N00213:107
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.
I conceive the Psalmist in those words hath [c]respect to the sad change of Providence which befell the Lords People in Rehoboams time, for the Psalm was written by Ethan, who was contemporary with Solomon, and probably lived to see the woeful changes which happened five years after Solomons death, when the Land was invaded and sorely wasted by Heathen Enemies, and some (though not all) of the wrath of God poured out upon his people, and upon the Apostatized Children of David, strong holds were brought to ruin, and they did not stand in the day of Battle as in former times they had done, now these temporal Judgements are called a casting off. 2. It doth imply a discovenanting and unchurching. If the Children of godly Fathers shall forsake the Lord he will cast them off, h. e. it will at last come to this that the Lord will disown them; and excommunicate them, and say they are none of his, for although there is no falling from a state of saving grace, yet they that have only a visible interest in God may fall from that Estate, what they have shall be taken from them. They that are internally and sincerely in Covenant with God shall never lose their interest in the Covenant, for they betrothed unto the Lord for ever, Hos. 2. 19. But they that are externally in Covenant, may cease to be the Lords visible people; Thus it came to pass concerning the ten Tribes. Hence the Lord speaketh, as Jer. 3. 8. Back •liding Israel committed Adultery, and I had put her away and given her a Bill of divorce, so that the ⟨p. 46⟩marriage Covenant, which was between the Lord & them was dissolved, this is confirmed by the Prophet Hosea, Chap. 2. 2. where the Lord saith plead with your mother, plead for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband, so in Chap. 1. ver. 9. Call his Name Lo-Ammi, for they are not my people, and I will not be your God, therefore also the Lord by the Prophet Ezekiel calls the ten Tribes by the name of Aboldh. The two Tribes the Jews, were then called by the name of Abolibah, which signifieth my Tent, because as yet God had not rejected them. But the ten Tribes are […] Abolah, which signifieth a Tent, as if the Lord had said they are none of mine, now I have done with them and utterly rejected them,