N00583:50
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, How inexcusable we shall be, if under all Gods Judgments we Reform not. Men are ready to think they have a great deal to plead for themselves by way of excuse: alas! if God do not give them Grace to repent and reform, how should they ever do it? They have no power of themselves, and if they should attempt it, what would it turn to? If therefore they lie in their sins, and pine away in their iniquities, how can they help it? This seems to be the meaning of their ⟨p. 33⟩Language in, Ezek. 33. 10. But this will not stand men in any stead. If indeed men had a heart to it, and eager desire after it; if they were really for it, and used cordial endeavours after it; if they did truly bewail this impotency of theirs, and cry out importunately and heartily to God for his help against it, as those that were weary of their sins, and would fain be rid of them, and God should refuse them his Grace, and with hold this necessary help from them, something then were to be pleaded: But when was it ever so? When did God withhold his Grace from such as did indeed desire it, and ask for it? He hath promised, and always practised the contrary. No, no, the will is in it, we are set against it, we have chosen our own ways, they best please us, we cannot part with them; God calls us once and again, and he smites us at one time and another, and we stop our cars at him, turn our backs upon him, shut our eyes, and harden our hearts. And what can such a people say for themselves, against whom it will be proved that they were wilfully set in their own way, in despite of all courses used to reclaim them. Whoever excused such as wilfully transgressed▪ this is that which all mans reason accounts a Consideration that takes away all excuse.
USE. I. Learn hence, How inexcusable we shall be, if under all Gods Judgments we Reform not. Men are ready to think they have a great deal to plead for themselves by way of excuse: alas! if God do not give them Grace to repent and reform, how should they ever do it? They have no power of themselves, and if they should attempt it, what would it turn to? If therefore they ly in their sins, and pine away in their iniquities, how can they help it? This seems to be the meaning of their ⟨p. 33⟩