N00341:105
The greatest sinners exhorted and encouraged to come to Christ, and that now without…
The greatest sinners exhorted and encouraged to come to Christ, and that now without delaying. Also, the exceeding danger of men's deferring their repentance. : Together with a discourse about the day of judgement. And on several other subjects. / By Increase Mather teacher of a church at Boston in N. England. ; [Six lines of Scripture texts]
printed by R.P. for Joseph Brunning i.e, 1686
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.
There shall be a Day of Judgement.
MATTH. X.15. It shall be more tolerable for the Land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgement, than for that City.
MATTH. X.15. It shall be more tolerable for the Land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the Day of Iudgement, than for that City.
IN this Chapter we have both the Commission, and the Instructions which the Apostles received from the Lord Jesus Christ, when they were first sent forth to preach the Gospel. The Lord instructed them unto whom they should first go and make a tender of the Gospel: Only to the Jews, and not to the Gentiles, until such time as it would be seen whether the Jews would accept thereof or no. In the preceding verse the Lord directs them how they should behave themselves totowards ⟨p. 65⟩such as would reject them and their Doctrine, viz. that they should shake off the dust of their feet against them; and we find that in after times the Apostles practised accordingly. Act. 13.51. Whereby they declared that they looked upon such Persons tho' Israelites, as profane and as abominable as any Heathen, and therefore such as they would no more hold Communion with; but that they would go away from them, and carry the Gospel to others who would give it a better Reception. The Jews looked upon the very earth or dust which was brought out of Heathen Lands to be impure, yea, as unclean as the Ashes of a dead Carcass which they might not touch. Hence by shaking the dust of their feet against them, they would signify that they were such Sinners as did defile the very ground they trod upon, and so as abominable as any Heathen.