N00318:93
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.
4. There is a forsaking of God in respect of Conversation. There are that by works deny God, Tit. 1.16. An holy Heavenly Conversation is expressed in the Scripture by that of walking with God, Gen. 5.24. and 6.9. Therefore an evil Conversation is a departure from God. It is called a forsaking the Law of the Lord, Jer. 9.13. By a corrupt Conversation men deviate from the Law, and are such Apostates as the Text speaks of: In this respect those wicked men whose foundation was destroyed with the flood, (as Elipha• speaketh) even the sinners of the old World were Apostates from God. We do not read ⟨p. 59⟩of (nor do I believe that there was) any Idolatry in the old World, but they were over run with Atheism, Pride, Sensuality, Uncleanness, Oppression, and the like scandalous Enormities. And the Apostasy of the Children of Israel did Consist partly in this, as we see in that woeful instance of the Benjamites, the greatest part of whom the Lord cast off for ever. Yea, and the Antichristian Apostasy predicted in the New Testament doth consist partly in this: We know that the Antichristian Generation (Papists I mean are generally not only (as all of them are) horribly superstitious and idolatrous, but of most debauched & profane consciences & conversations: In the Revelations were ad of their Murders, Sorceries, Fornications, Thefts, Chapt. 9.21. If then the Children of the Covenant shall not walk worthy of God, but in the ways of Pride, Sensuality, Unrighteousness; if when Fathers have been of an holy, exemplary Conversation, their Children shall be unholy and profane, they are forsakers of God, concerning whom he hath threatened to cast them off for ever, 1. Sam. 8.3.
4. There is a forsaking of God in respect of Conversation. There are that by works deny God, Tit. 1.16. An holy Heavenly Conversation is expressed in the Scripture by that of walking with God,