Best 22 quotes of Cotton Mather on MyQuotes

Cotton Mather

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    Cotton Mather

    A Good School deserves to be call'd, the very Salt of the Town, that hath it.

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    Cotton Mather

    Ah, children, be afraid of going prayerless to bed, lest the Devil be your bedfellow.

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    Cotton Mather

    Ah! destructive Ignorance, what shall be done to chase thee out of the World!

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    Cotton Mather

    Be not so set upon poetry, as to be always poring on the passionate and measured pages. Let not what should be sauce, rather than food for you, engross all your application. Beware of a boundless and sickly appetite for the reading of poems which the nation now swarms withal; and let not the Circaen cup intoxicate you. But especially preserve the chastity of your soul from the dangers you may incur, by a conversation with muses no better than harlots.

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    Cotton Mather

    Chrysostom, I remember, mentions a twofold book of God: the book of the creatures, and the book of the scriptures. God, having taught us first of all by his works, did it afterwards, by his Words. We will now for a while read the former of these books; 'twill help us in reading the latter. They will admirably assist one another.

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    Cotton Mather

    Families are the Nurseries of all Societies; and the First combinations of mankind.

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    Cotton Mather

    History is the story of events, with praise or blame.

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    Cotton Mather

    If we admit instrumental musick in the worship of God, how can we resist the imposition of all the instruments used among the ancient Jews?—yea, dancing as well as playing, and several other Judaic actions? or, how can we decline a whole rabble of church-officers, necessary to be introduced for instrumental musick, whereof our Lord Jesus Christ hath left us no manner of direction?

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    Cotton Mather

    Ignorance is the Mother not of Devotion, but of Heresy.

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    Cotton Mather

    Instead of exhorting you to augment your charity, I will rather utter an exhortation, or at least a supplication, that you may not abuse your charity by misapplying it.

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    Cotton Mather

    Is this dying? Is this all? Is this what I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh, I can bear this! I can bear this!

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    Cotton Mather

    I will now teach my son Increase (and others of my children) the way of raising a lesson out of every verse in his reading of the Bible; and of turning it into a Prayer; and engage him (and them) unto a daily Course in reading the Bible in such a way

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    Cotton Mather

    Our opportunities to do good are our talents.

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    Cotton Mather

    Religion brought forth Prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.

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    Cotton Mather

    That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influence of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a Devil must be from ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.

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    Cotton Mather

    The Word of God must be Read and Heard with Diligence that so you may arrive to the Knowledge that is needful for you.

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    Cotton Mather

    What was it that obliged Jerome to write his book, Concerning Illustrious Men? It was the common reproach of old cast upon Christians, 'That they were all poor, weak, unlearned men.' The sort of men sometime called 'Puritans' in the English nation have been reproached with the same character. . . But when truth shall have liberty to speak, it will be known that Christianity never was more expressed unto the life than in the lives of the persons that have been thus reproached.

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    Cotton Mather

    Wilderness is a temporary condition through which we are passing to the Promised Land.

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    Cotton Mather

    Ye monsters of the bubbling deep, Your Maker's praises spout; Up from the sands ye codlings peep, And wag your tails about.

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    Cotton Mather

    You are young and have the world before you; stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard bumps.

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    Cotton Mather

    You may ... make a little recreation of poetry, in the midst of your painful studies. Nevertheless, I cannot but advise you. Withhold thy throat from thirst. Be not so set upon poetry, as to be always poring on the passionate and measured pages. ... let not the Circean cup intoxicate you.

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    Cotton Mather

    The Jews have a saying worth remembering: "Whoever doesn't teach his son some trade or business, teaches him to be a thief." As soon as ever I can, I will make my children apprehensive of the main end for which they are to live; that so they may as soon as may be, begin to live; and their youth not be nothing but vanity. I will show them, that their main end must be, to, acknowledge the great God, and His glorious Christ; and bring others to acknowledge Him: and that they are never wise nor well, but when they are doing so. I will make them able to answer the grand question of why they live; and what is the end of the actions that fill their lives? I will teach them that their Creator and Redeemer is to be obeyed in everything, and everything is to be done in obedience to Him. I will teach them how even their diversions, and their ornaments, and the tasks of their education, must all be to fit them for the further service of Him to whom I have devoted them; and how in these also, His commandments must be the rule of all they do. I will sometimes therefore surprise them with an inquiry, "Child, what is this for? Give me a good account of why you do it?" How comfortably shall I see them walking in the light, if I may bring them wisely to answer this inquiry. -A Father's Resolutions, www.spurgeon.org/~phil/mather/resolvd...