and Reformation And not only so but when God hath given him an opportunity more than once to speak in the Name of the Lord unto this People in respect of the Heads and Representatives thereof he hath delivered his own Soul by giving Warning and what he hath spoken shall turn to him for a Testimony It is an hazardous thing as much as life is worth for men not to comply with the Word of God by whomsoever or to whomsoever spoken If a Josiah regard not the Word of God spoken by a Pharaoh Necho he loses his Life for it and so did Zedekiah because he humbled not himself before Jeremiah the Prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord. It s true that Ministers in these dayes have no immediate Call or Commission from Heaven yet if they deliver such Messages as are according to the Law and the Testimony it is God that speaketh by them and many times their hearts are inclined to this or that subject by a special operation of the spirit of Christ who is with his Servants to the end of the World Let us then hear that so our souls may live God of his free Grace hath seen meet to dignifie an handful of his People who are separated from their Brethren with the chief and choicest of Blessings It is promised as an high favour Jer. 30.21 Their Nobles shall be of themselves and their Governours shall-proceed from the midst of them We have had these over us who have been as the Expression of the Antient is Nobiles genere Nobiliores sanctitate We cannot be thankful enough for that Blessing Civil Liberty is an invaluable mercy The Jewish Rabbins have a saying that if the Sea were Ink and the Earth Parchment it would not be sufficient to write down the praise due to God for liberty But what then shall be said concerning the Liberties of the Gospel we enjoy all at this day The way to have them continued is for us to approve our selves faithful to the interest of Religion For then God will be for us and if he be for us who can be against us Boston in N. England August 31. 1683. INCREASE MATHER A PLEA FOR THE LIFE OF Dying Religion DEUT. 32.47 Because it is your Life IT hath pleased the great and blessed God in his infinite Soveraignty to transact with Man about the everlasting Concernments of his immortal Soul to dispense both his Mercy and Justice both Life and Death to distribute Eternal Rewards and Punishments and to govern Man unto his Eternal State only in the way of a Covenant All Reprobate Sinners are destroyed and damned under the Curse and Condemnation of the Covenant of Works All God's Elect are saved by and through our Lord Jesus Christ according unto and under the Covenant of Grace God hath constituted the Covenant of Redemption in his own Eternal Counsel before the World was and therein laid the Foundation both of the Constitution and Administration of the Covenant of Grace in by through that one only great and glorious Mediator Jesus Christ whose work it is to bring a certain Elect number of sallen Man unto God concerning whom he saith I will be their God and they shall be my People Hence God ever hath had and ever will have a Covenant-People in the World untill this Dispensation of Grace shall be consummated in Glory And when the most High divided to the nations their Inheritance and separated the sons of Adam He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel For the Lord's Portion is his People and Jacob the Lot of his Inheritance Deut. 32.8 9. This Book it may be in some respects most properly called The Book of the Covenant because it contains not only a more full plain Revelation Exposition of the Covenant it self in the constitution way manner means of the Administration Confirmation of it of the All-Sufficiency of God unto his People therein as their God in Covenant but also a description of that notable Covenant-Transaction wherein all the Duties all the Blessings and all the Curses of the Covenant are expresly and in set form proposed and the people moved unto the most solemn Restipulation of their Souls to God under the most sacred and indispensible Obligations to live to him and walk with him by religious Fear Reverence Faith Love and Obedience as his Covenant-people for ever and this ratified and confirmed by a most awful Contestation whereby Heaven and Earth are called to record Deut. 30.19 20. I call Heaven Earth to record this day against you that I have set before you Life and Death Blessing and Cursing therefore chuse Life that both thou and thy seed may live And now Moses having thus finished his great and extraordinary Ministry wherein he had been accompanied with an extraordinary presence and power of God and was eminently a Type of Christ he doth prepare himself instantly to take leave of the People of his Work and of the World The people he incourageth by a promise of God's Presence to make their Progress unto and Enterance into and full Possession of the Land of Promise His Office and Work he resigneth unto Joshuah whom he did by divine appointment ordain his Successor charging of him with the Care and Conduct of the People unto their Rest in Canaan and this upon full assurance that God would be with him and that he would never fail him nor forsake him The Law which he had received of the Lord and delivered unto