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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62960	An exhortation unto reformation amplified, by a discourse concerning the parts and progress of that work, according to the word of God, delivered in a sermon preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the Massachusets colony, at Boston in New-England, May 27, 1674, being the day of election there / by Samvel Torrey ...	Torrey, Samuel, 1632-1707.; Mather, Increase, 1639-1723.	1674 (1674)	Wing T1916; ESTC R13732	47,259	54

Now we must set to the Work 1. With one heart No hope of Reformation without Vnion Division hath been one great cause of our-defection and will be a total obstruction unto Reformation if it continue we must unite our hearts our hands our strength O if ever we would unite let it be in and unto the Work of Reformation 2. Set unto it with all your hearts and with all your souls Our very hearts and souls must be engaged unto it and in it we must set to it in good earnest as unto a work that must be done we are now brought unto this Dilemma either a timely speedy thorough Reformation or else there will be a general and total defection either Repent and do the first works or otherwise I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy Candlestick out of its place except thou repent is the voice of Christ unto these Churches O that we understood and seriously and solemnly considered that we are a lost and undone people without Reformation that we are a helpless hopeless people without Reformation that nothing will recover us from our defection and prevent our destruction by the execution of impending Judgements but onely Reformation O then we should stand trembling before God under the apprehension of the instant urgent necessity of Reformation as Ezra 10.9 And all the people sate in the street of the house of God trembling because of this matter ver 12. Then all the Congregation answered and said with a loud voice As thou hast said so must we do Observe they cried out passionately affectionately So must we do q.d. we are a lost undone people there is no hope no help for us without Reformation and then they set to the Work in good earnest O that we could make Reformation our main work and business without delay 3. We must set to it with a right and full understanding of the whole work of Reformation in the parts and progress of it We have been ready to return by way of retortion unto this great Exhortation as that people Mal. 3.7 Even from the dayes of your fathers ye are gone away from mine Ordinances and have not kept them Return unto me and I will return unto you saith the Lord but ye said Wherein shall we return So 8 13. Though they were guilty of a very great and general defection yet they understood not the Work of Reformation Truly so it is our great unhappiness that we do no better know wherein the Work of Reformation consisteth yea that some of the great things of our peace do seem to be even Judicially or in Judgement hidden from our eyes Luk. 19.42 Deut. 29.4 Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear unto this day and that was the reason that their defection was continued Psal 95.10 Fourty years long was I grieved with this Generation and said It is a people that do erre in their heart and they have not known my wayes Vnto whom I sware c. They were incurable in their defection because they understood not the Work of Reformation It is observable in all these seven Epistles unto the Churches Christ calls for an understanding attention Let him that hath an ear to hear hear c. There is much wisdome and prudence requisite unto the Work of Reformation Hos 14.9 Who is wise he shall understand these things prudent he shall know them for the wayes of the Lord are right and the just shall walk in them O! a want of this wisdome and prudence is one great hinderance we do not we will not understand the way and work of Reformation 4. We must set unto the Work in a way of full and sincere subjection unto Order and carry on the Work according to Rules of Order Breach of Order neglect of Order Non subjection unto Order Disorder and Confusion it hath been one great Cause yea it is a great part of our defection and if ever we do hope or intend to make thorough work in Reformation we must recover Order the Beauty the Harmony the Peace and Tranquility the Regularity the Purity and Simplicity the Power and Efficacy Life and Spirit of Order Gospel-order the Order which Christ hath set and appointed in his Church Although we may have never so good dispositions intentions resolutions and desires unto the Work of Reformation yet if we pursue it not in due Order it will all come to nothing 1 Chron. 