N01685:40
The presence of Christ with the ministers of the Gospel, opened & applied in…The presence of Christ with the ministers of the Gospel, opened & applyed in…
The presence of Christ with the ministers of the Gospel, opened & applied in a sermon preached at Swampfield, January 1st. 1717[/]18. Being the day of the gathering of the church, and the ordination of the Reverend Joseph Willard their pastor. / By Solomon Stoddard, A.M. & Pastor of Northampton.The presence of Christ with the ministers of the Gospel, opened & applyed in a sermon preached at Swampfield, January 1st. 1717[/]18. Being the day of the gathering of the church, and the ordination of the Reverend Joseph Willard their pastor. / By Solomon Stoddard, A.M. & Pastor of Northampton.
printed by B. Green, 1718
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.
By the same Author.
THE mistakes of one Generation many times become the calamity of succeeding Generations. The present Generation are not only unhappy by reason of the darkness of their own Minds, but the errors of those who have gone before them, have been a foundation of a great deal of Misery. Posterity is very prone to espouse the principles of Ancestors, and from an inordinate Veneration of them, to apprehend a sacredness in their Opinions, and don't give themselves the trouble to make an impartial Examination of them, as if it were a transgression to call them into question, and bordered upon Irreligion to be wavering about them; and the carnal interests of many Persons has no small influence upon them, to prevail with them to engage violently in the Vindication of them.
And if any particular Persons have been led by God into the understanding of those mistakes, and have made their differing Sentiments Public, it has proved an occasion of much Sorrow; and many People have fallen into Parties, whereby a Spirit of ⟨p. 2⟩Lore has been quenched, and great heats have risen, from whence have proceeded, Censures and Reproaches, and sometimes Separation & Persecution. There have been two eminent instances of this in latter times. When the People of England cast off the Doctrines of Popery, they retained many of the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome; as the Surplice, Cross, in Baptism, and Kneeling at the Lords Supper, &c. and this has been a wounding thing to their Posterity. The Generations since have been greatly distressed by their Contentions about those things. Many Books have been written for and against the Ceremonies; and sometimes one party has got the upper hand, and have persecuted the other with a great deal of harshness and severity, to the undoing of many Families: Sometimes the other party has prevailed, and knew not how to use their advantage with moderation, and there is no prospect of the end of these troubles; the discords run sometimes higher and sometimes lower, but nothing appears in Providence, but that they may be perpetual.