N00318:104
A call from heaven, to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherein…
A call from heaven, to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherein is showed I. That the children of godly parents are under special advantages and encouragements to seek the Lord. : II. The exceeding danger of apostasy, especially as to those that are the children and posterity of such as have been eminent for God in their generation. : III. That young men ought to remember God their creator. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in N. England.A call from heaven, to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherein is shewed I. That the children of godly parents are under special advantages and encouragements to seek the Lord. : II. The exceeding danger of apostasie, especially as to those that are the children and posterity of such as have been eminent for God in their generation. : III. That young men ought to remember God their creator. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in N. England.
Boston: printed by R.P. i.e for I. Brunning i.e, 1685
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Answ. In two words, 1. This must be understood concerning deep departures from God, and from his blessed ways, Hos. 9.9. They have deeply corrupted themselves, therefore he will visit their sins. The Lord is the God of Patience, and of all grace, and thence is very slow in rejecting utterly a people (or their posterity) whom he hath once taken into Covenant with himself: Hence it is not lesser Departures, but high and great Offences against the Lord that provoke him to cast off his people, E. G. Idolatry is a sin that causeth the Rejection ⟨p. 67⟩which the text speaks of. Yea, it is true with reference unto that Idolatry which is against the Second Commandment: When the Children of Israel committed that Idolatry respecting the Calf in the Wilderness, they sinned against the Second Commandment, for they would worship the Lord still, only they would do it in such a way and by such means as God never appointed, and they were in great danger of being cast off for this sin. Hence the Lord said to Moses, Thy People have corrupted them selves, Exodus 32.7. The Lord doth not say my people as he was wont to do, but thy people, as if it were said; Now they have violated my Covenant, and deserve that I should for ever disown and reject them. The Asian Churches have been cast off for this sin especially; we may read the sin of those Churches written in dreadful Characters, upon the Forehead of that Judgment that hath destroyed them all: God has let loose the barbarous Turks upon them, who hate and destroy no men so much as those that worship Images. And as for the Church of Rome, the Apostle Paul did solemnly predict that they should be cast off Rom. 11.22. Now it is for this sin principally that the Lord hath cast them off. Again Heresy causeth this Casting off which the Text speaketh of, Societies consisting of such as disown the Fundamental Truths of the Gospel, the Lord Jesus disowns ⟨p. 68⟩them. Hence the Jews are disowned and rejected by the Lord, for although they own some fundamental truths in Religion, indeed all [e]