N00231:46
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.
Consider. 6. We must of necessity Return unto the Lord our God. As ever we desire to escape destruction, this concerns us. What an awful Scripture is that, Jer. 15. 7. I will destroy my People, saith they Return not from their ways. It is not being visibly the Lords People; it is not the external enjoyment of spiritual Privileges that can secure or save us, except we Return: We have no other way left in heaven or on earth, but this. We have many enemies, not only in Hell, but on Earth, ready to swallow us up, if the Lord be not on our side. If God be not our Friend, we are the miserablest people under heaven: And we have little reason to expect, that the Lord will stand by us, if we will not Return unto him. Either we shall have no deliverance, or none in mercy, if we Return not. It's true, that God to show his Sovereignty, doth sometimes save an Apostate People, as he did Israel in the days of Jehoahaz, and of Jeroboam the second, 2 Kin. 13. 5, 6. & 14. 27. But such Deliverances leave men the more inexcusable, and usually end in the saddest destructions and desolations, except there be Repentance.
Consider. 6. We must of necessity Return unto the Lord our God. As ever we desire to escape destruction, this concerns us. What an awfull Scripture is that, Jer. 15. 7. I will destroy my People, saith they Return not from their wayes. It is not being visibly the Lords People; it is not the external enjoyment of spiritual Priviledges that can secure or save us, except we Return: We have no other way left in heaven or on earth, but this. We have many enemies, not only in Hell, but on Earth, ready to swallow us up, if the Lord be not on our side. If God be not our Friend, we are the miserablest people under heaven: And we have little reason to expect, that the Lord will stand by us, if we will not Return unto him. Either we shall have no deliverance, or none in mercy, if we Return not. It's true, that God to shew his Sovereignty, doth sometimes save an Apostate People, as he did Israel in the dayes of Jehoahaz, and of Jeroboam the second, 2 Kin. 13. 5, 6