the people containing the whole Word and Worship of God and so their whole Religion together with a prophetical Song shewing the diverse State of that Church and People in succeeding Ages under the successive Dispensation of the Covenant this Law and this Song he delivers to the Priests and People for their improvement charging of them most earnestly and affectionately to set their hearts unto it because it was their Life These words because it is thy Life they are some of the last words of Moses that great Prophet and therefore they contain matter of the greatest Importance to the People of God They are together with the Context his last his farewell and dying Charge whereby he set himself in a sentence or two to speak all at once to deliver unto them the Sum or a System of all that Doctrine and Duty which he had before throughout the whole course of his Ministry been delivering unto them all that they were to know to believe or to practise the whole both of Faith and Obedience that is more plainly their whole Religion And he chargeth them to set their hearts unto it that is to prise it love it keep it cleave to it live and walk in the sincere pure powerfull Profession and Practice of it with all their hearts with all their minds with all their Souls with all their might and with all their strength from Generation unto Generation themselves and
be so much danger of the Death of Religion O then let all who love and desire life both temporal spiritual and eternal life and who fear death so great a death be moved to labour with all our hearts minds souls might and strength by all ways and means to recover and save the life of Religion which is our own life This Exhortation proposeth and presseth all the great and general Dutys of the Covenant People of God at such a time and in such a case as we are Moses applied all the whole Word of God at once to the People by this one Word of Exhortation Set your hearts unto all the Words c. because it is your life It is also the sum of all which our Lord Jesus propounds to the declining Churches Rev. 3.2 Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die I am though most unworthy called forth this day and set in this General Assembly to speak for the life of Religion to plead in the Name of the Lord and by the Word of the Lord for the life of Religion to plead for the life of dying Religion Oh! were the heart of N-Engl rightly and fully prepared resolved and set for the recovery and safety of the life of Religion God would then most graciously make clear and full discoveries of our whole way and work therein and of all the means thereunto Yea God himself would soon bring all to pass for us To this end we ought to be throughly convinced of and deeply humbled even unto shame and confusion of Face under the sense of the decaying dying state of Religion and withal charge judge condemn loath and abhor our selves for all that Sin and Apostasie whereby we have brought Religion into such a state Under such Conviction and Humiliation we must set our selves to labour unto the resurrection of Religion and that with extraordinary Zeal Courage Faith-fulness and Resolution in the improvement of all means with one heart and one soul as one man even as for our lives and more than for our lives still acknowledging that when we have done all that we can Religion must be revived not without the greatest Miracle of Divine Power Grace and Mercy by God himself Ezek. 37.12 O my People I will open your Graves That we may obtain the accomplishment of this great promise it will be necessary 1. That we do under an humbling heart-breaking sense of our present absolute and extream necessity of the mighty power and working of the Spirit of God in a way of Soveraign Grace and Mercy for the recovery of the Life of Religion labour unto an extraordinary exercise of Faith and Hope in God for it Plead and improve his Covenant and all his Promises to that end We have great encouragement from the Word of God so to do Hos 6.1 2. Come let us return unto the Lord After two dayes he will revive us in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight If we could thus come unto God by Faith he would revive us there is nothing more dangerously Symptomatical than when a People grow senseless secure stupid sottishly supine in the depth of Apostasie None of the declining Churches so irrecoverably gone as that of Laodicea and that because utterly senseless and secure Rev. 3.17 Because thou sayest I am rich and increased with Goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked So the People of Israel I mean the ten Tribes when they were sunk in their Apostasie past recovery God by the Prophet Elijah put them upon the utmost trial by that great proposal 1 King 18.21 How long halt ye between two Opinions If the Lord be God follow him if Baal then follow him and the People answered him nor a word Observe the People answered him not a Word which fignifies plainly that although they were fully convinced of their Apostasie and manifested by their silence that they were judged and self-condemned yet they were so stupid and sottish under it that they were not at all careful nor concerned about it nor willing to trouble themselves their minds or