15.13 because we sought him not in the due Order Surely there is no case so difficult among us but there is a regular and easie way to an issue if we will acknowledge and apply and follow up Rules of Order in the due improvement of them if we would be set down by Order be ruled and governed by Order but if we will slight neglect reject contemn and despise Order we can expect nothing but Disorder and Confusion and shall be in great danger thereby to run and rush desperately into our own ruine It was the great Expedient which the Apostle proposeth for the Reformation of that distracted Church of Corinth Let all things be done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14.33 40. So 1 Cor. 11.34 5. We must set our selves to the work with a fervent love unto and zeal for the work it self The Cause of God the Kingdome of Christ the Prosperity of these Churches so much concerned in it this is the onely true Principle and Spirit of Reformation O that our first New-England Zeal and Love might be revived and raised under a full clear discovery of the Spiritual Beauty and Glory of that Work and of that Cause that we may labour in it in the heart height and strength of that Zeal and Love This will indeed Spirit the Work and Spirit us unto it It is a sign that there is a glorious work of Reformation near when Gods people do love the stones and favour the dust of Zion Psal 102.14 6. We must labour in it under a sense of our own utter insufficiency to Reform renouncing all our own carnal Confidences and disclaiming our own wisdomes and wills wherein we have too long laboured in vain trust our own hearts no further no longer which have so much so often deceived us but bemoan our selves before God as a hopeless and helpless people as Ephraim did Jer. 31.18 and the Church Jer. 3.22 23 Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills or from the multitude of mountains for shame hath devoured the labours of our hands from our youth We lie dwon in our shame and confusion covereth us then God will work for us Deut. 32.36 For the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself for his servants when he seeth that their power is gone and there is none shut up or lest So Jer. 30.15 17. Why criest thou for thine affliction thy sorrow is incurable for I

Idolatry in the Worship of God Sinners are sp●●●ed unto and with the sins of the Times those sins are even rooted and grounded in the Spirit of the Generation as Jer. 17.1 The sin of Judah it is graven upon the table of their heart so that there is no hope of Reformation except we make us a new heart and a new spirit And truly this is the reason that we do not reform that we cannot reform though we do promise and vow Reformation unto God Deut. 5.29 This people have well said O that there were such an heart in them q.d. the great thing which this people want is an heart Truly so the great thing which New-England doth want it is a new Heart and a new Spirit Here then we must begin and in order hereunto 1. All sincere Christians must begin this work of Heart-reformation by labouring to recover your Souls out of your Spiritual Declensions in grace and in the life and power of godliness This Spiritual Declension it is in the first and most strict and proper sense that having of our first love reproved in the Context and therefore restitution from this Spiritual Declension it is in the first most strict and proper sense Doing of our first works commended in the Text and therefore sincere Christians are first and most properly concerned in this duty of doing of their first works How generally and deeply Christians are thus declined both their hearts and lives do sadly testifie It is the great and general complaint of all sensible Christians O their decayes and declensions hence little of the life and activity of grace hardly enough to evidence the sincerity of it clearly and comfortably either to themselves or others little of the life of Obedience either in duties of Religion or Righteousness much Carnality Formality Hypocrisie in the Worship of God both in publick private and in seeret in all their Converse and Communion both with God and Saints their Souls languishing under a Spiritual Consumption and those things which remain even ready to die Rev 3.2 It is true first of Christians then of Churches in this sense That there is a universal deadness upon the hearts of Churches hence great unprofitableness and unfruitfulness under all Ordinances sin more unmortified then ever their hearts and lives deeply corrupted with the sins of the Times and many Christians fallen into a very dangerous way of Communion with and Conformity unto the wicked World and all this appearing upon some of those whose first life love sincerity purity and eminency in grace and godliness was sometimes a Beauty unto these Churches O how is our gold become dim and our fine gold changed Lam. 4.1 How is our silver become dross and our wine mined with water Isa 1.22 How are Zions Nazarites changed in their visage Lam. 4.7 How are the faces the Countenance the Conversation of many Christians changed O Christians what shall we say what shall we do what will become of us yea what will become of Religion in this next succeeding generation If you live and die under your declensions as truly many Christians are likely to do being fallen into such deep security under their declensions that they are not like to be awakened untill the Cry be made at Midnight The Bridegroom cometh and must bestir themselves very hard to trim their Lamps in time to enter in with him O Christians It is your Spiritual Declension that is the main root of the degeneracy of this Noble Vine Jer. 2.21 It is your leaving of your first love which doth make way for the removal of the Candlestick your Spiritual declension will lead the way unto and lay the foundation for the general and total defection of these Churches in succeeding generations therefore as the defection hath been in part begun by your declension so the work of Reformation it must be begun by your restitution It is impossible that ever