N00583:56
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.
2. […] in this Apostasy, must needs be a maintaining of that Contrariety. They fell into this way by their departure from him, and they walk on in it by their impenitency; hereby they do, as it were, fortify themselves against him, strengthen themselves in their rebellion. Every new act of disobedience to his Commands, is a renewed actual opposing of themselves unto him; and by every such act they do as much as say, that they are resolved to withstand him. The life of man is compared to a walk, and every action that is done in it, is a step in that walk; and so long as they are out of the right way, and still going, they do but increase their revolt. Every sinner is a Rebel; he that persists in his sin, is an hardened rebel; and this must needs be a woeful contrariety to God. God is then only complied with when men do repent of their sins; for that is it which he requires of them; wilful impenitence then is a setting of themselves to oppose this will of his; and what can be more contrary than this?
2. 〈…〉 in this Apostasy, must needs be a maintaining of that Contrariety. They fell into this way by their departure from him, and they walk on in it by their impenitency; hereby they do, as it were, fortify themselves against him, strengthen themselves in their rebellion. Every new act of disobedience to his Commands, is a renewed actual opposing of themselves unto him; and by every such act they do as much as say, that they are resolved to withstand him. The life of man is compared to a walk, and every action that is done in it, is a step in that walk; and so long as they are out of the right way, and still going, they do but increase their revolt. Every sinner is a Rebel; he that persists in his sin, is an hardned rebel; and this must needs be a wofull contrariety to God. God is then only complied with when men do repent of their sins; for that is it which he requires of them; wilfull impenitence then is a setting of themselves to oppose this will of his; and what can be more contrary than this?
3. They do hereby set themselves against all the attempts that God is using with them for the reclaiming of them. God always, when a people of his Covenant begin to decline from his