N00213:120
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.
USE
We proceed now to a word of Application, and shall insist upon one only use of Exhortation, let us be exhorted in the Name and Fear of God this day, to endeavour that it may not be with us, as the Text and Doctrine expresseth, let us every one in our several places, and capacities endeavour that the present and succeeding Generations in New-England, may not forsake the Lord God of their Fathers, & so endanger their being cast off for-ever.
We proceed now to a word of Application, and shall insist upon one only use of Exhortation, let us be exhorted in the Name and Fear of God this day, to endeavour that it may not be with us, as the Text and Doctrine expresseth, let us every one in our several places, and capacityes endeavour that the present and succeeding Generations in New-England, may not forsake the Lord God of their Fathers, & so endanger their being cast off for-ever.
Wherefore Consider, 1. What Fathers and Predecessors have been, they were such as did seek the Lord. As for the body of the present Generation in New-England, it may be said to them, your Fathers were such as did serve the Lord, yea, it was love to God, and to Jesus Christ, which brought them into this Wilderness. As the Lord speaketh, Jer. 2. 2. I remember the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine Espousals, when thou wentest after me in the Wilderness, in a Land which was not sown. Our Fathers did not in their coming hither propound any great matters to themselves respecting this world; only that they should have liberty to serve God; & to walk with him in all the ways of his worship. As one of our worthies hath aptly expressed, God sifted three Nations, that so he might bring over choice grain into this wilderness Let us then remember what New-England hath been. It hath been a noble Plant