these Churches should be restored unto their first Spiritual prosperity and flourishing state unless Christians do first recover their first love life sincerity fervency purity activity eminency in the exercise of grace and in the performance of duty and in all practical piety both in heart and life O how can you hope to lye down in your Graves with peace and comfort before you have done what in you lyeth in the Work of Reformation How can you die in peace under your Spiritual declensions and thereby leave Religion decaying and dying and these Churches and this Generation your poor Posterity sinking under a general and total defection Sure in vain and frustrate will be all your prayers desires hopes of a Reformation except that you Christians do thus begin and lay the foundation of the work in your own hearts before you die 2. The work of Heart-reformation or making of a new heart consisteth in Conversion and Regeneration This is the most full and proper sense of those words Ezek. 18.31 Make ye a new heart and new spirit for why will ye die so Ezek. 33.11 Turn ye turn ye for why will ye die It is a Call to the unconverted when God doth restore his people from any deep and general defection and renew his Covenant with them he doth promise and actually pour out abundance of converting grace and so revive and renew the work of Conversion So Ezek. 36.26 A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you I will take the flony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh I will put my Spirit within you Let me be hold to say If ever these Churches be throughly recovered it will be it must be by such a dispensation of converting grace unto an unconverted generation It is Unregeneracy that is the radical and total degeneracy of any generation whereby it is wholly turned into the degenerate plant of a strange Vine unto the Lord. Here will be our deepest and most dangerous defection and that which will prove inevitably ruining unto these Churches unless the Lord have mercy upon us O our unbelief and disobedience unto the Gospel our rejection of Christ and his Kingdome It is a most sad and lamentable sign that these Churches and Religion are falling into an irreparable irrecoverable decay That there are so many of the generation growing up under the Ministry of the Word and the improvement of all means of grace in their Vnregeneracy under the prevailing power of Spiritual Apostacy and as we have cause to fear under a dreadful dispensation of divine Justice by Spiritual Plagues and Judgements being justly given up by God unto a spirit frame and way of unprofitableness under a Judicial Ministry sent to make their heart fat lest they should be converted as Isa 6.10 O it is a fearful word Lest they should see with their eyes c. and convert and be healed Observe there is no help no healing for any people if the work of Conversion cease amongst them Truly

must also improve and exercise our Liberty in way of Love Peace Union and Communion unto mutual edification and comfort By love serving one another Gal. 5.3 O this is the onely sweet and comfortable life of Christian Liberty It is a very sinful shameful abuse of Christian Liberty to make it an occasion to the flesh to make it subservient to Libertinism to Licentiousness to carnal Reason and Policy to worldly Designs and Ends to the lusts of the flesh the lusts of men in fomenting Divisions Contentions and of making it a cloak of maliciousness 1 Pet. 2.16 Surely it is a great part of our work of Reformation to Reform these Abuses of our Christian Liberty VVe are People highly Priviledged with Christian Liberty and advantaged to the exercise of it O that we better understood it and improved it Let us alwayes remember to keep our Liberty wholly subservient unto our Religion and not set up Liberty above Religion if so we shall lose both our Religion and our Liberty together 6 Labour unto the promotion and progress of the work of Reformation by recovery of your first Love Peace and Vnion O the loss of our first Love Peace and Union hath hitherto been an irreparable loss an incurable wound concerning which we may take up our Lamentation and say Jer. 8.20 21 22. The harvest is past the summer is ended and we are not healed for the hurt of my people I am hurt I am black astonishment hath taken hold upon me Is there no Balm in Gilead is there no Physician there why then is not the hurt of the daughter of my people recovered O are our Divisions become judicial and so incurable If so our state is truly lamentable as Jer. 16.5 Thus saith the Lord Enter not into the house of mourning neither go to lament nor bemoan them for I have taken away my peace from this people saith the Lord even loving kindness and mercies If it should be so well might the hearts and hopes of all our faithful Leaders fail whose labours have hither unto much failed Surely then the recovery of our first Love Peace and Union is a chief part of the work of Reformation and will be found a very hard and difficult part of the work In order hereunto 1. We must remember from whence we are fallen O let the remembrance of the sweetness and blessedness of our first Love Peace and Union convince and humble us under the sin of our Envyings Strifes Debates Divisions Contentions and Emulations c. It was the sad state of the Church of Corinth that although they were lamentably distressed and distracted with Divisions