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Rev. Cotton Mather__1709

Theopolis Americana [God’s City: America]

AN ESSAY ON

CORRUPTIONS of the Market-Place.

With Some Good HOPES of Better Things to be yet seen in the AMERICAN World.

In a SERMON, to the GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the Massachusetts province

in NEW-ENGLAND. September 3, 1709.

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Rev[elation]. XXI. 21

The STREET of the City was Pure GOLD.

GLORIOUS Things are Spoken of thee, O thou City of God! The STREET be in Thee O NEWENGLAND; The Interpretation of it, be unto you, O American Colonies.

The Invitation, sounds Angelically; But my Hearers must have it now given them; Come hither, and I will show you an admirable Spectacle! ’Tis an Heavenly CITY, descending out of Heaven, from GOD. There is an Heavenly CITY, which the Great GOD, has Prepared for them, to whom He will be a God: A CITY to be inhabited by an Innumerable Company of Angels, and by the Spirits of Just Men made Perfect by a Resurrection from the Dead, with JESUS the Mediator of the New Covenant shining upon them: A CITY; where God shall dwell with men, God Himself shall be with them, and we shall Inherit all things. . . .

One incomparable Glory of the City, is now singled out for our present Meditation. The Street of the City is Pure Gold. I concur with Peganius and conceive That the Street here means, and so it may be translated, The Market-Place; the Place where the Affairs of Trade bring together a Concourse of People. The meaning is, The Business of the CITY shall be managed by the Golden Rule. The Things that use to be done in the Market-Place shall be done without Corruption. There shall be no Base Dealing in it. It is added, It is as it were Transparent Globe: That is, The Dealing shall be so Honest that it shall bear to be Look’d into; it shall be so Sincere that men shall be willing to have their very Hearts Look’d into. There shall be no False-Dealing: All shall be done with all possible Integrity. . . .

O Happy CITY! O Golden Street, nowhere, nowhere to be found but in a City of God!

The Thing which I am to Observe is That in a CITY of GOD, the Street will be Pure Gold. The Business transacted in the Market-Place of an Holy City will have a Golden, that is to say, a Gracious Character upon it. Golden Proceedings, that is to say, Godly ones, will be found in the Market-Place of a CITY, which the Son of God, has a favor for. . . .

What is to be done, that the Street of our City, may be Pure Gold? And, What have we to do in our Market-Place, that so our Great SAVIOUR may Espouse us for A City of God, and become our Saviour? . . .

Sirs, NEW-ENGLAND is a Country [colony] that has made a more than ordinary Profession of Religion. Our Profession is Weigh’d in the Balances of GOD. If there be anything Defective in the Honesty of our Dealing with one another, our Profession will have a woeful MENE TEKEL Written upon it. Let a man be never such a Professor2 and Pretender of Religion, if he be not a Fair-Dealer That Man’s Religion is Vain. A Noise about Faith & Repentance, among them that forget Moral Honesty, tis but an Empty Noise. The men are utter Strangers to Faith and Repentance; God will Reject all their Confidences, of their being. The People of God, and they shall not Prosper in them. I have a Commission that Enables me, and Emboldens me, to say among you; Woe, Woe, Woe, to you Professors, and Hypocrites, who can make a Show of this and that Piety and Purity; but can Cheat, and Cousen, and Oppress, and Wrong others. People in your Dealing with them! . . .

But I have certain MOTIONS to make; and I assure myself that all the Good Men in the Country will concur to the making of them.

The First Thing for which I move is That the Golden Rule of Charity may Operate in all the Dealings of the Market-Place. Then will the Street be Pure Gold, when everything is done in it with an Eye to the Golden Rule of Christ. I am not versed in the Niceties and Mysteries of the MarketPlace. But I am acquainted with a Golden Rule, which, I am sure, would mightily Rectify all our Dealings there. . . .

The Second Thing for which I move is That all Frauds in our Dealings of all sorts may be the Abomination of all that have anything to do in the Market-Place. All such Things as by the Irregular & Inordinate Love of Gold, men are too often betray’d into! Of the various Methods wherein men Deal Dishonestly with one another in the Market-Place, and particularly, False Weights and Measures, we read, Deut[eronomy]. 25.16. All that do such things, and all that do Unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God. May they Likewise, and Therefore, be an Abomination unto you, O People of the LORD.

As now;

For men to Lie to one another, in Dealing with one another; Tis an Abomination! It was required; Lev[iticus]. 19. 11. Ye shall not Steal, neither deal False, neither Lie to one another.

For men to put off Adulterated or Counterfeited Wares; or, for men to work up their Wares Deceitfully; When the Fish is naught; the Tar has undue mixtures; there is Dirt & Stone instead of Turpentine; there are thick Layes of Salt instead of other things that should be there; the Cheese is not made as tis affirm’d to be; the Liquor is not for Quantity or Quality such as was agreed for; the Wood is not of the Dimensions that are promised unto the Purchaser; or perhaps, there was a Trespass in the place of Cutting it; the Hay does hold our Weight by abundance; the Lumber has a false Number upon it; or, the Bundles are not as Good Within as they are Without; Tis an Abomination!

For men to Over-reach others because they find them Ignorant, or Scrue grievously upon them only because they are Poor and Low, and in great Necessities; to keep up the Necessities of Humane Life (I say, the Necessaries, which I always distinguish from the Superfluities), at an Immediate Price, merely because other People want them, when we can more easily spare them; Tis an Abomination!

For men to Employ others and not Reward them according to Contract [A Crime, not at all the less, because the Minister is not seldom the Sufferer from it!], Or, to withhold from the Labourer his Wages, till his Cry reach up to Heaven; or break their Faith with the Creditors, and keep them out of their Dues! Tis an Abomination!

