N00213:112
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.
That Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah, that Messiah is God as well as man, the Doctrine of original sin, and of salvation by imputed righteousness, all which things are necessary to be believed in order to eternal life, this do they reject and disown; and therefore the Lord hath cast them off. when a People shall be so far degenerate as to loose the Essentials of Religion, they are the Lords no longer. Heretical Assemblies may be the Flocks of those that pretend to be Christs companions, but they are none of Christs Flocks, Can. 1. 7. So for scandalous miscarriages in life & conversation, these provoke the Lord to cast off a professing People. In a building, if once the materials be rotted & corrupted, the house will moulder away, the matter being an Essential Cause. And in Church ⟨p. 50⟩building we know that Saints […] the material cause; and therefore scandal in life do•• destroy the Essentials of a Church, and so brings along with it this casting off which the Text speaks of. 2. It is an Impenitent, incorrigible forsaking God, that doth cause him to cast off a people or person. Solomon was guilty (notwithstanding the solemn dying charge of his Father to the contrary) of dreadful forsakings and Apostasies from the Lord, but he repented of them, as we she by the book of Ecclesiastes, and therefore the Lord did not wholly cast him off for ever Notwithstanding great degeneracy in a People, the Lord is not wont to cast them off until he hath used all means for their Recovery, so it was with the Children of Israel of old, 2 Chron. 36. 15. The Scripture hath recorded the names of above twenty Prophets which the Lord sent to his People of old to tell them of their backslidings, and call upon them to repent and reform, before he would cast them off. And though in these days of the New Testament, because men sin against greater light and grace, then in former times, the Lord Jesus maketh quicker work, with an Apostatizing People, then in the days of old, and in the years of ancient Generations; and therefore he said to the Church in Ephesus, except thou consider whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, I will come against thee quickly, and remove the Candlestick out of his place;
That Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah, that Messiah is God as well as man, the Doctrine of original sin, and of salvation by imputed righteousness, all which things are necessary to be believed in order to eternal life, this do they reject and disown; and therefore the Lord hath cast them off. when a People shall be so far degenerate as to loose the Essentials of Religion, they are the Lords no longer. Heretical Assemblies may be the Flocks of those that pretend to be Christs companions, but they are none of Christs Flocks, Can. 1. 7. So for scandalous miscarriages in life & conversation, these provoke the Lord to cast off a professing People. In a building, if once the materials be rotted & corrupted, the house will moulder away, the matter being an Essential Cause. And in Church