N00583:26
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.
5. These Judgments are to be annumerated to the long-suffering which God useth towards a sinning People. This therefore is Attributed to him, and is to be read in these dispensations. As he waits before he smites them, so he waits in smiting of them, and what is this for, but to see for their amendment if it may thus be obtained? Hence that, Hos 5. 15. I will go &c. in their Affliction they will seek me early. And indeed there is a great deal of Mercy in it; God corrects when he might cut off; he afflicts instead of destroying, which they deserved, and might have suffered, if he had strained the advantage offered him. This is the Churches acknowledgement, Lam. 3. 22, It is of the Lords mercy that we are not consumed. And so the good man, Neh. 9. 31. For thy great mercies sake, thou didst not utterly consume them.
5. These Judgments are to be annumerated to the long-suffering which God useth towards a sinning People. This therefore is Attributed to him, and is to be read in these dispensations. As he waits before he smites them, so he waits in smiting of them, and what is this for, but to see for their amendment if it may thus be obtained? Hence that, Hos 5. 15. I will go &c. in their Affliction they will seek me early. And indeed there is a great deal of Mercy in it; God corrects when he might cut off; he afflicts instead of destroying, which they deserved, and might have suffered, if he had strained the advantage offered him. This is the Churches acknowledgment, Lam. 3. 22, It is of the Lords mercy that we are not consumed. And so the good man, Neh. 9. 31. For thy great mercies sake, thou didst not utterly consume them.
6. God is wont, with these Judgments, to send them invitations to Repentance, and offers of his favours if they Repent. This is a privilege that a People in Covenant with God do enjoy, that not only doth he warn and advise them before he smites, that so, if it might be, blows might be prevented; but whiles he is smiting too: he calls upon them now to Consider their ways,