N00318:215
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.
To the Reader.
Eminent Blessings do not use to be poured down upon the world, except the Church of God be first stirred up to pray for them. The Lord who is styled Shomeang Tephillah, the Hearer of Prayer, delights to give mercy in this way. And it was never known since the world began, that the Spirit of prayer was awakened in the Hearts of those that can cry Abba Father, but some grace and blessed effect did in due time follow: He said not to the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain. O that God would bow the heart of New-England, even of all his Saints in these Churches, as one man, to cry mightily to Heaven, that his Spirit may be poured on the now risen (a multitude of sinful men that are risen up in their fathers stead) and upon the after rising Generation. The Lords People have need of something to comfort them, in this day, when there are so many doleful Symptoms of approaching wrath and ruin. Now if God say unto his Praying ones amongst us, Seek ye my face for the rising Generation, and their hearts answer again, Lord thy face we will seek for them, that will be no small encouragement to Faith, that the blessed design of our Fathers (now with Christ, beholding His glory) who transported themselves into this vast, and then waste Wilderness, in special with respect to Posterity, that so they might leave a Seed that shall serve him, and be accounted to the Lord for a Generation, will not be wholly frustrate. ⟨image ?⟩When did any people ask the holy Spirit of the Father, for themselves and theirs, and yet received no answer? Shall we be the first that God ever denied?
EMinent Blessings do not use to be poured down upon the world, except the Church of God be first stirred up to pray for them. The Lord who is stiled Shomeang Tephillah, the Hearer of Prayer, delights to give mercy in this way. And it was never known since the world began, that the Spirit of prayer was awakned in the Hearts of those that can cry Abba Father, but some grace and blessed effect did in due time follow: He said not to the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain. O that God would bow the heart of New-England, even of all his Saints in these Churches, as one man, to cry mightily to Heaven, that his Spirit may be poured on the now risen (a multitude of sinful men that are risen up in their fathers stead) and upon the after rising Generation. The Lords People have need of something to comfort them, in this day, when there are so many doleful Symptoms of approaching wrath and ruin. Now if God say unto his Praying ones amongst us, Seek ye my face for the rising Generation, and their hearts answer again, Lord thy face we will seek for them, that will be no small encouragement to Faith, that the blessed design of our Fathers (now with Christ, beholding His glory) who transported themselves into this vast, and then waste Wilderness, in special with respect to Posterity, that so they might leave a Seed that shall serve him, and be accounted to the Lord for a Generation, will not be wholly frustrate.