N04899:40
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.
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 ⟨p. 16⟩to be expected than that the Members of the Society will be Continually divided against themselves, every one acting the Part of an Enemy to his Neighbour, every one's Hand against every Man, and every Man's Hand against him; going on in remediless and endless Broils and Jarring, 'till the Society be utterly dissolved and broken in Pieces, and Life it self, in the Neighbourhood of our Fellow-Creatures, becomes miserable and intolerable.
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 publick Societies, that hold the Parts together; without which nothing else is ⟨p. 16⟩to be expected than that the Members of the Society will be Continually divided against themselves, every one acting the Part of an Enemy to his Neighbour, every one's Hand against every Man, and every Man's Hand against him; going on in remediless and endless Broils and Jarring, 'till the Society be utterly dissolved and broken in Pieces, and Life it self, in the Neighbourhood of our Fellow-Creatures, becomes miserable and intolerable.
We may see the Need of Government in Societies by what is visible in Families, those lesser Societies, of which all public Societies are constituted. How miserable would these little Societies be, if all left to themselves, without any Authority or Superiority in one above another, or any Head of Union and Influence among them? We may be convinced by what we see of the lamentable Consequences of the Want of a proper Exercise of Authority and Maintenance of Government in Families, that yet are not absolutely without all Authority. No less Need is there of Government in public Societies, but much more, as they are larger, a very few may possibly, without any Government, act by Concern, so as to concur in what shall be for the Welfare of the Whole; but this is not to be expected among a Multitude, constituted of many Thousands, of a great Variety of Tempers and different Interests.