N00896:91
The excellency of a public spirit discoursedThe excellency of a publick spirit discoursed
The excellency of a public spirit discoursed: in a sermon, preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, May 27. 1702. Being the day for election of counsellors in that province. / By Increase Mather. ; [Four lines of quotations]The excellency of a publick spirit discoursed: in a sermon, preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the province of the Masachusetts Bay in New England, May 27. 1702. Being the day for election of counsellors in that province. / By Increase Mather. ; [Four lines of quotations]
printed by B. Green for Nicholas Boone, 1702
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
It was said to the Church in Philadelphia, Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world. Rev 3 10. When the Babylonians laid Jerusalem waste, some who were Mourners in Zion, experienced signal temporal Salvations. And so it was with the Christian Jews at that time when utter desolation came on Jerusalem by the Roman Sword. God did by a miraculous Providence distinguish them from others, according to Malachi's Prophesy. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth ⟨p. 46⟩him not. Mal. 3.18. Thus it came to pass. The Lord Jesus Christ had intimated to his Disciples, that when they should see Jerusalem compassed about with armies, they should know that the destruction of it is near, and that therefore they should go out of the City to some other place for safety. When the Romans came to take the City, they did by a strange Providence withdraw their Siege. The Christians remembering the words of Christ went out of the City to Pella, a Town beyond the River Jordan, when they were gone, the Roman Army came again and never broke up the Siege until they had destroyed and utterly ruined the City. Thus did the Lord make a difference between the righteous and the wicked; then also was another Prophecy fulfilled, viz. that, Joel 2▪32. It shall come to pass that whoever calls upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved. The Christian Jews that Called on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ were saved, when others were destroyed. And to be sure, whatever comes on the world, God will secure & save a number of Righteous ones: So that he will have a Church here on the Earth, whatsoever Confusions and Overturnings may come upon Nations and Kingdoms; therefore in the seventh of the Revelations the first verse, we read of four Angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the winds that ⟨p. 47⟩they should not blow on the earth. The meaning is, that a terrible Storm was a coming on the whole world, and such a stormy wind as should overset Kingdoms, and pluck up Nations by the roots, but says Christ in the 3d. verse, hurt not the Earth, neither the Sea, nor the trees till we have sealed the Servants of our God in their foreheads. A Seal is sometimes for notification, as well as for confirmation;