N00583:57
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.
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 ⟨p. 38⟩Precepts to apply seasonably and suitably to them for their recovery, that so the breakings forth of his hot anger may be prevented: on this account he tells them of their declinings, invites them to return speedily; and not go on, warns them of the danger they lay themselves open to, threatens them with his rods in case they hear him not, yea, and when is put to it, he smites them with his Judgments; and all this to recover them; but they do all they can to make void these attempts, and this is a woeful contrariety: their neglecting to reform under such essays used with them, is to set themselves against all the pleadings of God, to quench all the motions and stirrings of the Spirit in them, to withstand all the calls of the Judgments that are upon them, in which God cries aloud to them to return and to resoun: thus they set their wills against his will; he saith to them, Turn from your evil courses, amend your ways and your doings but they do not, and that is in effect to sly that they will not, and this interpretation God puts upon it. Thus, as much as they can, they look to make all the pains that God takes with them to be in vain; and what is this but to […]:
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 ⟨p. 38⟩Precepts to apply seasonably and suitably to them for their recovery, that so the breakings forth of his hot anger may be prevented: on this account he tells them of their declinings, invites them to return speedily; and not go on, warns them of the danger they lay themselves open to, threatens them with his rods in case they hear him not, yea, and when is put to it, he smites them with his Judgments; and all this to recover them; but they do all they can to make void these attempts, and this is a woful contrariety: their neglecting to reform under such essays used with them, is to set themselves against all the pleadings of God, to quench all the motions and stirrings of the Spirit in them, to withstand all the calls of the Judgments that are upon them, in which God cries aloud to them to return and to resoun: thus they set their wills against his will; he saith to them, Turn from your evil courses, amend your ways and your doings but they do not, and that is in effect to sly that they will not, and this interpretation God puts upon it. Thus, as much as they can, they look to make all the pains that God takes with them to be in vain; and what is this but to :