A62050:67
Ouranos kai tartaros= heaven and hell epitomized. The true Christian characterized. As also an…
Ouranos kai tartaros= heaven and hell epitomized. The true Christian characterized. As also an exhortation with motives, means and directions to be speedy and serious about the work of conversion. By George Swinnocke M.A. sometime fellow of Balliol College in Oxford, and now preacher of the Gospel at Rickmersworth in Hertfordshire.Ouranos kai tartaros= heaven and hell epitomized. The true Christian characterized. As also an exhortation with motives, means and directions to be speedy and serious about the work of conversion. By George Swinnocke M.A. sometime fellow of Baliol Colledge in Oxford, and now preacher of the Gospel at Rickmersworth in Hertfordshire.
London: printed by E.M. for Tho. Parkhurst, 1659
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.
Fourthly, Make Religion and the worshipping and glorifying the great God the great business of thy whole life. Improve all thy time, power, estate, interests, and talents whatsoever to the utmost, for the honour of God, and thine own everlasting good. Look on thy self as created, preserved, supplied with nightly, daily, hourly mercies (not for the service of thy flesh, no, that end were mean and low, but) that thou mightest be enabled unto and encouraged in the service of the glorious God; Surely saith that noble Lord Du Plessi•, 1If all the world were made for man, then man was made for more then the world. All the favours thou enjoyest are but baits laid by God to catch thy soul; as they come all from him, so let them be improved all for him. It is godliness alone that will hold out when thou comest to the greatest ⟨image 27⟩hardships at the day of affliction and the hour of thy dissolution. The good man and his godliness are like Saul and Jonathan, lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they are not divided, therefore exercise thy self unto godliness. It may be, thou art one to whom God hath given much in the world; I must tell thee that much will be required of thee; the greater thy receipts are, the greater thy returns must be, and the larger thy disbursements for God; make to thy self friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness, that when that faileth, thou mayest be received into the Celestial habitation. The way to get that which thou canst not part with, is by charity to part with that which thou canst not keep. Thou canst not carry thy bags to heaven; it is good to take bills of exchange from the poor, whereby thou mayest receive there what thou couldst not carry thither; Laudent te esurientium viscera, non ructantium opulenta convivia, saith Hierom. It is storied of Alexander, that having given away almost all he had, one of his friends asked him where his treasure was; he answered, pointing to the poor, In scriniis, in his chest. He asked him what he had left ⟨image 27⟩for himself; Alexander answers, spem majorum. Let thy charity especially relate to the souls of people. What were it for thee to maintain four or six poor children at School, whereby they may come to read, and learn to know the way to life? Doth it not grieve thee to understand the gross ignorance of many!