N00583:29
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.
8. Hence the reason why God hath at any time proceeded to Extirpate a Professing People hath been their Impenitence. When neither word nor rod, neither warnings nor Judgments would prevail with them to return, but they have remained obstinate under all; see an account of ⟨p. 16⟩this, 2 Chron. 36. 15, 16. He waited till there was no remedy; no other course to be taken: all their other Provocations, though never so many and heinous, would never have brought it to this, if they had not added contumacy to their Apostasy; hence we have God using of that Expostulation with them, Isai 48. 18, 19.
USE. I. Learn hence, That if a Professing People perish at last, they must blame themselves. Well might God say to them as he did, Hos. 13. 9. Oh Israel! thou hast destroyed thy self. All the sore Judgments and Calamities, which God brings upon a sinning People, are not in themselves any Symptom of their ruin; are not a sure token that God hath forsaken them; though sometimes Zion, when sorely visited with them, is ready to say My God hath forgotten me; but they are on the other hand, and argument that God is loth to destroy them, and therefore he first tries whether by such Judgments this may not be prevented. What the Apostle saith, 1 Cor. 11. 32. When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be Condemned with the Oorld; is here applicable. God by Afflicting of a sinful People, shows that he would not destroy them, unless they themselves are resolved […] their own destruction. There is a Voice in the Rod, and he would have them to ⟨p. 17⟩hear it, and him who hath appointed it, Mic. 6. 9