N00254:112
Practical truths tending to promote the power of godliness
Practical truths tending to promote the power of godliness: wherein several important duties, are urged, and the evil of divers common sins, is evinced; delivered in sundry sermons. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Ten lines of Scripture texts]
printed by Samuel Green upon assignment of Samuel Sewall, 1682
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.
As for those that live under the Gospel, (though we may not limit God, who calls home his Elect, some at one age, and some at another, yet) commonly at is so; that if they do not find God in youth, they never find him. Think sadly of it, in the fear of God; you that are thirty, it may be forty years old, and yet in a natural estate to this day. And do not many neglect the present opportunity of seeking the face of God in Jesus Christ? like Felix, who said to the Apostle, Go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee, Act 24.25. But alas! he never saw ( for ought that doth appear) such another opportunity as that was. Foolish creatures neglect the present time, and by that means their Souls drop into Hell ere they are aware, and then they make a most doleful and eternal lamentation; O the seasons of Grace, ⟨p. 53⟩and hopes of mercy which once we had, are left and gone for ever. Men delay their duty, thinking with themselves hereafter we will pray. And because of this one thing, millions of immortal Souls are in Hell, where the bars of the Pit, & the gates of Death are everlastingly shut upon them.
As for those that live under the Gospel, (though we may not limit God, who calls home his Elect, some at one age, and some at another, yet) commonly at is so; that if they do not find God in youth, they never find him. Think sadly of it, in the fear of God; you that are thirty, it may be forty years old, and yet in a natural estate to this day. And do not many neglect the present opportunity of seeking the face of God in Jesus Christ? like Felix, who said to the Apostle, Go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee, Act 24.25. But alas! he never saw ( for ought that doth appear) such another opportunity as that was. Foolish creatures neglect the present time, and by that means their Souls drop into Hell e're they are aware, and then they make a most doleful and eternal lamentation; O the seasons of Grace, ⟨p. 53⟩and hopes of mercy which once we had, are left and gone for ever. Men delay their duty, thinking with themselves hereafter we will pray. And because of this one thing, millions of immortal Souls are in Hell, where the bars of the Pit, & the gates of Death are everlastingly shut upon them.