N00231:32
Returning unto God the great concernment of a covenant people. Or A sermon preached…
Returning unto God the great concernment of a covenant people. Or A sermon preached to the Second Church in Boston in New-England, March 17. 1679.80. when that church did solemnly and explicitly renew their covenant with God, and one with another. By Increase Mather teacher of that church. ; [Ten lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by John Foster, 1680
Returning unto God the great Concernment of a Covenant People.
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.
Isa. 1. 21. And they may lose that which is the Form of a Church, sc. Covenant with God and one another. Those two Staves, Beauty and Bands, may be broken, Zech. 11. 10, 14. Or, if Churches should not degenerate as to their Principles, they may be unchurched other ways, and by other means e. g. By Divisions: An House (so a Church, which is an House of God) divided cannot stand. Or, the Lord may remove Instruments whereby the affairs of his Kingdom in this or that place are managed. Sometimes the plucking up of one Pillar, maketh way for the whole house to Fall speedily and irrecoverably. Or a Storm of Persecution may arise, which shall blow the Lights out of the Candlesticks, yea and overset the Candlesticks too. The Church had like to have been carried away with that Flood of the Arian Heresy and Persecution, Rev. 12. 15. In Austins time, whilst he was yet living, all the Churches in Africa, (excepting three) (g)were laid waft by the barbarous Goths and Vandals, whom the Lord let loose upon them, Yea, and so it was with the old Church of Rome, (h)they were (about 400. years after Christ) cut off by the sword of the Goths and Vandals, and another people, viz. those whom we call Italians, substituted in their room. Like as the ten Tribes being fallen to Idolatry, were destroyed by the Assyrians, and Samaritans placed in their stead.
Isa. 1. 21. And they may lose that which is the Form of a Church, sc. Covenant with God and one another. Those two Staves, Beauty and Bands, may be broken, Zech. 11. 10, 14. Or, if Churches should not degenerate as to their Principles, they may be unchurched other wayes, and by other means e. g. By Divisions: An House (so a Church, which is an House of God) divided cannot stand. Or, the Lord may remove Instruments whereby the affairs of his Kingdome in this or that place are managed. Sometimes the plucking up of one Pillar, maketh way for the whole house to Fall speedily and irrecoverably. Or a Storm of Persecution may arise, which shall blow the Lights out of the Candlesticks, yea and overset the Candlesticks too. The Church had like to have been carried away with that Flood of the Arrian Heresy and Persecution,