N00254:304
Practical truths tending to promote the power of godliness
Practical truths tending to promote the power of godliness: wherein several important duties, are urged, and the evil of divers common sins, is evinced; delivered in sundry sermons. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Ten lines of Scripture texts]
printed by Samuel Green upon assignment of Samuel Sewall, 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.
The Lord Jesus (who holds the stars in his right hand) doth sometimes suddenly remove the lights which be hath set up in his Candlesticks so as that there shall be no steward of God to dispense the Mysteries of the Kingdom, because men by coming to his Ordinances with a careless and common frame of Spirit have provoked him so to deal with them. Yea, this sin hath been the procuring cause of many of those overturning judgements which have befallen the Churches of God in the World. It was a weighty and a solemn word, which the Godly, Learned Paraus spake to a Generation of loose Protestants in Heidelberg, I wonder not (saith he) at the War in Germany, when I consider the Sacrament ⟨p. 152⟩profanations which you are guilty of.
The Lord Jesus (who holds the stars in his right hand) doth sometimes suddenly remove the lights which be hath set up in his Candlesticks so as that there shall be no steward of God to dispense the Mysteries of the Kingdome, because men by coming to his Ordinances with a careless and common frame of Spirit have provoked him so to deal with them. Yea, this sin hath been the procuring cause of many of those overturning judgements which have befallen the Churches of God in the World. It was a weigthy and a solemn word, which the Godly, Learned Paraus spake to a Generation of loose Protestants in Heidelberg, I wonder not (saith he) at the War in Germany, when I consider the Sacrament ⟨p. 152⟩profanations which you are guilty of.
Consider 3. That true Believers may be guilty in this matter.
They may eat and drink unworthily at the Lords Table. For there is not only an unworthiness in respect of state, which hypocrites and unregenerate persons are subject unto; but an unworthiness in respect of actual indisposition, and present unpreparedness, for such an holy and near approach before the Lord. A sincere Servant of God, that maketh Conscience to prepare his heart to seek the Lord; sometimes is not cleansed, according to the purification which is required of those that enter into the Sanctuary,