N00583:82
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.
I. He doth not speedily pass from one Judgment to another. When he brings one sort of Affliction upon his people, as a Testimony of his displeasure at them, he continues them under that for a considerable time, before he goes on to another; we read of a Famine in Davids time that continued for three years successively; and no other Judgment is recorded to intervene, though the procuring cause of it was not ⟨p. 61⟩presently removed; 2 Sam. 21. And so in Elisha's time of a Famine which lasted three years, by which Israel, under Ahab's wicked reign was distressed; 1 Kings 18.1. And of one that lasted Seven years in the days of Elisha, in the time when Joram, Ahab's son, reigned, 2 King▪ 8.1. And the reason why God doth thus is, because he will wait to see what efficacy this will have, before he takes a further course with them. He doth not come to kill them, but to cure them, if it may be; and hence he acts like a wife Physician, who, when he hath administered a proper sort of Potion, will wait for the working of it, a competent time, not looking that it will work, as soon as it is down, and if one potion do not do, he will give another of the same, and it may be be a larger dose of it, before he leaves that of, and goes about to try any other experiment: he doth not presently say this will not do, though it doth not immediately appear in the desirable effects of it. God saith, it may be they will bethink themselves, and lay this Judgment to heart; and by the continuance of it be brought to solemn Consideration, which may set them upon Reformation; and therefore, till the Judgment comes to be notoriously despised by them, he many times continues them under exercise of it.
I. He doth not speedily pass from one Judgment to another. When he brings one sort of Affliction upon his people, as a Testimony of his displeasure at them, he continues them under that for a considerable time, before he goes on to another; we read of a Famine in Davids time that continued for three years successively; and no other Judgment is recorded to intervene, though the procuring cause of it was not ⟨p. 61⟩