A26953:25
Memorables of the life of faith taken out of Mr. B's sermon preached before…
Memorables of the life of faith taken out of Mr. B's sermon preached before the King at Whitehall : published thus for the poor that want money and memory / by one desirous to promote the common salvation.
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1690
No title page in the transcription: set from the catalogue record.
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.
A. All that have it, tho' in the lowest degree, will have these four signs of it within them. 1. A Practical Estimation of things unseen, above all earthly things. 2. An Habitual Inclination of heart to embrace unseen things freely, delightfully, and resolutely; above and against earthly things. 3. A Bent of Life for God, and for unseen Blessedness, as in Resolution, so in Practice. 4. A Disposition to let go all sensible possessions, when they be inconsistent with spiritual Hopes and Happiness; Luk. 14. 33. So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. These you will have, if Faith be the Eye you do see by for the conduct of your Life.
Q. 7. If Faith be the Eye by which I do see, whereby should I quicken my self to live by it? Or if it be not, wherewithal should I stir up my self to seek Faith and the Life of Faith?
A. Put to thy Heart these questions, frequently and seriously. Q. 1. What should I be, if I saw the Lord continually before me? And that as verily as I ever see a man? If I saw him as Moses saw him, Exod. 34. Or as John saw him, Rev. 1. 13. And in the midst of the seven Candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. Or as St. Paul saw him, Acts 9. Q. 2. What should I be if I had seen the things that God hath done already in time past? If I had seen the World drowned and the Ark saved; Sodom and Gomorrah burned, and the righteous Lot saved; Pharaoh and his Host swallowed up of the red Sea, and the Israelites saved? And the like memorables of the H. Scripture. Q. 3. What should I be, if I saw the glory of Heaven above? If I were rapt up but into the third Heaven, and had seen what St. Paul saw. If I had seen what St. Stephen saw before his Death. If I had seen Lazarus in Abraham's Bosom? Q. 4. What should I be, if I saw the face of Death, and were under the power of a mortal sickness, and were given over by all Physicians and Friends? Or had a Messenger from God to tell me, I must die to morrow? Q. 5. What should I be if I saw the great and dreadful day of Judgment as Christ doth describe it?