Quotes from Cotton Mather

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

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

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

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

There may be some so very Ignorant, that they know not how to Pray.

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

What Must I Do to Be Saved? It is impossible to ask a more weighty Question! It is deplorable that we hear it asked with no more Frequency, with nor more Agony.

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

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!

Our opportunities to do good are our talents.

That there is a Devil, is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil.

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

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?

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

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

Wrestle with the Lord. Receive no denial. Earnestly protest, Lord, I will not let thee go, except thou bless this poor child of mine, and make it your own! Do this, until, if it may be, your heart is raised by a touch of heaven, to a particular faith; that God has blessed this child, and it shall be blessed and saved forever.

The New-Englanders are a People of God settled in those, which were once the Devil's Territories; and it may easily be supposed that the Devil was exceedingly disturbed, when he perceived such a People here accomplishing the Promise of old made unto our Blessed Jesus, That He should have the Utmost parts of the Earth for his Possession.

The people have a negative upon all the executive part of the civil government, as well as the legislative, which is a vast priviledge, enjoyed by no other plantation in America, nor by Ireland—no, nor hitherto by England it self.

But after all, his humility appeared in having always but low expectations, looking for little regard and reward from any men, after he had merited as highly as possible by his universal serviceableness.

Nevertheless, there was one civil custom used in (and in few but) the English nation, which this gentleman did endeavour to abolish in this country: and that was, the usage of drinking to one another.

Since the Devil is come down in great wrath upon us, let not us in our great wrath against one another provide a Lodging for him.

Moreover, he successively buried three wives;

Have not many of us been Devils one unto another for Slanderings, for Backbitings, for Animosities? For this, among other causes, perhaps, God has permitted the Devils to be worrying, as they now are, among us. But it is high time to leave off all Devilism, when the Devil himself is falling upon us: And it is no time for us to be Censuring and Reviling one another, with a Devilish wrath, when the wrath of the Devil is annoying of us.

10. If the reader would know, how these good people fared the rest of the melancholy winter, let him know, that besides the exercises of Religion, with other work enough, there was the care of the sick to take up no little part of their time. 'Twas a most heavy trial of their patience, whereto they were called the first winter of this their pilgrimage, and enough to convince them and remind them that they were but Pilgrims.