Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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A60132
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An exhortation to youth to prepare for judgment A sermon occasion'd by the late repentance and funeral of a young man. Deceased September 29. 1681.
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Shower, John, 1657-1715.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing S3664; ESTC R214018
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26,182
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49
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But let us make it our business to recover as many Souls as we can to God and when any are regain'd and born anew according to that ancient Idea of having all Children taken for the Children of the Common-wealth let us whoever was the happy instrument account they are neither mine nor yours but the Children of the Christian Church of the Common-wealth of Israel the Sons of God and a part of the Redeemers Seed How great will the common Joy be upon all such occasions And God will rejoyce over us all to do us good with all his heart and with all his Soul and to use us for the doing of much His Co-operation and Blessing may then be cheerfully expected when our united strength and endeavour is aimed all one way and directed to ends great and noble worthy of God and which he will not disdain or count it dishonourable and unfit to concur unto It will surely one day come to this Nor is it to be despaired of but that the late work of God's Grace upon this young man though since prematurely taken away may be the earnest and pledge of more of the same blessed kind and this Birth part of the first Fruits of a Pious Generation to succeed wherein Religion shall live and be transmitted in greater rigour to them that shall come after Our hope lies mostly among such And we earnestly desire you that are young and in the prime of your age and strength seriously to consider how much the stress of a Religious Interest for future time in England depends upon you Which that you may to better purpose consider also how much you more peculiarly have of present hope in your own case God hath a kindness for your Age makes his first applications to you at your entrance upon the common affairs and business of humane Life that you would then bethink your selves of him as your Creatour and consider how you came into the World whence it would not be difficult to collect for what He covets the beginning of strength his Soul desires the first ripe fruits And you have reason to be consident that what he seeks he will accept if you consecrate them to him as the first fruits were the sacred devoted part Some of you may perhaps already discern in your selves vicious inclinations but your vices are not yet so deeply rooted nor are so fixedly habitual as theirs who are grown old in Sin and estrangement from God You have not so oft grieved his good Spirit You have not resisted so many checks of Conscience nor stifled so many convictions as many others have You have a merciful God to deal with Those are his own words Prov. 1.23 and spoken more especially to such as you as you will see looking back to v. 4. Turn ye at my reproof behold I will pour out my Spirit to you Vnto that great God the Maker and Lord of Heaven and Earth you have been solemnly devoted Consider how great and awful names the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost were in your Baptism named upon you You are as truly obliged hereby as you are to your natural Prince though perhaps you have not as yet taken in your own Persons the Oath of Allegiance You would think it a reproach and it would probably prove a ruin to you to begin your course of commerce in the world with Treachery and Falshood Is it more Just or Prudent and Safe to deal deceitfully with your God than with men Do not think he is to be less the object of your Love Fear and Obedience for that you see him not How many Subjects in England have never seen the face of their King and are they the less bound to be Loyal and Obedient And how are you bound but for the sake of this invisible Lord and in him You have not seen your own Soul or whatever you will call the vital Principle in you which yet you are sure you have for can you not distinguish your living body from a dead are you not sure you live and do you not love your own life tho' you have not seen the very Principle it self which you live by the God you have not seen is as near you In him you live move and have your being You have great encouragement and obligation to seek the Lord that you may even feel Acts 17. and find him out who is so little far from any of you You are his Ofspring as the Holy Apostle tells you in the words of an Heathen that you might understand it to be no new or strange notion but even then ancient and common He is the Author and Parent of your Life and Being It is unnatural to affect distance and strangeness to your own Father It is through the high excellency of his nature that you see him not And he is the object therefore of your more excellent faculties You have a mind capable of knowing him and a will of choosing him for your God if they were made pure and holy and aright directed towards him which his Grace and Spirit can soon effect in you when you seriously seek and rely upon them 'T is of greatest concernment to you to have his Favour in whose Power you are and in whose Hand your Breath is And can you be exempt from his Power who made you and all things if you doubt whether he can dispose of you reward or punish you was not the making of this World a greater thing you cannot be so imposed upon if you use your understandings as to be made believe that it made it self For could you if you were not make your selves and were it easier for all things than for you And you may sensibly perceive if you will but reflect and use your thoughts that you are Subject to a Superiour Over-ruling Power that there is a Lord over you and that you live not according to your own wills For are you never sick against your wills or in pain against your wills and do you not know you must one day dye tho' you be never so unwilling is it not better to have that mighty Lord your Friend than your Enemy in his Favour is life And he is in a Redeemer reconcileable to you Read seriously 2 Cor. 5.17 18 19 20 21. Kingdoms and Nations are thrown into confusion if he be displeased and no course be taken for seasonable reconciliation * Jer. 18.7.8.9 10. And can you stand before his anger he hath long been England's God your God and your Forefathers Do not you in your own minds esteem that wise and sage counsel thy Friend and thy Fathers Friend forsake thou not * Pro. 27.10 How much more thy God and thy Fathers God! It lies upon you whether he shall continue the God of England The parental right derived unto young ones continues the visible relation while their nonage lasts and incapacity to treat and capitulate for themselves But
