Some important truths about conversion, delivered in sundry sermons, / by Increase Mather, D.D.…

Again, when the Lord's faithful Ministers have been undervalued and discouraged, God is wont to punish such a people with false Teachers It is Luther's observation on Gal. 6.6. that the reason God afflicted the Churches in Galatia, the Church at Corinth, &c. with false Apostles, was because they were guilty of neglect towards their faithful Teachers. When the Jews rejected the true Messiah, God punished them by sending false Christs amongst them; so when faithful and able Teachers are not so encouraged in the Lord's work, as it ought to be, the Lord a judicial dispensation sends unto such a people, ignorant, or profane, or seducing Spirits, that he so may take revenge for the Contempt of his Grace offered in the Gospel. Now if ever this were the sin of a professing people, it hath been the sin of New-England. Besides ⟨p. xv⟩all this it is a sad Truth, that a Spirit of division is a forerunner of Apostasy & Corruption in Religion, as the Scripture plainly intimateth, 1 Cor. 11.18, 19. I hear saith the Apostle, that there are divisions amongst you and I partly believe it, Now mark his Reason, For there must be also Heresies amongst you. A Spirit of division is a Prognostic of a Spirit of Heresy, therefore, saith he, inasmuch as there must be Heresies, I am apt to think that the report about your divisions is true. Hence also another Apostle, when he is mentioning preservatives against the infection of error and Heresy, saith, keep your selves in the love of God, Jude 21. because that divine grace of Love is a notable means to preserve us from the prevailing power of a Spirit of error and delusion; and breaches of the Royal Law of Love are usually punished with this forest Judgment. Now alas the world rings with our divisions. Many are the breaches of the City of David, which is one of the saddest Symptoms that can be; that this Calamity is approaching which you have been warned of. These things I have spoken to you more largely in my Public Ministry; yet I thought it not amiss here again to mention them that so they might not be forgotten. Paul said to his Philippians, To write the same things (which have been preached) to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.