Cotton Mather Quotes & Sayings

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

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. — Cotton Mather

Our opportunities to do good are our talents. — Cotton Mather

Wilderness is a temporary condition through which we are passing to the Promised Land. — 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! — 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. — 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 — Cotton Mather

Religion brought forth Prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother. — Cotton Mather

Ignorance is the Mother not of Devotion, but of Heresy. — Cotton Mather

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charity ... is kind, it is not easily provok'd, it thinks no evil, it believes all things, hopes all things. — 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. — 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. — 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. — 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. — Cotton Mather

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