N00583:58
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.
4. They do hereby provoke God to jealousy, and dare him to do his worst. In this way such a people are found to be fighters against him. They that will not be reformed by these things, ⟨p. 39⟩do cast a great contempt upon his Judgments: this is interpretatively to despise them, and speaks that such do presume: to be too hard for God at the last; we find what a sense God himself puts upon it, Isa. 28. 15. Ye have said, we have made a Covenant with death, &c. when the overflowing Scourge shall pass through, it shall not come nigh us, &c. And we have the Apostle thus expostulating on the account, 1 Cor. 10. 22. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he? God saith, that if they will not reform, he will heap his Plagues upon them, and multiply their Calamities; and they say, their carriage speaks it, let him do it if he will, they are not concerned about it; they are purposed to run the adventure of it, and try whether he will do as he saith: and what greater contrariety can there be than this? This is to beat a challenge to heaven, and run up against the thick bosses of his buckler. This shows that they are set against him; which must needs be a very bold and daring presumption.
4. They do hereby provoke God to jealousy, and dare him to do his worst. In this way such a people are found to be fighters against him. They that will not be reformed by these things, ⟨p. 39⟩do cast a great contempt upon his Judgments: this is interpretatively to despise them, and speaks that such do presume: to be too hard for God at the last; we find what a sence God himself puts upon it, Isa. 28. 15. Ye have said, we have made a Covenant with death, &c. when the overflowing Scourge shall pass through, it shall not come nigh us, &c. And we have the Apostle thus expostulating on the account, 1 Cor. 10. 22. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he? God saith, that if they will not reform, he will heap his Plagues upon them, and multiply their Calamities; and they say, their carriage speaks it, let him do it if he will, they are not concerned about it; they are purposed to run the adventure of it, and try whether he will do as he saith: and what greater contrariety can there be than this? This is to beat a challenge to heaven, and run up against the thick bosses of his buckler. This shews that they are set against him; which must needs be a very bold and daring presumption.