N00213:126
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.
which maketh it very manifest that, that most corrupt Generation, were the grand-Children of those, that were first embodied as a peculiar People, when the Lord did plant the Heavens, and lay the Foundations of the Earth, that is to say, did build up the Children of Israel as a body politic under Ecclesiastical and civil government, the third Generation among that People proved degenerate and apostate. And when they were under a Theocracy or Government by Judges, whom the Lord immediately raised up and set over them, how soon did they turn aside from God; when any of their faithful Judges were taken from them, Judg. 2. 19. So in the days of the Kings. After Davids Reformation Apostasy began in the very next Generation, in the days of his Son Solomon, and in the days of his grand-Child Rehoboam all Israel forsook the Lord, until God by a sad war awakened them to some Reformation. In Jehoshaphats time Religion was upheld in some power; but in the very next Generation there was Apostasy, Hezekiah was a great Reformer, but his Son Manasseh built up again the high places, which his Father had destroyed, and seduced the People to do more evil then did the Nations, whom the Lord destroyed before the Children ⟨p. 59⟩of Israel. After this▪ Josiah wrought a great Reformation, and with him did the work of Reformation and Religion, dye amongst the Jews, upon Josiahs death a flood of Land destroying sins brake in upon that Generation, that within the space of two and twenty years after Josiah was gathered unto his Fathers, the Jewish State both Civil and Ecclesiastical was quite overthrown; After the Captivity, Ezra and Nehemiah, and the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah were great Reformers; But Apostasy quickly prevailed, witness the Prophet Malachi, who declareth that not only People but Rulers many of them in his days, were become very corrupt. Albeit they were not guilty of that more gross Idolatry, for which their Fathers were sent into Captivity, yet Covetousness, which is a spiritual Idolatry they were guilty of, whereby they provoked the Lord to send blasting Providences upon them, there being no greater punishment to a covetous man then to have the world taken from him. That Generation did not keep themselves unspotted of the World, upon which account, they are by the Prophet pronounced unclean, Hag. 2. 13, 14.