N00255:51
A sermon wherein is showed that the church of God is sometimes a subject…A sermon wherein is shewed that the church of God is sometimes a subject…
A sermon wherein is showed that the church of God is sometimes a subject of great persecution; preached on a public fast at Boston in New-England: occasioned by the tidings of a great persecution raised against the Protestants in France. / By Increase Mather, teacher to a church of Christ. ; [Eight lines of quotations]A sermon wherein is shewed that the church of God is sometimes a subject of great persecution; preached on a publick fast at Boston in New-England: occasioned by the tidings of a great persecution raised against the Protestants in France. / By Increase Mather, teacher to a church of Christ. ; [Eight lines of quotations]
printed for 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.
2. Sinful Divisions and contentions; If Gods people fit loose from him, or if they fit loose one from another, the Lord lets loose persecuting enemies upon them. When a shepherd sees his sheep scattered one from another, he sets his Dogs to drive them together. Persecutors are called Dogs in the scripture, Ps. 22. 16. When the Lords people are scattering, and dividing, the Shepherd of Israel lets loose those Dogs upon them. That was the case of the Primitive Christians: especially with reference to Aurelian's Persecution They were exposed unto the Scorn of the Heathen, and that on public Theatres, for their Contentions; and then persecution followed. If Christians will not have peace with their ⟨p. 11⟩Brethren; then they shall have war with their Enemies.
2. Sinful Divisions and contentions; If Gods people fit loose from him, or if they fit loose one from another, the Lord lets loose persecuting enemies upon them. When a shepherd sees his sheep scattered one from another, he sets his Dogs to drive them together. Persecutors are called Dogs in the scripture, Ps. 22. 16. When the Lords people are scattering, and dividing, the Shepherd of Israel lets loose those Dogs upon them. That was the case of the Primitive Christians: especially with reference to Aurelian's Persecution They were exposed unto the Scorn of the Heathen, and that on public Theaters, for their Contentions; and then persecution followed. If Christians will not have peace with their ⟨p. 11⟩Brethren; then they shall have war with their Enemies.
3. Formality in Religion. When professors are generally grown cold, and lifeless in Religion; God casts them into a fiery furnace of Persecution: that life, and heat might be brought into them again. Thus does the Lord Jesus say to the Church at Sardis,