N00213:196
A call from heaven to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherein…A call from heaven to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherin…
A call from heaven to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherein is showed, I. That the children of godly parents are under special advantages and encouragements to seek the Lord. : II. The exceeding danger of apostasy, especially as to those that are the children and posterity of such as have been eminent for God in their generation. : III. That young men ought to remember God their creator. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Nine lines of quotations]A call from heaven to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherin is shewed, I. That the children of godly parents are under special advantages and encouragements to seek the Lord. : II. The exceeding danger of apostasie, especially as to those that are the children and posterity of such as have been eminent for God in their generation. : III. That young men ought to remember God their creator. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Nine lines of quotations]
Boston: printed by John Foster, 1679
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.
By way of Direction.
1. Beware of those sins especially which they that are in their Childhood and Youth are most subject unto, and apt to be carried away from God by. 2.Tim.2.22. Flee youthful lusts, […], those sins which Youth is mostly exposed ⟨p. 108⟩unto. It is infinite mercy to be kept pure from the corruptions of Youth. If ever you should find grace to repent of the sins of Youth, and so to obtain the pardon of them, yet they will be bitterness and shame to you all your days. Those vanities of Youth, which now thou art so foolish as to delight in, it may be they will be a trouble to thee forty years hence, shouldst thou live so long. Doth not Job complain saying, Thou makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. Job.13.26. And did not holy David pray, as in Psal.25.7. Remember not the sins of my youth, And doth not converted Ephraim make an humble confession concerning the sins of Youth, Jer. 31. 19. I was ashamed, yea even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my Youth. So it is, that the remembrance of the sins & vanities of Youth, are matter of reproach & shame a long time after: yea the very thought of them doth fill the soul that is truly converted, with an holy confusion of face. Beware then of the sins of Youth▪ To instance in some particulars, Pride is a […] that young ones are very much under the power of Hence we see that young people are strangely addicted to vanity in Apparel: Proud fashions they must and will follow, there's no persuading them to the contrary: but beware of that sin. So for stubbornness and disobedience to Superiors, it is an evil that Youth is very subject unto. You that are Servants, young men and maids that are here before the Lord; have not you been guilty of stubborn, disobedient carriage towards your Masters? though God in his word tells you that you ought to be obedient to them with fear and trembling,