N00355:116
A sermon occasioned by the execution of a man found guilty of murder preached…
A sermon occasioned by the execution of a man found guilty of murder preached at Boston in N.E. March 11th 1685[/]6. : (Together with the confession, last expressions & solemn warning of that murderer to all persons; especially to young men, to beware of those sins which brought him to his miserable end.) / By Increase Mather, teacher of church of Christ.
Boston: printed by R.P. i.e, 1687
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.
Then 2. Cry to Heaven that you may be ⟨p. 68⟩Enabled to Look unto the Lord Jesus Christ▪ The Case is so that you cannot look unto Jesus Christ until you see that you cannot look. Never will you aright look, unto Jesus Christ, if you do it not with Sentiments a kin to that in Joh. 6. 44. No man can come (or look) unto Jesus Christ except the Father draw him. No, we have bin told by the heavenly Records, concerning this Look of Faith, that it is the gift of God. That it is the Operation of GOD, and that it is caused by the mighty power of God. It was asked of old in Joh. 6. 44. How can ye believe? Such an humbling Quaere should you put unto your selves, How can I look unto Jesus Christ? Certainly you can as easily make Iron swim, and ponderous Mountains to fly like Atoms about the Air, and bulky Rocks to place themselves among the shining stars in the Firmament of God, as look unto Jesus Christ by any Abilities of your […]. If you would not have your Faith prove a Cobweb in the day when the fiery Besom of Destruction shall sweep the world, you mus• first say with him in Psal. 40. 12. I am not able to look up. Now with a bleeding soul, on the precipice of an inevitable Hell, make your moans as the man did in Mar. 9. 24. Lord […] my ••belief. Now say; O Lord I must believe or die, I may believe and live; but I cannot, O I cannot. Do thou draw me, do thou turn me, or I shall yet miscarry. Do thou work ⟨p. 69⟩this work of thine own in me and for me. In the whole of my Salvation will at length redound to thy Honour. Not unto me, not unto me, but unto Thee, O Lord will be all the Glory. Hereupon: Labour to look as well as you can unto Jesus Christ for All that Salvation which He has to confer upon you. There is a probable likelihood that the issue of your struggling after faith may be this, That the Lord Jesus Christ will say unto you, as once unto deceased Lazarus, O thou dead Soul, arise. Watch now to follow him as Peter did the Angel in Act 12. 9. till you have got out of the Goal which you have on a Light fire over your heads. Tis possible and more than so, that Jesus Christ may now do by you as he did to that man in