N00196:39
Pray for the rising generation, or A sermon wherein godly parents are encouraged, to…
Pray for the rising generation, or A sermon wherein godly parents are encouraged, to pray and believe for their children, preached the third day of the fifth month, 1678. which day was set apart by the Second Church in Boston in New-England, humbly to seek unto God by fasting and prayer, for a spirit of converting grace, to be poured out upon the children and rising generation in New-England. / By Increase Mather, teacher of that church. ; [Seven lines of quotations]
printed by Samuel Green, 1678
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
I would direct this Exhortation, 1. To Parents. 2. To Children.
1. To Parents. Consider,
1. How needful a thing it is to be much in Prayer on this account▪ Converting grace is of absolute necessity in order to Salvation▪ and that as to the Children of godly▪ Parents as well as others: For they are born in sin, as David confesseth, Psal. 51.5 I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me; Yet his M•ther was a precious, godly Woman; and for ought that doth appear to the contrary, his Father was a good man too: wherefore such Children dying in a natural, unconverted state, are liable unto Wrath, and Death, and Curse, and Hell, Eph. 2.3. We also, even we that are Jews, and not the Gentiles only; we that are the Elect of God: yea, we that are chosen to be Apostles and Ministers of Christ, were by nature the Children of W•ath even as others. So that except the Lord send so•th his Spirit, and Renew the Souls, change the Natures of our poor Children, they are never like to see Heaven. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God, Joh 3 •. You that are Parents, are you willing that the Children of your own bowels should be miserable throughout the days of Eternity? That they should lie burning in a fiery Ocean as long as God shall be God? Yet so it must be, except the Lord in mercy look upon them, so as to pour down of his Spirit from on High upon them. Moreover Prayer is needful upon this account, in that Conversions are become rare in this age of the World.