he had indulged to youthful Lusts delighted in wicked company liv'd in the prophanation of the Sabbath and made a mock of every thing almost that was Serious And this notwithstanding the counsels of his Friends and some checks of his own Conscience sadly bemoaning his forlorn state as having little or no hope to find mercy at the hand of God and penitently confessing his own willfulness and folly that procur'd it to himself and thereupon cry'd out in the bitterness of his Soul Oh! had I believ'd and known what now I do I would have been more concerned to Secure my Everlasting Intrest I would have taken more care to avoid Temptation I would have imploy'd my Time to better purposes and attended the ministry of the Word in another manner c. But I fear 't is now too late And then with the greatest importunity did beg of God to pardon and forgive him for the sake of Christ then tossing from place to place wringing his hands and lifting up his eyes to Heaven with the affecting vehemence of a despairing Soul did beseech the assistance of those about him to seek to God on his behalf Oh pray for me pray for me for Christ's sake pray for me That if yet Mercy may be had the Lord would take pitty on a miserable Sinner O my Sins are a burden too heavy for me to bear I have Sin'd tho' God stood by and saw me I have Sin'd tho' my Conscience did rebuke me for it again I have Sin'd tho' I resolv'd to Sin no more I know not what to do or which way to turn c. for with such words as these did he bewail himself and signifie the horrors of an accusing Conscience Nevertheless for the support of his Relations and the encouragement of all returning Sinners I am willing to add That a little before his change which was suddain and unexpected when his Friends began to entertain some hopes of his recovery his Spirit was more compos'd and calm his distracting Terrors much abated and the overwhelming fears of Death and Judgment very much subdu'd and overcome In his confessions of sin he own'd and aggravated his crimes with the greatest freedom with a deep remorse of Spirit and an hearty serious sense and feeling of what he spake He did not go about to palliate or excuse his former wickedness to lessen or diminish it by shifting the blame on the subtilty of the Devil the bias and inclination of a bodily Temper the Corrupution of humane nature or the persuasions of Evil Company c. altho' this last he did very much lament as the greatest snare to his Soul and a principal occasion of his youthful sins and apprehended Ruine Among other sins which an accusing Conscience told him of one that did more particularly affect his heart and burden his soul was the sin of Lying I mention this with an unfeigned desire that all young Persons Apprentices especially would remember this Example and resolve against it There is one thing more which I named first and would here take notice of I mean his Scoffing Humour and this he acknowledged with a great deal of remorse and shame that when first he was an hearer in this place he came with a design to droll upon the Sermon and deride the Preacher But not meeting with any thing on which to break a Jest or occasion mirth and laughter nothing but what was serious becoming the reverence and awfulness of holy things and suited to the solemn work and service of a Sabbath he resolv'd to come again and accordingly for some time did so I cannot say how long with other thoughts of my Brethren and me and of the serious plainness of this our way of worship than his former Ignorance and prejudices would suffer him to admit and thanks be to God he is not the only Instance of this kind Therefore I cannot but subjoyn that as Religion is not the less excellent because some Fools despise it nor sin the less destructive because there be some Atheistical Scoffers who make a mock of sin neither is plain and serious Preaching with the purity and simplicity of Gospel-worshiop any whit the more Contemptible because some that sit in the chair of Scorners deride and run it down since these kind of Scoffers are usually such as cast off all thoughts of God and an after-reckoning and are no way influenc'd by the consideration of a future Life to whom Heaven and Hell are words of sport and the Sacred Scripture matter of derision For none methinks who are serious in the practice of Religion and make a conscience of their words and actions should dare to make a mock of the worship of God or those that joyn therein whether Ministers or people only upon the account of some little difference from that method and way of worship which they like best when the substance and design of both is apparently the same and believ'd to be so Did men but understand what they profess by owning Christianity did they but believe what they understand and practice what they pretend to believe a meer Reverence and Just regard to holy Things would most certainly give a check to this Scoffing Humour in reference to those who cannot in all respects conform to their measures 6. Lastly Consider the dreadfulness and the Terror of this final Judgment in its self and its certain and immediate Consequences to every unprepared sinner whether young or old When the blessed Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels to take the Throne by his Father's order and Judge the World in righteousness when he that stoop'd from Heaven to Earth to be a sacrifice for sin that watcht and pray'd and sweat drops of blood for you and me that endured the Contradiction of sinners against himself in the days of his flesh suffer'd the Cruelty of men and the Wrath of his Father and the Cursed Death of the Cross upon our account shall come again as the Judge of quick and dead we shall then have other thoughts of him and of our selves than now we entertain Sirs he now offers you a pardon as the purchase of his Death on easy honourable and advantageous terms But it will be then too late and in vain to beg it He now warns you of your danger and tells you that the end of youthful lusts is Death and Judgment and eternal Wrath. And then you shall know that he spake in earnest and his words were true Now as a merciful Redeemer he entreats you to be reconcil'd he shall then be clothed with vengeance and appear to your confusion as a Terrible Judge At first he came in the form of a Servant to make our Peace with God and was thereupon despised and rejected of men But he shall shortly come again to render vengeance to those that would not know him as a Prince and a Prophet receive his message and yeild obedience to his Holy Gospel Now he offers