N00896:93
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.
When the Plague was in Germany, Eminent Ministers, and Great Reformers dyed thereby as well as others. So when there is a general Persecution, both the righteous as well as the wicked, both sincere Professors of Religion and Hypocrites suffer in that common calamity.
Conclusion 3. In spiritual respects there is a great difference in those temporal judgments, which the wicked and the righteous are subject to in this world For when such judgments fall on the wicked, they are Penal, they are part of the Curse; some part of the wages due for their sins, some sparks of Hell fire lighting on them before they come there. Whereas it is otherwise wi•h the Righteous; the afflictions that befall them are not penal properly, but Castigations, and fatherly ones too; the Lord chasteneth whom h• loves as a father doth his son in whom he delights Prov 3.12. And therefore God always designs their good in whatever afflictions do befall them, many times their temporal good. I may b• great afflictions befall them, to prevent far greater. So it was with the good figs the Prophet speaks of. They were sent in […] the Land of the Chaldeans for their good. Jer. 24 5 Had they tarried in their own land, as they would have been glad to have done, when the Babylonian Army invaded the Land, it would have gone worse with them. So that God sent ⟨p. 50⟩them into the land of Chaldea for their temporal good, to save them from perishing by the Sword. However God designs the spiritual good, and the eternal advantage of righteous ones, when outward judgments do befall them R•m. 8.39 All things shall work together for their good. All things, all afflictions, that is, for of them, especially the Apostle speaks, when he says All things. Nay if killing judgments come on them, they shall be for their spiritual & eternal good; they shall hasten them to heaven, where they shall never sin and displease God any more. Sometimes Death is the greatest mercy that can happen to a righteous man. The Righteous are taken away from the Evil to come. Many a righteous man had he lived a while longer, his heart would have been broke to have seen the miseries that would have come upon him, or on his Relations. Therefore God in singular mercy takes them out of the world, as he did Josiah, that so his eyes might not see the evil that was coming. We cannot say so of wicked me for when Death comes on them, Hll follows with it. They shall go out of one fire, and another fire shall devour them Ezek 15 7. They shall go ou of the fire of temporal judgments, into that fire which never shall be quenched So it was wih the people of Sodom, when Lightning killed their Bodies.