Greater Reformation to Come
Our fathers did in their due time acknowledge there were many defects and imperfections in our way, and yet we believe they did as much as could be expected from learned and godly men in their circumstances, and we, their successors, are far short of them in many respects. . . . And yet in the multitude of our thoughts and fears the consolations of God refresh our souls, that all those that in simplicity and godly sincerity do serve the Lord and His people in their generation (tho they should miss it in some things), they shall deliver their own souls, they are accepted of the Lord, and their reward is with Him; and in the approaching days of a better reformation, the sincere, tho weak, endeavors of the servants of God who went before them, will be also accepted of the saints in those times of greater light and holiness that are to come.—Mather, in his “Magnalia,” volume 1.