thoughts with it God grant it may not be so with us 2. That we do carefully and very curiously observe and labour to understand the Time the Way the Work of the Lord when and wherein he is graciously willing and working to revive and raise up yielding up our selves unto him as the Subject of so great a Work It is the greatunhappiness and misery of any declining People not to understand when and how God is labouring with them to revive and raise them Hos 11.3 I taught Ephraim also to go taking them by their Arms but they knew not that I healed them Hence it was they abused all both ordinary and extraordinary means and mercies unto their own deeper defection and utter destruction as Hos 7.1 When I would have healed Israel then the Iniquity of Ephraim was discovered and the Sin of Samaria the more God laboured with them to heal them the worse they were until at last they became wilfully unwilling to be healed and even desperately resolute in their Apostasie Jer. 2.25 But thou saidst there is no hope no for I have loved Strangers and after them I will go So Jer. 18.12 Isai 30.15 This made the Prophet to lament to dolefully without hope Jer. 8.18 20. When I would comfort my self against sorrow my heart is faint in me the Harvest is past the Summer ended and we are not healed for the hurt of the Daughter of my People I am hurt I am black astonishment hath taken hold upon me That which broke the heart of his hope was they had not known nor improved the time and means of their healing and salvation and therefore now their case was hopeless and remediless this made our Blessed Lord Jesus to weep out the Bowels of his Compassion over Jerusalem in that doleful lamentation Luk. 19.41 42. And when he was come near he beheld the City wept over it if thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day the things which belong to thy peace but now they are hidden from thine eyes Verse 44. Because thou knewest not the time of thy Visitation So Mat. 23.37 O Jerusalem Jerusalem c. How often would I have gathered thy Children c. and ye would not behold your house is left unto you desolate When a People do not will not observe nor understand the time way and work of the Lord and so refuse to be healed and saved God doth then give them up as a reprobate People Jer. 6.29.30 The Bellows are burnt the Lead is consumed of the fire the Founder melteth in vain for the wicked are not plucked away reprobate Silver shall men call them because the Lord hath rejected them Ezek. 24.13 Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged
his People of old Hos 12.13 Truly God hath done all in New-England by his Word as long as we hearkened to the Word of God we prospered if we would now hearken all would be well 2 Chron. 20.20 3. That we do what is necessary for the recovery and preservation of the life of Religion with holy religious lively spiritual Devotion to God in his Worship more especially in his House The loss of which hath been and is one great if not the greatest cause of the decay of Religion for Religion lives much by such Devotion to God in his Worship and is kept alive by it Religious Devotion it is much of the life of Religion if we would then recover and preserve the life of Religion we must labour to have our Souls raised unto a very high and dear esteem of and love unto a most sincere and fervent Zeal for the House of God and all the interests and injoyments thereof We must labour to understand the excellency of the Worship of God and of the House of God and the blessedness and happiness of those who have not only visible but a real spiritual interest and standing therein we must give up and devote our selves our very souls unto God in a way of holy Fellowship and Communion with him in his House in all the wayes of his Worship and uphold the Worship of God in the life spirit and power of it we must have our hearts inlarged to take in a fulness of the spiritual and gracious presence of God and raised unto living apprehensions of that presence with spiritual pleasure delight Soul-solace and satisfaction therein That our Souls may be drawn forth more more after it with longing desires earnest Prayer as the Souls of Saints of old were Psal 27.4 36.7 42.1 2. 63.1 2. 84.1 2 10. We must labour to keep the House of God pure and holy and all the services and administrations of it and to obtain a spiritual Soul-settlement therein Psal 92.13 Those that are planted in the House of the Lord shall flourish in the Courts of our God If we would have Religion live we must really dwell in the House for there and therein Religion lives by nothing have we more indangered and destroyed the life of Religion than by withdrawing our hearts from God in his Worship in his House by our formality hypocrisie and spiritual Idolatry therein by slighting neglecting prophaning and polluting thereof and by sinning away the presence of God from it these evils are deadly they are death to Religion so long as these evils remain and so long as we remain so estranged to the House and Worship of God there will be no hope of the life of Religion neither shall we be able to do any thing effectually for the recovery and preservation of it 4. That we do what is necessary for the recovery and preservation