N00583:68
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. This may point us what interpretation to put upon these Judgments of God, which we for a long time been labouring under. God, of his rich grace, grant that in the winding up of all, we may find by an happy experience, that there hath been love in them all: and that will only be when they prove to be the blessed means of our through Reformation, when by them our iniquities shall be purged away from us. But let us know and be assured, that if we remain impenitent under them, there is but very little sign of this for the present. And this is certain, that as long as God is in this way with us, we have him for our Adversary, and so the Prophet interpreted is in, Lam. 2. 4. He stood with his right hand as an Adversary. He is setting of himself against us: he and we are facing of one another; we by our impenitence are confronting of him, and he by his Judgments is withstanding of us. We are Provoking him to jealousy by our sins, and he is provoking us to jealousy by his strokes, so it is expressed in, Deut. 32. 21. And if we do not put this sense upon the present state of affairs, we shall deceive our selves, and be exposed to more of his wrath; and is not this a fearful thing?
USE. I. This may point us what interpretation to put upon these Judgments of God, which we for a long time been labouring under. God, of his rich grace, grant that in the winding up of all, we may find by an happy experience, that there hath been love in them all: and that will only be when they prove to be the blessed means of our through Reformation, when by them our iniquities shall be purged away from us. But let us know and be assured, that if we remain impenitent under them, there is but very little sign of this for the present. And this is certain, that as long as God is in this way with us, we have him for our Adversary, and so the Prophet interpreted is in, Lam. 2. 4. He stood with his right hand as an Adversary. He is setting of himself against us: he and we are facing of one another; we by our impenitence are confronting of him, and he by his Judgments is withstanding of us. We are Provoking him to jealousy by our sins, and he is provoking us to jealousy by his stroaks, so it is expressed in, Deut. 32. 21