N00583:89
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. That there will be an increasing or aggravating of these troubles. There shall not only be a continuance, but an augmentation; they shall meet with more and more severe; they shall be plagued yet deeper and deeper, and inextricably into their Afflictions and distresses. He therefore threatens to lay aside all pity, Jer. 13.14. I will not have pity, nor mercy, but destroy them. Ezek. 5.11. Neither shall mine eye spare, nor will I have any pity. And this is intended, in his Punishing of them Seven times. And the ground of his thus proceeding will appear, in the Consideration of these things.
2. That there will be an encreasing or aggravating of these troubles. There shall not only be a continuance, but an augmentation; they shall meet with more and more severe; they shall be plagued yet deeper and deeper, and inextricably into their Afflictions and distresses. He therefore threatens to lay aside all pitty, Jer. 13.14. I will not have pitty, nor mercy, but destroy them. Ezek. 5.11. Neither shall mine eye spare, nor will I have any pitty. And this is intended, in his Punishing of them Seven times. And the ground of his thus proceeding will appear, in the Consideration of these things.
1. A Professing Covenant people are under greatest Obligations to glorify God, which is done by their faithful obedience to his Commands. It is for this that God hath formed them into a people, under such circumstances, Isa. 43.21 This people have I formed for my self, they shall show forth my praise. God requires it of them, and expects it from them; he doth not look for it from others to whom he hath not so revealed himself, but he saith of such a people for whom he hath done so much, more than for others, surely they will serve me, and honour me.