N00318:106
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.
2. It is an Impenitent, Incorrigible Forsaking God, that doth cause him to cast off a people or person. Solomon was guilty (notwithstanding the solemn, dying charge of his Father to the Contrary) of dreadful forsakings and Apostasies from the Lord but he repents of them, as we see by the Book of the Ecclesiastes, & therefore the Lord did not wholly cast him off for ever. Notwithstanding great degeneracy in a people the Lord is not wont to Cast them off until he hath used all means for their Recovery; so it was with the Children of Israel of old 2. Chron 36.15. The Scripture hath recorded the names of above Twenty Prophets which the Lord sent to his people of Old to tell them of their back-slidings, and call upon them to repent and reform, before he would cast them off. And though in these days of the new Testament, because men sin against greater light and grace than in former times, the Lord Jesus maketh Quicker work with an apostatizing people, than in the days of Old, and in the years of ancient Generations; & therefore he said to the Church in Ephesus, except thou consider whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, I will come against thee quickly and remove the Candlestick out of his place: Nevertheless he useth means to reduce and recover a backsliding people before he casts them off, so he did with the Asian Churches, and so hath he done with the Anti-Antichristian ⟨p. 70⟩Generation, and therefore raised up great Instruments, who have preached the everlasting Gospel with a loud voice and, called for reformation; and might therefore say [f]as Jer. 31.9. We would have healed Babylon and she is not healed, therefore her Judgment reacheth unto Heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. The Lord doth give a first and second Admonition before he doth reject: He trieth what his word will do, what lesser and greater Judgements will do, yea and what mercies and deliverances will do, and if nothing will prevail then he casts off for ever. If a generation be Apostate, and incorrigibly Apostate, it will not be long before the Lord doth cast them off for ever, Jer. 15.6.7