N00255:65
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.
Consider 2. What solemn Warnings the Lord hath given unto us, to prepare for Times of Persecution.
God has given us Warning, by letting us know what bloody designs are on foot among the Antichristian Party against the whole Protestant Interest: A Design, the like whereunto has not been, since the Days of Haman. God has given us dreadful warning by Signs in Heaven: especially by that fearful Sight, & great Sign which we, & all the World saw ⟨p. 18⟩the last year blazing among the stars of God. Such things have sometimes presaged great persecutions on the Church. There was a Comet went before Nero's persecution:. The Arian persecution likewise was preceded, & presaged by Blazing Stars. God hath given us yet more solemn warning by what is already come upon the professors of the Truth in other parts of the world. There is a great persecution raised against the Churches of God, in diverse parts of Europe: especially, in the Kingdom of France: which hath occasioned our being thus before the Lord this day; and which, I cannot but look upon as one awful Consequent of that Portentous Blaze which was seen in the Heavens this time Twelvemonth. Many thousands of French Protestants lose their Estates: Many thousands of them fly into other Lands; being forced to leave their own. And there is an Edict come forth concerning them, more bloody than what came from the Court of Pharaoh: Pharaoh's Edict was to destroy only the Bodies of Israelitish Infants: But now there's an Edict that reacheth further: An Edict for the destruction of the Souls of the Children of Protestants. An Edict to make Idolaters of them. Behold! Our Neighbours House is on Fire! It behoves us to look about us! The Protestants in France, were once ( viz. in the Days of their King Henry IV.) as unlikely to be oppressed by their enemies, as we are. 1Yea, in the judgement of man, it was supposed no Power could wrest their Liberties from them. Many of their greatest Nobility were on their side. They had great Armies and brave Commanders to stand up for them. They had above two hundred walled Towns in their possession, for their safety, & security. But trusting too much to an Arm of flesh they soon lost all, and lay at the mercy of their Enemies. We have no reason then, merely because we are Protestants, and have the Truth with us, to think that we shall not feel the Cross, as well as our Brethren in the world have done. We have escaped it a great while. Our Land hath had rest above