yet they were not sensible of the sin of them but were puffed up and did glory one against another O that it were nothing so with us truly so long as it is so there will be no hope of healing O that we were convinced of the sin of our Division and the multitude of sins that are begotten by it that we might mourn penitentially and bemoan our selves before God with brokenness of heart and earnestly beseech him to pardon and to purge away all that sin and to grant us reforming grace Truly untill we are thus convinced and humbled there will be no Reformation 2. We must labour to recover our first Spirit of Love Peace and Union pray earnestly unto God to pour his Spirit upon us a Spirit of Love to pour out abundance of the grace of Love to create Love Peace and Union for us and to take away the Spirit of Division which we are so deeply corrupted withall 3. We must labour to recover our first New-England Interest that is that Interest upon which this People and these Churches were first founded as to their Religious Constitution which is God and Religion this is the onely uniting Interest our very hearts and Souls will cleave and unite most intirely in Love with Peace and Union in our God and our Religion this Interest will make a people of one heart and of one Soul Jer. 32.39 They shall be my people and I will be their God and I will give them one heart and one way to fear me Observe when a people do cleave close to God and his Covenant and so unto Religion they have one heart and one way that is sweet and perfect Unity and Amity O this is our great mischief and misery and the very original of our defection that we have much forsaken our proper New-England Interest we have committed these two great evils Jer. 2.13 Forsaken our God and hewn out Cisterns We have been changing of our main Fundamental Interest we have been deserting our own Religious Interest espousing another viz. a Worldly Interest we are turning from God after the World the World is becoming the main Interest of N. E. and we are becoming a worldly people a people of a worldly Spirit Principles Practises I do not mean onely nor so much in seeking and prosecuting the things of the World although that be enough to denominate us notoriously Worldly but our turning our very Religion it self into a Worldly Interest by making of it the subject of Carnal Confidences resting trusting and boasting in it and also by making of it the subject of Carnal Contentions and so setting Religion against it self and the Professors of it one against another and so making of it subservient unto worldly designs yea unto worldly lusts and thereby making it in our Profession and Practise of it a meer Worldly Religion yea too many do too much make their professed Confidence in God himself a worldly Interest subservient to their worldly lusts as they Mic. 3.11 Yet will they lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord in the midst of us none evil can come unto us When a worldly Spirit worldly Principles worldly Wisdome and Counsels do sway and preponderate in all matters both Civil and Religious then a people are fully and throughly setled upon a Worldly Interest and are truly become a Worldly people And then comes all kinde of Dissentions Contentions Emulations Strifes Debate c. for the World is alwayes a dividing Interest and all our Divisions are carnal and worldly 1 Cor. 3.3 Jam. 4.3 Whatever pretences of a Religious Zeal the Fomentors of Division may make it is a Worldly Spirit that foments all Divisions and it is utterly impossible that ever a worldly spirited people should unite upon sure grounds of Union or that any people should ever unite at all in a worldly Interest And therefore if we can relinquish our worldly Interest and retrive our own onely true and proper Interest which is our God and Religion set and settle our hearts again upon God and Religion this would heal all our Divisions and reform all As a change of Interest hath been the great Cause of our general defection so a change of Interest again would consummate our Reformation It is the Prescription which God gives unto that Backsliding

people for their recovery Hos 14.2.3 Take with you words and turn to the Lord and say unto him Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously c. Asshur shall not save us we will not ride upon horses neither will we say any more to the work of our hands Ye are our gods for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy I shall take leave now in the Conelusion to propose this general Exhortation unto Reformation more particularly unto those who are especially concerned as Reformers I. I crave leave to Apply my self yet with humility and sincerity as it becometh me speaking in the Name and fear of God unto Those who are or who shall be Established or Re-established this day in Place of Rule and Government among us as our Magistracy Much Honoured that which I have humbly to offer unto You in the Name of the Lord and on the behalf of this People it is this plain yet great word of Exhortation Whereby I do most humbly beseech you to labour in your Place by the utmost and most faithful improvement of your Power Interest Wisdome Grace and Spirit of Government which you have received from the Lord to promote this great Work of Reformation in all the Parts and in all the Degrees of it This Government and so this Magistracy it was through the most