N00213:74
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.
Consider, 5. You know not how soon your finding time may be past and gone, therefore now seek the Lord; up and be doing, lest thy Sun go down at Noon, and God make the day dark over thy Soul. Dost not thou know that the Lord useth to make quick work with the Children of his Servants, when they will not seek him, albeit they have been brought up under the solemn warnings of God? It may be he will give thee up to a reprobate sense, and his Spirit for ever cease striving with thee; then woe woe be to thee, saith the Lord. Remember how it was of old: when the Sons of God, (even the posterity of godly Seth) the posterity of eminent professors of Religion, did degenerate, God said his Spirit shall strive no longer with them, Gen. 6. 3. my Spirit shall not always strive. Or death may come upon you; How many young men that have fallen down slain of late? The Sword is raging, and how are they that are of the rising Generation numbered for the Sword? Deadly Arrows are flying over your heads, yea, death is climbing in at windows, and carrying away young men apace; now if death overtake thee before thy Soul be got into the City of refuge, it had been good for thee never to have been born; It will be too late to seek the Lord then; If thou shouldest then seek him early, thou canst not find him; When once the gates of death are shut upon thee, and thou locked fast under the bars of the pit; When once thy Soul is out of thy body, in a moment it shooteth the Gulf of Eternity, and then though thou shouldest seek and cry till Heaven and Earth shakes, and pray, and weep Seas of tears of blood, all will be in vain. O thy Soul, thy Soul mustly weltering in a fiery Ocean, as long as the Eternal God shall have any Being! Can thy heart endure to think of this? No! O then seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.
Consider, 5. You know not how soon your finding time may be past and gone, therefore now seek the Lord; up and be doing, lest thy Sun go down at Noon, and God make the day dark over thy Soul. Dost not thou know that the Lord useth to make quick work with the Children of his Servants, when they will not seek him, albeit they have been brought up under the solemn warnings of God? It may be he will give thee up to a reprobate sense, and his Spirit for ever cease striving with thee; then woe woe be to thee, saith the Lord. Remember how it was of old: when the Sons of God, (even the posterity of godly Seth) the posterity of eminent professors of Religion, did degenerate, God said his Spirit shall strive no longer with them,