N00213:117
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.
Reas. 2. Because such Children are guilty of lamentable Covenant breaking before the Lord, for the Covenant is with Children as well as Parents, Deut. 29. 10, 11, 12. You and your little ones do enter […] Covenant, upon this account David saith that the Lord was his God from his Infancy, yea, from his first coming into the world, Psal. 22. 10, And the like is noted concerning Solomon, and therefore his Father said to him, my Son build the house of the Lord thy God, 1 Chron. 22. 11. The Lord is not only my God, but in respect of his gracious Covenant he is thy God also. And this seems to be the reason why Abraham is styled the Father of the faithful. [g]Not merely on the Covenant of the eminency of his faith, for we read of others in the Scripture, whose faith was not inferior to Abraham's, but in that he was ⟨p. 53⟩the first unto whom God expressly declared, I will be a God to thee and to thy Seed, and withal appointed a sacred sign and Seal of this Covenant. Now Abraham's Covenant is as to the substance of it Everlasting. And therefore the Children of the faithful in all Ages, are wrapped under the bond of the Covenant, otherwise there would be a substantial change of the Covenant from what it was at first, then which nothing can be more contradictory to the whole tenor and current of the Scripture. The Apostle therefore testifieth that the blessing of Abraham is come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, Gal. 3. 14. As God said unto Abraham, I take thee and thy Children into Covenant with my self, so doth he through Jesus Christ say the like to every believing Parent among the Gentiles; And therefore the Lord Jesus did affirm concerning Children, of such is the Kingdom of Heaven, Math. 19. 14. [b]It is not only true (saith Christ) that Children did belong to God under the old-Testament, but now that, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, now that the Church is to he under the heavenly dispensation of the Gospel, Children must be acknowledged there also. And it is for-ever to be observed, that when the New-Testament dispensation was ready to be established, the ancient grant concerning Children's Interest in the Covenant is expressly confirmed,