N00583:35
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.
This is supposed and presumed in our Text, and remember, it is the fourth step in the Process of Gods judicial dispensation towards them; and we are not to think such things are here supposed which may not be. We shall therefore find awful instances of this truth upon record in the word of God, giving us to understand that it hath been so in Thesi. What great pains did God afterwards take with this People for their Reformation, when they had forgotten the works that he had done in Egypt, and in the Wilderness, and were revolted from him? and yet what was the issue of all? although He sent all his servants the Prophets to them, rising up early and sending them, by whom he laid evident Convictions of their sins, before them, gave them awful warnings of his Judgments impending, ⟨p. 20⟩and urged upon them solemn and serious invitations to repent, with the fairest promises of his favour in case of their compliance therewithal: and though he laid many and severe strokes upon them, bringing of them low for their iniquities, wasting them every way; yet to what purpose was it? what effect did it work in them? We are told, that God would have purged them, but they were not purged; this is the complaint that is made against them in Ezek. 24. 13. They held fast their deceit, and would not let it go, Jer. 8.5.8. so it went on; nor is this at all to be wondered at, if we shall Consider;
This is supposed and presumed in our Text, and remember, it is the fourth step in the Process of Gods judicial dispensation towards them; and we are not to think such things are here supposed which may not be. We shall therefore find awfull instances of this truth upon record in the word of God, giving us to understand that it hath been so in Thesi. What great pains did God afterwards take with this People for their Reformation, when they had forgotten the works that he had done in Egypt, and in the Wilderness, and were revolted from him? and yet what was the issue of all? although He sent all his servants the Prophets to them, rising up early and sending them, by whom he laid evident Convictions of their sins, before them, gave them awfull warnings of his Judgments impending, ⟨p. 20⟩