N00583:74
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. When he doth smite, he doth not do all at once. He doth not cut off his people at one stroke, though they have given him provocation enough to do it. He doth not begin and make an end at the same time, and by the same Judgment by which he first Afflicted them: but if ever it must come to that, by reason of their woeful obstinacy and refusing to receive Correction by his Afflictive providences, there ⟨p. 53⟩is a very considerable time in which that is doing; and many leisurely steps are taken before it arrives at this. When God threatens Nineveh, we find how it is expressed, Nah. 1. 9. He will make an utter end: Affliction shall not rise up the second time. Whereas it is observable in our Text, laid by the Context, that there is a process from one to another, and from that to another, and there is a long time passeth before the evil be finished, and the last scene brought in: and if we observe, we shall find, that it was so long, after God had begun in his Judgments with his backsliding people of old, before they came to be extirpated, that the prophets begun to be mocked, and the people grew into such security, that they concluded it should never be, and begun to make bold challenges about it. Now the reason of Gods using this method is, because he is in a way of Discipline with his people: he is trying if they will be amended by his rods, and therefore, in wisdom, he proves another course, when one fails of doing the work, that so, if there may be any hope, they may not perish at last, but be led to repentance. It saith that he is very loth to destroy them, if there may be any prevention of it, by such courses as are proper.
2. When he doth smite, he doth not do all at once. He doth not cut off his people at one stroak, though they have given him provocation enough to do it. He doth not begin and make an end at the same time, and by the same Judgment by which he first Afflicted them: but if ever it must come to that, by reason of their wofull obstinacy and refusing to receive Correction by his Afflictive providences, there ⟨p. 53⟩is a very considerable time in which that is doing; and many leisurely steps are taken before it arrives at this. When God threatens Niniveh, we find how it is exprest,