of the life of Religion with the special presence and under the power of our Lord Jesus Christ Religion lives only by the presence and power of Christ who is our life and therefore is the life of our Religion That we have by our sins and miscarriages moved our Lord Jesus to withdraw and withhold so much of his presence and power from us thence it is that we suffer such a privation of the life of Religion and unless we obtain a return thereof Religion will dy quite away That we may obtain the return of the presence and power of Christ we must be sensible of and humbled for those sins and evils whereby we have grieved and provoked him Our unbelief and disobedience to the Gospel not subjecting to his spiritual rule and government and to the ministerial exercise of his power therein unfaithfulness to his cause interest and work dissention disorder and confusion in Churches the loss of our first love and life and the great dishonour to his holy Name These evils must be repented of and removed Unconverted Sinners must receive him and give themselves to him by Faith in a way of Gospel-Obedience Christians must awake and rouse up their sleepy Souls out of carnal ease and rest follow him and seek him until you have found him and repossest your Souls of him with a fulness of spiritual joy pleasure and delight in your injoyments of him as the Spouse Cant. 3.4 The Churches must give him free full and open entrance and entertainment in the greatest fulness of his presence and power recovering their first life and love doing their first works in maintaining integrity of love peace union purity of communion regularity and tranquility of order within themselves cleaving to his cause interest and work fully stedfastly and faithfully managing all the affairs of his Kingdom in a way of sincere soul-subjection to him for the advancement of his Name and Glory O if Christians and Churches could thus prepare and dispose themselves unto the return of the presence and power of Christ they would soon feel themselves enabled thereby to perform all that is necessary for the recovery and preservation of Religion the sad cause why we have hitherto Failed in all our undertakings is the want of the presence and power of Christ O there is woful evidence of the want of it until Christ return it nothing will or can be done the return of the presence and power of Christ will instantly infer an happy Resurrection of Religion O let us seek it pray and cry for it under a deep sence of our extream necessity of it and of our woful condition without it let us be moved hereunto from the consideration of the gracious disposition of our Lord Jesus to return it is yet his voice to these as it was to those declining Churches after he had reproved charged threatned them very sharply and severely he concludes all Rev. 3.20 Behold I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open unto me I will come in by opening to Christ we shall do all and obtain all salvation 5. That we do what is necessary for the recovery and preservation of the life of Religion quickly there must be a sudden quick dispatch of all that is to be done for the life of Religion It must be done presently instantly without delay as we would do any thing for our life when in utmost and extreamest danger if we do not do what we have to do quickly it may be quickly too late and truly it will be Gods infinite mercy if it be not already too late as it was to them Luk. 19.42 Mat. 23.37 O we have lingered and delayed upon utmost peril already it is now high time more than time if we mean to do any thing Hos 10.12 It is time to seek the Lord till he come God is now crying to day whilest it is called to day after so long a time Psal 95.7 Heb. 4.7 God calls for present hast he is every way hastening of us the dying state of Religion and
the dangerous state of this People and of these Churches thereby will admit of no further delay God is hastening in his way and work Zeph. 1.14 The day of the Lord is near it hasteth greatly Christ hath threatned to come against us quickly except we repent and do the first works quickly Rev 2.5 16. In such a case a People must be quick Numb 16.46 47. And Moses said unto Aaron take a Censer and go quickly to the Congregation and make an Attonement for them and Aaron took as Moses commanded him and ran O it was well for the poor People of Israel in that instant of their extream and distressing danger that Moses and Aaron who had the care and charge of their publick Weal were so quick in doing what was to be done for their publick safety and salvation Wherefore Let the general Exhortation be humbly proposed to the Servants of God in the Magistracy Much Honoured It doth in the Name of the Lord by the Word of the Lord in most solemn manner bespeak your utmost help and your very hearts and souls therein for the recovery and preservation of the life of dying Religion It is your greatest Honour that you are betrusted with so much of the care and charge of Religion in the civil concerns of it It will be both your and our Happiness if God shall make you instrumental Saviours of the life of Religion and so of the life of this People and these Churches It is your highest work and although the heaviest yet