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Letter from Rotterdam to John Cotton (1633), as quoted by Cotton Mather

Name: Letter from Rotterdam to John Cotton (1633), as quoted by Cotton Mather
Author: Thomas Hooker

Thomas Hooker 1702

The surviving passage of Thomas Hooker's letter from exile in Rotterdam to John Cotton, describing the formal religion of the Dutch churches and his own sickness and banishment on the eve of sailing for New England.

The only surviving passage of Hooker's letter from Rotterdam to John Cotton (c. 1633), quoted from the original by Cotton Mather in Magnalia Christi Americana (London: Thomas Parkhurst, 1702), Book III, 'Piscator Evangelicus, or the Life of Mr. Thomas Hooker', p. 62. Archive.org magnaliachristia00math, transcribed from the page image; long s printed as s; Mather's introductory sentence given in brackets.

From the text

The opening of the work as printed, from p. 62, in the spelling of this edition.

p. 62[Cotton Mather, introducing the passage: "But having tarried in Holland long enough to see the State of Religion in the Churches there, he became satisfied, that it was neither Eligible for him to tarry in that Country, nor convenient for his Friends to be invited thither after him. I have at this time in my Hands, his Letter from Rotterdam to Mr. Cotton, wherein are these words;"]

The State of these Provinces to my weak Eye, seems wonderfully ticklish and miserable. For the better part, Heart Religion, they content themselves with very Forms, tho' much blemished; but the Power of Godliness, for ought I can see or hear, they know not; and if it were throughly pressed, I fear least it will be fiercely opposed. My Ague yet holds me; the ways of God's Providence, wherein he has walked towards me, in this long time of my Sickness, and wherein I have drawn forth many wearyish Hours, under his Almighty Hand (Blessed be his Name) together with Pursuits and Banishment, which have waited upon me, as one Wave follows another, have driven me to an Amazement: His Paths being too secret and past finding out by such an Ignorant, Worthless Worm as my self. I have looked over my Heart and Life, according to my measure; aimed and guessed as well as I could: And entreated his Majesty to make known his Mind, wherein I missed; and yet methinks I cannot spell out readily the purpose of his Proceedings; which I confess have been wonderful in Miseries, and more than wonderful in Mercies to me and mine.