N04899:38
A strong rod broken and withered. A sermon preached at Northampton, on the Lord's…A strong rod broken and withered. A sermon preach'd at Northampton, on the Lord's…
A strong rod broken and withered. A sermon preached at Northampton, on the Lord's Day, June 26. 1748. On the death of the Honourable John Stoddard, Esq; often a member of His Majesty's Council, for many years chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Hampshire, judge of the probate of wills, and chief colonel of the regiment, &c. : Who died at Boston June 19. 1748. in the 67th year of his age. / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Northampton. ; [Three lines from Daniel]A strong rod broken and withered. A sermon preach'd at Northampton, on the Lord's Day, June 26. 1748. On the death of the Honourable John Stoddard, Esq; often a member of His Majesty's Council, for many years chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Hampshire, judge of the probate of wills, and chief colonel of the regiment, &c. : Who died at Boston June 19. 1748. in the 67th year of his age. / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Northampton. ; [Three lines from Daniel]
Boston: printed by Rogers and Fowle for J. Edwards, 1748
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.
Such Rulers are eminently the MINISTERS OF GOD to his People FOR GOOD: They are great Gifts of the most High to a People, and blessed Tokens of his Favour, and Vehicles of his Goodness to them, and therein Images of his own Son, the grand Medium of all GOD's Goodness to fallen Mankind; and therefore all of them are called, SONS OF THE MOST HIGH. All civil Rulers, if they are as they ought to be, such strong Rods as have been described, will be like THE SON of the Most High, Vehicles of Good to Mankind, and like him, will be as the Light of the Morning, when the Sun riseth, even a Morning without Clouds, as the tender Grass springing out of the Earth, by clear shining after Rain. And therefore when a People are bereaved of them they sustain an unspeakable Loss, and are the Subjects of a Judgment of GOD that is greatly to be lamented.
2. On Account of the great Calamities such Rulers are a Defence from. Innumerable are the grievous and fatal Calamities which public Societies are exposed to in this evil World, which they can have no Defence from without Order and Authority. If a People are without Government, they are like a City broken down and without Walls, encompassed on every Side by Enemies, and become unavoidably subject to all Manner of Confusion and Misery.
2. On Account of the great Calamities such Rulers are a Defence from. Innumerable are the grievous and fatal Calamities which publick Societies are exposed to in this evil World, which they can have no Defence from without Order and Authority. If a People are without Government, they are like a City broken down and without Walls, encompassed on every Side by Enemies, and become unavoidably subject to all Manner of Confusion and Misery.
Government is necessary to defend Communities from Miseries from within themselves; from the Prevalence of intestine Discord, mutual Injustice and Violence. The Members of the Society continually making a Prey one of another, without any Defence one from another. Rulers are the Heads of Union in public Societies, that hold the Parts together; without which nothing else is