N00213:101
A call from heaven to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherein…A call from heaven to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherin…
A call from heaven to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherein is showed, I. That the children of godly parents are under special advantages and encouragements to seek the Lord. : II. The exceeding danger of apostasy, especially as to those that are the children and posterity of such as have been eminent for God in their generation. : III. That young men ought to remember God their creator. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Nine lines of quotations]A call from heaven to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherin is shewed, I. That the children of godly parents are under special advantages and encouragements to seek the Lord. : II. The exceeding danger of apostasie, especially as to those that are the children and posterity of such as have been eminent for God in their generation. : III. That young men ought to remember God their creator. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Nine lines of quotations]
Boston: printed by John Foster, 1679
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.
3. There is a forsaking God, in respect of his holy Institutions. Hence a people that are without Ordinances, are said to be without God, 2 Chron. 15. 3. it is there mentioned, that Israel had for a long season been without the true God, because they had been without the Ministry, and without Ordinances. If these be not duly observed the Lord is forsaken, Isai. 65. 11. But ye are they that forsake the Lord, and forget my holy Mountain, so that to forget the holy Mountain, h. e. the neglect of divine worship and Ordinances, is a forsaking of the Lord. Look as when the Lord doth deprive a people of his Ordinances, he is said to forsake them, Jer. 23. 33. I will even forsake you saith the Lord; the meaning is (saith Calvin) you shall no more have Ministry and Ordinances, amongst you, so when they are willing to be deprived thereof, they may be said to forsake him, Judg. 10. 6. they forsook the Lord, and served him not. Not to regard the service of God is to forsake him. For in Ordinances we have to do with God, Hebr. 4. 13. in hearing the word, in Prayer, in Sabbaths, in Sacraments, we have to do with God. Or if the holy Ordinances be corrupted, then the Lord is forsaken. And so it is when men will be adding their inventions to Gods institutions, Psal. 106. 39. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went ⟨p. 42⟩a whoring with their own inventions. When men follow their own inventions they go a whoring from the Lord, of this nature were the high Places of old 2 Chron. 33. 17. The People did sacrifice in the high places, yet to the Lord their God only. Those high Places were lawful to worship God in, 1until the Temple was built, but after that it was a breach of the second Commandment to place any Religion in them, and therefore in some degree a departure from the Lord. If Fathers have prized Ordinances above the world, and endeavoured to uphold them in their power and purity, but their Children after them shall not regard whether they enjoy the Ordinances of Christ or no, or if they do, shall not be careful and studious to keep them pure, according to Scripture Rule, they fall under this dreadful charge of Apostasy from God.