N00583:93
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. God in Afflicting of them, useth means, if it may be obtained, that he may bring them to their fruitfulness again. Whiles they enjoyed times of peace and prosperity, and all things went according to their desire, they grew wanton and left off to bring forth fruit to his praise; now these afflictive providences which he brings upon them, were his pruning and cutting of them; he hereby pares off their excrescencies, and lets them blood, and this, if any thing, looks as if it were probable to recover ⟨p. 70⟩them again. That this is the direct design of these Judgments, herein appears, because God saith, if they be net reformed by these things, and that plainly intimates, that Reformation was the thing that was looked for by them: and for this reason we shall find him so often complaining of them, because this was not the effect following upon them, see Isa. 1.5. Why should ye he smitten any more? ye will revolt more and more, and, Jer. 2.30. In vain have I smitten your Children; they would not receive Correction. Now a thing is then said to be in vain, when the end of it is frustrated.
4. God in Afflicting of them, useth means, if it may be obtained, that he may bring them to their fruitfulness again. Whiles they enjoyed times of peace and prosperity, and all things went according to their desire, they grew wanton and left off to bring forth fruit to his praise; now these afflictive providences which he brings upon them, were his pruning and cutting of them; he hereby pares off their excrescencies, and lets them blood, and this, if any thing, looks as if it were probable to recover ⟨p. 70⟩them again. That this is the direct design of these Judgments, herein appears, because God saith, if they be net reformed by these things, and that plainly intimates, that Reformation was the thing that was looked for by them: and for this reason we shall find him so often complaining of them, because this was not the effect following upon them, see Isa. 1.5. Why should ye he smitten any more? ye will revolt more and more, and,