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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.
3. You are by the Law of God and man, for this Sin declared to be a person whom the earth ⟨p. 89⟩cannot bent. The Creation groans under you is a common Enemy to mankind, and one who by the positive and indispensable Command of God must fly to the pit and no man must stay you, Prov. 28. 17. This is the Decree of God, and the righteous Sentence of man concerning you.
You are yet but a young man, and according to ordinary course might have lived many years in this world, had not your over-much Wickedness brought you to die before your time, as Eccles. 7. 17. Not before God's time, but before your time, i. e. before that time which is usual for man, whose days are reckoned threescore and ten, and sometimes four score years. Ps. 9. 10. Also before your time which probably you had lotted on, and which men too often do promise themselves. Such as upon any awakenings of Conscience and Calls to Repentance, delay & put it off while in their Youth, it is upon a promise of repenting when they are old, and how many in that sense die before their time!
You are yet but a young man, and according to ordinary course might have lived many years in this world, had not your over-much Wickedness brought you to dy before your time, as Eccles. 7. 17. Not before God's time, but before your time, i. e. before that time which is usual for man, whose dayes are reckoned threestore and ten, and sometimes four score years. Ps. 9. 10. Also before your time which probably you had lotted on, and which men too often do promise themselvs. Such as upon any awakenings of Conscience and Calls to Repentance, delay & put it off while in their Youth, it is upon a promise of repenting when they are old, and how many in that sense die before their time!