N00213:64
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.
And let all godly parents earnestly seek unto the Lord for their poor children: You ought to do so daily and particularly, and by name before the Lord and thus should you do every day: as we read concerning Job, that he offered burnt offerings for his Children, according to the number of them all, thus did Job continually. Job. 1. 5. Remember that you are under peculiar encouragement so to do: if the Children of godly parents have special encouragement to seek the Lord, then the same thing must needs be true concerning such parents themselves, with respect to their Children. And it is eminently true with respect to the children of New-England ⟨p. 24⟩inasmuch as they are the posterity of such as have been sufferers on the account of the name and truth of the Lord Jesus. Are not such parents pronounced blessed twice over? Mat. 5. 11, 12. even blessed in themselves, and in their posterity? Who knoweth but God may remember the kindness of the fathers in these Churches (who followed him into this wilderness whilst it was a land not sown) unto their children after them? Plead it with the Lord; if you that be godly parents lay up a stock of prayers for your children, it may stand them in more stead then if you should leave them never such an inheritance, as to the things of the world, when you are dead your prayers shall live. There is many a child whose father and mother is now in heaven, that fareth the better, and will do so for ever, on the account of prayers made for him by his blessed parents while they were in this world. And this further let me say for your encouragement, that if the Lord stir up your hearts to be importunate with him, for your children, it is a sign that God intends mercy to them. That instance of Monica, Austins gracious mother is known and famous▪ when she made her complaint and wept to a faithful Minister because her son did for the present follow ungodly courses and Companions; [b]Be of good comfort (said that holy man) for it cannot be that a Child of so many prayers and tears should perish.
And let all godly parents earnestly seek unto the Lord for their poor children: You onght to doe so daily and particularly, and by name before the Lord and thus should you doe every day: as we read concerning Job, that he offered burnt offerings for his Children, according to the number of them all, thus did Job continually.