N04757:170
An humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in…
An humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in extraordinary prayer for the revival of religion and the advancement of Christ's Kingdom on earth, pursuant to Scripture-promises and prophecies concerning the last time. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Minister of the Gospel at Northampton. ; With a preface by several ministers.
printed for D. Henchman, 1748
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.
Now, if we consider the present State of Mankind, is it credible, that a Time will yet come in the World, that in these Respects exceeds all Times that were before the Reformation? and that such a Time will come before the Fall of Antichrist, unless we set that at a much greater Distance, than the farthest that any have yet supposed? 'Tis next to impossible, that such a Change should be brought about in so short a Time: It cannot be without a Miracle. In order to it, not only must the popish Nation• so prevail, as utterly to extirpate the Protestant Religion through' the Earth; but must do many other Things, far more impossible for them to effect, in order to cover the World with so gross and confirmed a Darkness, and to bury all Light and Truth in so deep an Oblivion, and so far out of all Means and Hopes of a Revival. And not only must a vast Change be made in the Protestant World, but the ⟨p. 105⟩popish Nations must be strangely metamorphosed; and they themselves must be terribly Persecuted by some other Power, in order to bring them to such a Change: Nor would Persecution without Extirpation be sufficient for it. If there should be another universal Deluge, it might be sufficient to bring Things in the World to such a Pass; provided a few ignorant barbarous Persons only were preserved in an Ark: And it would require some Catastrophe, not much short of this, to effect it.
Now, if we consider the present State of Mankind, is it credible, that a Time will yet come in the World, that in these Respects exceeds all Times that were before the Reformation? and that such a Time will come before the Fall of Antichrist, unless we set that at a much greater Distance, than the farthest that any have yet supposed? 'Tis next to impossible, that such a Change should be brought about in so short a Time: It cannot be without a Miracle. In order to it, not only must the popish Nation• so prevail, as utterly to extirpate the Protestant Religion thro' the Earth; but must do many other Things, far more impossible for them to effect, in order to cover the World with so gross and confirmed a Darkness, and to bury all Light and Truth in so deep an Oblivion, and so far out of all Means and Hopes of a Revival. And not only must a vast Change be made in the Protestant World, but the ⟨p. 105⟩