N00583:30
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.
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. And he hath more than once said it, that if they will hear it shall be well with them for all: if then they will not hear, but stop their cars at this voice, and harden their hearts against the advice of it, and so they perish, where is the fault?
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 ruine; are not a sure token that God hath forsaken them; though sometimes Zton, 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 sinfull People, shews 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