N00583:24
Reformation the great duty of an afflicted people. Setting forth the sin and danger…
Reformation the great duty of an afflicted people. Setting forth the sin and danger there is in neglecting of it, under the continued and repeated judgments of God. : Being the substance of what was preached on a solemn day of humiliation kept by the Third Gathered Church in Boston, on August. 23d. 1694. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of the said church. ; [Four lines from Zechariah]
printed by Bartholomew Green, 1694
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.
3. That hence these Judgments are Gods Testimony ⟨p. 13⟩that he bears against that sin They are the discoveries which he makes of the displeasure that he takes at it; they are the Tokens of his anger by which he gives them to understand how ill he resents it that they have broken his Laws, and gone back from his Command: these therefore are, in Scripture language, called his Anger, his Wrath, his Displeasure; because they are the discoveries of it. When he brings them upon men, they feel that which bespeaks him to be offended at them; they are such things as are wont in men to proceed from such a passion; and are ascribed to him after the manner of men, in whom are no passions properly so called.
3. That hence these Judgments are Gods Testimony ⟨p. 13⟩that he beares against that sin They are the discoveries which he makes of the displeasure that he takes at it; they are the Tokens of his anger by which he gives them to understand how ill he resents it that they have broken his Laws, and gone back from his Command: these therefore are, in Scripture language, called his Anger, his Wrath, his Displeasure; because they are the discoveries of it. When he brings them upon men, they feel that which bespeaks him to be offended at them; they are such things as are wont in men to proceed from such a passion; and are ascribed to him after the manner of men, in whom are no passions properly so called.
4. They are of the Discipline which God, by Covenant, engageth to Exercise towards his People. It is therefore one Article mentioned in the Covenant on this Hypothesis, Psal. 89. 30. &c. If his Children forsake my Law, &c. then will I visit their transgressions with the Rod, and their iniquity with stripes. And the Apostle expresseth it as so,