N00213:118
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.
Now that's an iniquity which doth provoke the Lord to cast off those that are deeply guilty of it, Isai. 24. 5, 6. They have broken the Everlasting Covenant, therefore they are cursed, burned, desolate. In old time it was the manner that when a Covenant was made, some Creature or other was killed, and cut in pieces, by which rite was ⟨p. 54⟩signified, that the Lord would kill and cut off him, that being in Covenant with God, did not make conscience, faithfully to keep and observe, that Covenant inviolable for-ever.
Reas. 3. From that infinite indignation, which is in the Lords heart against Apostates. They are fugitives from Christ, and deserting their Captain, the Lord himself will execute Martial Law upon them. No sinners are greater Objects of divine hatred and indignation. Hence the Apostle said unto the Hebrews, when some of them were ready to Apostatize from Christianity to Judaism, if any man draw back the Soul of God shall take no pleasure in him, Heb. 10. 38. meaning that such Creatures, are Vessels of dishonour, and the most loathsome Objects that can be thought of. Hence the Lord doth pursue them with infinite vengeance, he cuts them off, and casts them off for-ever. As that miserable Spira at the very moment, when he had renounced the Truth, thought he heard one say to him; Hence thou Apostate, and receive the Sentence of thy Eternal Damnation. The Lord is wont to leave marks of his wrath upon such sinners. He brands them, that all the world may be afraid of that iniquity, seldom hath it been known that any have notoriously turned away from the Lord, but visible wrath from Heaven hath fallen upon them. Jehoram had been religiously educated under his godly Father Jehoshaphat, but he proved the Apostate child of a gracious Father; And what came on him? God let loose the Heathen Arabians, who wasted his Estate, and murdered all his Children save one. Thus did the Lord cast him off. Joash was religiously educated under his uncle Jehojadah, but he forsook the Lord, therefore the Assyrians with a small Army destroyed a great Host of his; And afterwards his own treacherous