N00583:42
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 Judgments alone, are not a sure sign that God hath a purpose of good for such a People as suffer by them. It is true, they do bear witness for God, that he is very loth to destroy them, if it might in any other way be prevented; they say that he is a God of great patience, and that he is waiting for the repentance of such a People, that so he may yet be favourable to them and establish them; else he could as easily have cut them off at a stroke and must have been justified in his doing so. But still, we can make no certain Judgment of the issue, till we see what influence and efficacy these Judgments have upon them; the conclusion is still suspended. If once they appear to work kindly, and begin to awaken them to enquire into the provocation, and seriously to set about the work of Reformation, there is then a good hope offered us, that all will end well at last. ⟨p. 26⟩But if still they do not reform; nay, if reiterated Judgments do not produce such an effect as this is on them, but they still persist in their evil ways, and are rather hardened in them by these Afflictions, there is abundant reason given us to be very doubtful what it will come to at the last.
USE. I. Learn hence, That Judgments alone, are not a sure sign that God hath a purpose of good for such a People as suffer by them. It is true, they do bear witness for God, that he is very loth to destroy them, if it might in any other way be prevented; they say that he is a God of great patience, and that he is waiting for the repentance of such a People, that so he may yet be favorable to them and establish them; else he could as easily have cut them off at a stroak and must have been justified in his doing so. But still, we can make no certain Judgment of the issue, till we see what influence and efficacy these Judgments have upon them; the conclusion is still suspended. If once they appear to work kindly, and begin to awaken them to enquire into the provocation, and seriously to set about the work of Reformation, there is then a good hope offered us, that all will end well at last. ⟨p. 26⟩But if still they do not reform; nay, if reiterated Judgments do not produce such an effect as this is on them, but they still persist in their evil wayes, and are rather hardned in them by these Afflictions, there is abundant reason given us to be very doubtfull what it will come to at the last.