the happiest part thereof wherein you serve and subserve more directly to the honour and glory of God and highest good of his People and which being fully and faithfully performed will turn to your highest account in the day of Account and add much weight and splendor unto your Crown of glory The General Exhortation It is also proposed to the Servants of Christ in the Ministry the whole Order and Office work of the Ministry it is Religious Ordained by Christ as the great Ordinance for the Ministerial Exercise of his Power for the propagation and preservation of the life of Religion by the progress of the work of Conversion and Edification among men and that in a more direct subordinacy to himself and subserviency to his Name and Glory in the World who is himself the Shepherd and Bishop of Souls it is cause of deep Humiliation unto his Servants that they have been called forth to labour under the sinking discouragement of the decaying state of Religion that Religion should be dying under their hand and they lament lest they should be called to minister under that woful commission given to the Prophet Isai 6.10 Go tell this People hear ye indeed but understand not Make the heart of the People fat lest their Ministry should in just judgment be made penal and judicial and so become a savour of death unto death and so that they should Preach Religion to Death and Preach this People to death Hos 6.5 Therefore I have hewed them by the Prophets and slain them by the words of my mouth The fearful apprehensions of such a danger may move them to labour though lamenting as Gods Servants of old yet with so much the more care love zeal even unto the spending and consumption of their very souls by fervency instancy and constancy in all their prayers and soul-labours throughout their whole work more especially in travelling in birth with Souls until Christ be formed in them until they are born and brought forth to God in a saving work of Regeneration which will be the most certain way and means unto a general Resurrection of Religion in these Churches O how should they then make full proof of their Ministry and approve themselves throughly in their life in their labour in all their ministrations in their whole ministerial Conversations as those who are more than any other Order of Men in the World directly charged and betrusted yea set for the life of Religion and the salvation of Souls The Exhortation it is further proposed as in our Text and Context unto all Israel and Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel It was his final farewel Exhortation to all the whole Covenant People of God The People of these Churches both the passing standing and rising Generations are all the visible Covenant people of God and therefore Religion it is our life we ought generally to care labour pray cry to God for the recovery preservation and continuance of it as for our life You who are sincere Christians are here again moved by this Exhortation not only as before to keep Religion alive in your own hearts but also to discharge your selves fully and faithfully in whatsoever duty or service you may can or ought to labour for the general Resurrection of Religion in these Churches More especially wherein you may be any of you betrusted with any of the concerns of it either Civil or Ecclesiastical Truly Christians the great incumbency the burthen of the work it is upon you the work it is most properly yours Because Religion it is peculiarly yours you are under the most sacred and indispensible obligations both unto God and one unto another to uphold it it is the most general duty of that high holy and heavenly Calling wherewith you are called to be Saints and wherein you are to approve your selves eminently the Servants of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ for the defence and advancement of his Cause Interest Kingdome Name and Glory wherein we shall live and dye as Saints obtaining those glorious promises which Christ made to those who laboured faithfully for the recovery of Religion in those declining Churches of Asia Rev. 2.7 To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the middest of the Paradise of God and ver 10. And I will give thee a Crown of life ver 17. To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the hidden Manna and will give him a white stone and in the stone a new Name which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it Rev. 3.5 He that overcometh the same shall be cloathed in white Raiment Ver. 12. Him that overcometh will I make a Pillar in the Temple of my God Ver. 21. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my Throne c. that is in Heaven O what exceeding great and precious Promises hath our Lord Jesus made for the incouragement of those who are his Sincere Servants to labour to uphold Religion in declining times and Churches we believe and are upon good grounds perswaded that there are many that there are enough Sincere Christians yet remaining in these Churches to do and perform whatsoever is necessary for the recovery and preservation of Religion and that if you would do what you might and ought Religion would not die but live and flourish with much spiritual prosperity Will it not then be a