N00318:90
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. When men Deify any other Object besides the Lord. They that set up other things in God's stead, in their so doing forsake the Lord; so it is when men give religious worship to any other besides him, who alone ought to be feared. Thus the children of Israel because they did worship Baal and Ashtoroth, h. e. the [b]Sun and Moon (for those were the first Creatures that the Gentiles Idolized, & the Syrians called the Sun Baal & the Moon Ashtereth) ⟨p. 56⟩they are therefore charged with Forsa••• God, Judg. 2.12.13. Idolatry is the gr••••est Apostasy in the world: Such are by […] of eminency styled forsakers of God, Deut. […] 15. He forsook God, meaning that they did […] ••postatize to Idolatry, therefore in ver. 16. it […] added that they provoked him to Jealousy wit• their strange gods, that is to say with new gods or Idols, (for new things are strange) ver. 17. they sacrificed to new gods, which came newly up, whom their Fathers feared not. And this is true not only with respect unto that more gross Idolatry when men shall avow the service of Idols, but also Conc•••ing secret, spiritual, Heart-Idolatry, even worldliness, Mat. 6.24. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. The servants of Mammon h. e. of the world, are forsakers of God, when men pour out •he strength of their affections upon worldly objects, Or place their chief Delight and Confidence in these things, it argues an heart departure from the Lord J•r. 17.5. If Fathers have sought Christ and the things of Christ in the first •lace, and their Children shall come after ••em, and espouse a worldly Interest, it is a […] God-forsaking.