N00318:99
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 doth Imply a discovenanting and unchurching. If the Children of godly Fathers shall forsake the Lord, he will cast them off, h. e. It will at last come to this, that the Lord will disown them, and excommunicate them, and say they are none of his; for although there is no falling from a state of Saving grace, yet ⟨p. 63⟩they that have only a visible Interest in God, may fall from that Estate, what they have shall be taken from them. They that are internally and sincerely in Covenant with God, shall never lose their interest in the Covenant, for they are betrothed unto the Lord for ever, Hos. 2.19. But they that are externally in Covenant may cease to be the Lords visible people; Thus it came to pass Concerning the Ten Tribes. Hence the Lord speaketh as Jer. 3.8. Back-sliding Israel committed adultery, and I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce. so that the marriage Covenant which was between the Lord and them them was dissolved, this is confirmed by the Prophet Hosea, Cap. 2.2. where the Lord saith plead with your mother, plead for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband, so in Chapt. 1. ver. 9. Call his name Lo-Ammi for ye are not my people and I will not be your God, therefore also the Lord by the Prophet Ezekiel calls the ten Tribes by the name of Aholah. The two Tribes, the Jews, were then called by the name of Aholibah, which signifieth my Tent, because as yet God had not rejected them. But the ten Tribes are called Ahola which signifieth a Tent, as if the Lord had said, they are none of mine, now I have done with them and utterly rejected them, Ezek. 23.4. Afterwards the Jews also were discovenanted and unchurched. The Prophet Zechariah had fore told, that upon ⟨p. 64⟩their unbelief▪ in rejecting Jesus Christ the only true Mess•as, it should be so, I took my staff Beauty and cut it asunder, that I might break my Covenant which I had made with all the people,