To Rob the Public Treasury by False Musters, or any other Articles of Charge falsely given in; or, to Abet [aid] the Robbers by any Assistance or Contrivance at such things in Auditing their Accounts; This also is a thing to be Repented of, where any have been Guilty of it. . . .

There is one sort of Trade, also, about which my way of Addressing you shall be by Reciting the words of the Excellent BAXTER. They are these: [His Christian Directory. Part II. Chap. 14]

To go as Pirates, and Catch up poor Negroes, or People of another Land, that have never forfeited Life or Liberty, and to make them Slaves, and Sell them, is One of the worst kinds of Thievery in the World; and such Persons are to be taken for the common Enemies of Mankind; and they that buy them and use them as Beasts for their mere Commodity, and betray or destroy or neglect their Souls, are fitter to be called Incarnate Devils than Christians, tho’ they be no Christians whom they so Abuse.

I will go on to say; When we have Slaves in our Houses, we are to treat them with Humanity, we are so to treat them that their Slavery may really be their Happiness; Yea, In our treating of them, there must be nothing but what the Law of CHRIST will Justify. Above all, we are to do all we can to Christianize them. I will again give you the Words of my Honoured BAXTER.

So use them as to preserve Christ’s Right and Interest in them. Those that keep their Negroes and Slaves from Hearing of God’s Word and from becoming Christians, because they shall then lose part of their Service,4 do openly profess Rebellion against God, and contempt of Christ the Redeemer of Souls, and a contempt of the Souls of Men, and indeed, they declare, that their Worldly profit is their Treasure and their God.

Fidelity to the cause of Righteousness obliges me to take Notice of One thing more.

If there be any English People who are concerned with our Christianized Indians, but then take advantage of their Ignorance or their Indigence or their unchristian Love of the Bottle to decoy them into their Debt, and then use Indirect and Oppressive ways to Exact an Unreasonable Satisfaction [monetary payment] from them, and Sell them for Servants, or Send them out of their own Country, This Trade will be a Reproach to our Christianity, and, I am sure, it will be Bitterness in the Latter End [i.e., Judgment Day]. Certainly, our Justices will concern themselves to Rebuke and Prevent such Doings, lest the Guilt become so Public as to provoke the Justice of Heaven to Revenge it by Indian Depredations.

The Third Thing for which I move is That there may not be so much as any Tendency to anything Oppressive or Injurious in the Dealings of the Market-Place. The Thing for which I bring a very pressing Exhortation is that, I Thes[salonians]. 5. 22: Abstain from all Appearance of Evil. If anything Approach to a thing that Appears an Evil, Sirs, Beware of it! There are Some Ill Things too frequently done among those who would count themselves greatly Wrong’d if they be not thought Good People. But they are things which anon, I am sure, prove a notorious Wrong to many others that really are Good People.

I will be free [direct] with you. There are Crooked Things that cannot be Numbered; I wish they could be Straightened.

I conceive There are some of them in certain Extortions used by some of them who let out Money upon Interest, I mean when they make People pay Interest for a Sum that really never was in their Hands; As it is, when the Usurer6 immediately takes into his own the whole first year’s Interest at the Instant of his Letting out [loaning] the Money.

I will go on to say, ’Tis a Thing of an Evil Tendency for People to Live beyond themselves, or to take it for granted that they must brave it out with such a Table, or with such an Habit [clothing], tho’ they have not wherewithal to bear the Expenses of it. They won’t take in a Reef of their Sails, tho’ they are on the point of Suffering Ship-wreck, tho’ they must borrow, and defraud, and Whistle, and hurt other People, to Support their Vanity. How contrary, How contrary is this to that Poverty of Spirit which must be found in all that would have a claim to a part in the Golden City!

’Tis a thing of Evil Tendency for People to Run into Debt when they know they can’t Run out of it, as well and as fast as they Run into it; so they Spend what is none of their Own; They Forget that Precept: Owe nothing to any man, but to Love one another.

’Tis a thing of Evil Tendency for People to go from year to year without Settling their Accounts; to Jog on in a blind Confusion and not know how much they may be gone backward, or whether they have anything, they may call Their Own or no. If they would have done like Honest Men, their Insolvency should have been ingenuously Confessed some years ago!

And then, sometimes People that Break deal not so fairly, so truly, so justly with their Injured Creditors as they ought to do. Perhaps there are Indirect Ways taken to Cover from other Men what justly belongs unto them.

No man that understands the Gospel will Justify such things. The Street is not Pure Gold where such things are Practiced. On behalf of our Holy RELIGION, I do this day Testify against them! You that Fear GOD will do so too, and will come forth of them all.

I must make a Fourth Motion. ’Tis that They who have Command of the Street would look upon themselves as concerned Above others to keep all Dishonesty out of it.

It is the Action of a JUDGE, Job 29. 7. I prepared my Seat in the Street. And May your Seat always be upon Pure Gold: But then, your Hand, a Stranger to it!

We are to Pray for our Honourable RULERS. We should make that Prayer That they may be always Able Men such as Fear God, Men of Truth, and hating of Covetousness. — It was once the Unhappiness of Israel; Hos[ea]. 4. 18. Her Rulers with Shame do Love, Give ye. — . . .

PEOPLE of GOD, May these be your Cares. Then there will be fulfilled unto us that Word: Isa[iah]. 1.26. Thou shalt be called The City of Righteousness, The Faithful City. A CITY of such a Golden Street will be a Strong City. God will appoint Salvation for Walls and bulwarks unto it, while none but a Righteous Nation which keeps the Truth inhabits it. O NEW ENGLAND, Keep such a Street, and Sweep it where it wants to be better kept. Then there will be no breaking in or going out; there will be no Complaining in our Street. No, we shall be an Happy People, I say, an Happy People; for the LORD will be OUR GOD