it than he of old to his father, I have done according as you bade me; arise, I pray you, sit, and eat of my venison, that your soul may bless me. The blessing which once Caleb gave to a son-in-law as I do not want, I need not ask; but the blessing which I am now craving is, that of your prayers on my behalf, to the Eternal Father, for such gifts, and graces, and improvements, as it is His work alone to bestow upon us; and especially that I may be preserved from the sins and snares which ministers in their younger years are most endangered by; of which I have long thought pride (the natural effect of self-ignorance and small experience) to be the principal. The prayers of one so related, have an authoritative blessing in them; and that I may further earn them, I take the liberty to mention my own supplications to the God of heaven for yourself. May the Almighty God long preserve your life, and give your hoary head to be found in the way of righteousness. May you have before you the example of that Nehemiah who was, a man come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel; of that Cornelius, who was, a devout man, that feared God with all his house, and prayed to God always; of that treasurer, who made the Bible his perpetual companion, and believed with all his heart: and as you have opportunity, do good to all men. May the death (I dare not say, the loss) of your ten children, the last of which going from you made a tenth wave in your trials, only promote your union and communion with Him who is better than ten sons; and may you enjoy in the house of God, a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters. May all the storms besides those which the adventures of your younger years upon the Atlantic Ocean, made you betimes acquainted withal, in an unstable and a tempestuous world, prove so many fresh and fair gales, to befriend your late but sure arrival to the rest which remains for the people of God; wherein the anchor of your hope, is already cast, and where you are with the more-than-half furled sails of time hastening apace, after him that said, I desire to loose anchor and be with Christ, which is by far the best of all. It is by these prayers that I would approve myself,
Sir, your dutiful son and very humble servant, COTTON MATHER.
