Tears Against the Plague: A 17th century Woman's Devotional
by John Featly

A rare devotional text written explicitly for women. First printed in 1646 at the request of a female friend, Featly's book speaks in the voice of a woman facing quarantine and bubonic plague, a woman trying to make religious sense of the inevitable holocaust. When the "Great Plague" struck London in 1665, an unknown English reader reissued the book for his (or her?) generation. Fascinating (but far from cheerful!) penitential text on redemptive tears, vivid details of the plague; challenging imagery of women's role in grief.

This is an unabridged reprint of a work originally published as Tears in time of Pestilence: or, A Spiritual Antidote against the Plague by John Featly London: Printed by W. Godbid, London 1665

Tears in time of Pestilence :

or

A SPIRITUAL
ANTIDOTE

AGAINST THE

PLAGUE.

Written (formerly)

By the Reverend Mr. JOHN FEATLY
Chaplain to His late Majesty

And now Printed for more general
and seasonable use,

Jerem 9.1 O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

London, Printed by W. Godbid, over against the Anchor Inn in Little Britain. 1665.

Contents

New Introduction

1665 Preface

ORIGINAL TEXT (contents listed below)

Mourning by example in a public calamity

Several causes of God's visitation

Sin, especially the cause of the pestilence

Diverse examples of dreadful pestilence

God's threatening before his visitation

The duty of a Christian, decreeing both to whom and for whom we ought to pray in the time of pestilence:
The soliloquy
The prayer

Tears of her whose house is shut up for the Pestilence:
The soliloquy
The prayer

Tears of her who is visited with the Pestilence being
1. Wounded with a sore
2 . Marked with the Tokens
3. The Prayer