wife and merciful Providence of God constituted unto a more direct subserviency unto the Work of Reformation as the great and main design of it in the intentions both of God and of all his faithful People Therefore God Spirited our first Magistracy unto this Work of Reformation and prospered that glorious Work unto a very happy progress under their Civil Conduct of this Religious and Reforming people And now the Place the Power the whole Betrustment of this Reforming Magistracy it is by our Annual Election and so by a Providential Succession devolving upon You and remaineth vested in You. Therefore our eyes our hearts our hopes are under God and as to men much upon You as our Reformers It is our great hope and will be our great rejoicing to see the Plummet stin in the hand of Zerubbabel with those Seven to see a powerful and prosperous progress of the Work of Reformation under your hand labouring therein with a full concurrence of Divine Assistance True it is there are great Mountains standing before you but this is the Word of the Lord unto you Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit if the Lord Spirit you unto the Work they shall become a Plain and although the work be much declined it shall be again revived and the Topstone thereof shall be brought forth with Shoutings and Acclamations of Grace unto the glory of God It hath been a great if not the greatest Honour which God hath pu upon Civil Magistracy and that which addeth true Glory unto its Greatness That he hath made Civil Magistrates Reformers Seldome hath there been any great Work of Reformation wrought either in the Church of old or in the succeeding Ages of it but God hath made Kings Princes and Civil Magistrates his Ministers in it And alwayes in the most flourishing state of the Kingdome of Christ he hath caused the Mountains to bring peace and the little hills righteousness The Church on earth will be in the height and top of its prosperity when the Mountain of the Lords House shall be exalted in the tops of the Mountains when Kings shall be her Nursing-fathers and Queens her Nursing-mothers You have the most encouraging Examples of the most Illustrious Refor mers before you You know this people their present spirit state and way You have been with us at Massah at Meribah and at Kibroth-hattaavah where we have both tempted God and tryed you You may well say of us as Moses did of them I know thy rebellion and thy stiff neck and so you may by a solemn Contestation call Heaven and Earth to record against us as he did sometime against them You are to labour with a very immorigerous rebellious backsliding generation under an extraordinary juncture of Provocations and Temptations Difficulties and Dangers O so much the more I am imboldened in the Name of the Lord with an humble importunity to beseech your Care Constancy Courage and Faithfulness in this your great Duty lest the Ruine of this Self-destroying people should be found under your hand It will be your Glory not onely to be Reformers but Repairers and Restorers to Repair the Breach and to raise up Foundations for many Generations Such as You are in Scripture called not onely Gods but Saviours and Saviours raised up upon Mount Sion we style you so with Modesty and Sobriety in Scripture phrase and sense as still remembring that you must die like men But hereby we understand that you are concerned in betrusted with somewhat that is Sacred you cannot approve your selves to be Gods more then by the Patronage of Religion you cannot approve your selves to be Saviours more then by being Reformers Reformation will be our Salvation We are to chuse you this day for God and so doing we may hope that God will in mercy chuse you for us You being so Chosen both by God and his people are under a double and so indispensible Obligation even by your Election to be for God and for his people that is for the promotion and preservation of that which is the main Interest of God and his people here which is Religion You are to Rule not onely over Men but Christians not onely over People but the People of God therefore you are to Rule as in the fear of God so in a more peculiar manner from God and for God that God may Rule by you that you may be the Ministers of God for our good God hath set you as our Hedge and as our Wall whereby he hath enclosed this his Vineyard and all his precious and pleasant things with us he hath set you as a part of the Defence upon the Glory God doth therefore expect that you should fully Assert and Exert all that Power which he hath committed to you to be improved for the publick Weal of his people especially in and about matters of Religion which is the greatest concernment of our publick Weal Courage and Faithfulness therein is the peculiar Excellency of a Christian Magistracy the regular exercise thereof will be the Strength and Glory of your Government and the Stability and Prosperity of this people under it It is your Concernment to uphold this Government in the full and whole interest and influence of it unto all the Ends of it especially this great and main End of it the Preservation and Propogation of Religion It will be your Commendation which was holy Davids as he was eminently a Type of Christ in the Work of Reformation that the Zeal of Gods house had consumed him The hearts of the sober faithful peaceable and religious people of the Land are towards the Governours