N00318:28
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. 1. In that the vein of Election do run through the loins of godly Parents for the most part? Tho it be not wholly and only so, that Elect Parents have none but elect Children, or that elect children are always born of elect Parents [a]yet God hath seen meet to cast the line of election so, as that generally elect Children are cast upon elect Parents. John directs one of his Epistles, To the elect Lady and her Children, whom he also found walking in the Truth: Not only the Mother but the Children did belong to God. As usually so it is, that if the Mother be elect, at least wise some of the Children are so too. There are many Scriptures which do intimate this Truth, Psal. 105.8. He hath remembered his Covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. Intimating both that the longer a ge-Generation ⟨p. 8⟩does continue godly, the more gracious will the Lord be to the seed and posterity, & that there are some that in a continued succession for many generations the Lord hath chosen, Hence Psal. 103.17. The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's Children. Showing that God from Eternity hath designed mercy to some Parents and to their children, and their Children's Children, Isa.. 59. ult. My Spirit which is upon thee, and any words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed saith the Lord, from hence forth and for ever. To the same purpose is that, Ezek. 37.25. What more plain can be spoken, to show that God doth many times cast elect children upon elect Parents in a continued succession from generation to generation? See also Isa. 65.22, 23. Mine Elect and their off-spring with them are the blessed of the Lord. So that when Parents are Elect, usually their Children are so too. Hence it was said to Zacheus, Salvation is come to thy house,