A85486:149
The right wayThe right vvay
The right way: or A direction for obtaining good success in a weighty enterprise. Set out in a sermon preached on the 12th of September, 1648. before the Lords on a day of humiliation for a blessing on a treaty between His Majesties and the Parliaments commissioners. / By W. Gouge.The right vvay: or A direction for obtaining good successe in a weighty enterprise. Set out in a sermon preached on the 12th of September, 1648. before the Lords on a day of humiliation for a blessing on a treaty between His Majesties and the Parliaments commissioners. / By W. Gouge.
London: printed by A. Miller for Joshua Kirton, 1648London: printed by A. Miller for Ioshua Kirton, 1648
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Blessing is to be sought for our young children.1
- 1Observ. 12.
Even for such as cannot seek it for themselves. Their welfare is a means of continuing not the world only, but the Church also in the world. We are mortal, and shall not always abide here to serve the Lord. As our fathers, who served God in their generations, are gone, so shall we after a short time: God knows how soon. But by procuring Gods blessing on our little ones, they may grow up, they may know God and serve him in their generation, after we are taken from them. Thus may the eternal God be everlastingly served by mortal men: one generation serving him after another. To sharpen our prayers, and strengthen our faith in craving a blessing for our little ones, we may plead before God that which God himself says of the children of the Israelites, that they were born to him, and were his children, Ezek. 16. 20, 21. On this ground, though our unworthiness make us fear that God may curse them rather then bless them, because they are ours, yet we may herewith uphold our spirits, that they are Gods children, born to him: and thereupon pray that God for his own sake would bless them.
Even for such as cannot seek it for themselves. Their welfare is a means of continuing not the world only, but the Church also in the world. We are mortall, and shall not alwaies abide here to serve the Lord. As our fathers, who served God in their generations, are gone, so shall we after a short time: God knows how soon. But by procuring Gods blessing on our little ones, they may grow up, they may know God and serve him in their generation, after we are taken from them. Thus may the eternall God be everlastingly served by mortall men: one generation serving him after another. To sharpen our praiers, and strengthen our faith in craving a blessing for our little ones, we may plead before God that which God himself sais of the children of the Israelites, that they were born to him, and were his children,