But people are sensitive
now, as they were then. You will see by this extract that the Rev.
Cotton Mather did not like intermeddling with his business very well.
"Let the Levites of the Lord keep close to their Instructions," he says,
"and God will smite thro' the loins of those that rise up against them.
I will report unto you a Thing which many Hundreds among us know to be
true. The Godly Minister of a certain Town in Connecticut, when he had
occasion to be absent on a Lord's Day from his Flock, employ'd an honest
Neighbour of some small Talents for a Mechanick, to read a Sermon out of
some good Book unto 'em. This Honest, whom they ever counted also a
Pious Man, had so much conceit of his Talents, that instead of Reading a
Sermon appointed, he to the Surprize of the People, fell to preaching one
of his own. For his Text he took these Words, 'Despise not
Prophecyings'; and in his Preachment he betook himself to bewail the Envy
of the Clergy in the Land, in that they did not wish all the Lord's
People to be Prophets, and call forth Private Brethren publickly to
prophesie.
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