N00318:197
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 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 N. England.A call from heaven, to the present and succeeding generations or A discourse wherein 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 N. England.
Boston: printed by R.P. i.e for I. Brunning i.e, 1685
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.
The eye that mocketh at his father▪ and despiseth to obey his mother, the Ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young eagles shall eat it. Intimating that such children are like to come unto miserable and shameful deaths at last. Again, Lying is a sin which Childhood and Youth is for the most part deeply guilty of, Psal. 58.3. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. How natural is it for Children to commit a fault, and then to excuse it by telling a lye! Art thou a lying child? then the Devil is thy Father, and except thou repent of this sin and beware of it for the time to come, when once thy soul is out of thy body, it must be cast into that lake which burneth with fire & brimstone which is the second death, Joh. 8.44. […]. 21.8. So for breaches of the seventh Commandment, they are youthful Lusts: Wherefore Solomon saith that he looked out of the Window of his house, & discerned among the youths a young man void of understandUnderstanding, ⟨p. 153⟩and he was going to an Whore house like an Ox to the slaughter, or a fool to the correction of the Stocks, not knowing that it is for his life, nor considering that her house is the way to Hell, going down to the Chambers of Death, Prov, 7.7. &c. Young men whose natures are not changed by the regenerating grace of the Spirit of God, do usually live in some unclean lust or other. Either Fornication, or self-pollution or in secret wanton pranks of darkness. You young men whose consciences accuse you of guilt before the Lord in respect of these evils, I charge you in the name of God, that you humble your selves deeply in his sight for past Transgressions, and sin no more as ever you desire to escape eternal Damnation, Though these cursed lusts may be as dear to you as life and limbs, yet better to pluck out the right eye, to cut off the right hand, than that thy whole body should be cast into hell fire, where the worm dyeth not and where the fire never shall be quenched.
The eye that mocketh at his father▪ and despiseth to obey his mother, the Ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young eagles shall eat it. Intimating that such children are like to come unto miserable and shameful deaths at last. Again, Lying is a sin which Childhood and Youth is for the most part deeply guilty of,