N00252:16
Heaven's alarm to the world. Or A sermon, wherein is showed, that fearful sights…Heaven's alarm to the world. Or A sermon, wherein is shewed, that fearful sights…
Heaven's alarm to the world. Or A sermon, wherein is showed, that fearful sights and signs in heaven, are the presages of great calamities at hand. Preached at the lecture of Boston in New-England; January, 20. 1680. / By Increase Mather.Heaven's alarm to the world. Or A sermon, wherein is shewed, that fearful sights and signs in heaven, are the presages of great calamities at hand. Preached at the lecture of Boston in New-England; January, 20. 1680. / By Increase Mather.
printed for Samuel Sewall. And are to be sold by Joseph Browning, 1682
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.
HEAVEN'S ALARM TO THE WORLD.
Luk. 21.11. — Fearful Sights, and great Signs shall there be from Heaven.
THE Lord Jesus Christ, having told his Disciples that great Calamities were hastening upon Jerusalem, and upon the Jewish Nation; they enquire when those things should come to pass, and what Signs should precede and presage the ⟨p. 2⟩Judgements predicted. This we see in the 7th. Verse of this Chapter, They asked Him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be: and what Sign will there be when these things shall come to pass? In Answer unto which Enquiry, the Lord Christ doth in this Context mention several things, some of which were to be more remote, and others more immediate Signs of that miserable Destruction, which the sacred and unerring lips of Christ had foretold. 1. False Christs would arise, V. 8. Many shall come in my Name, saying, I am Christ, &c. The Jews had rejected the true Messiah, therefore God would punish them with false Christs, as an intimation that the days of vengeance were coming upon the Nation for that Sin of theirs. The Apostle John (Christ's beloved Disciple) doth imitate his Master in mentioning the same thing as a Sign that the Jewish World was near unto its end, 1 Joh. 2.18. There are many Antichrists b h. e. false Christs, such as came 1in Christ's ⟨p. 3⟩Name, i. e. that pretended unto his Office, Dignity, and Authority; and thereby, (saith the Apostle,) we know that it is the last time; sc. the Jewish State, both Civil and Ecclesiastical, was come unto the last hour: The Period of the Jewish World was at hand. And the Histories of those times speak of one Theudas, and others, that pretended to be Christs, and that the River Jordan should give way to them as once it did to Joshua; so that a multitude of silly Jews were seduced, & persuaded to follow them, unto their own destruction. 2. Another Sign mentioned, is that of Wars, and Commotions, V. 9. When you shall hear of Wars and Commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by & by. This may be understood of those Intestine Wars and Commotions, which happened in the Land of Judea. The Galileans took up Arms against the Samaritans. At