N00597:80
Solemn advice to young men, not to walk in the ways of their heart,…Solemn advice to young men, not to walk in the wayes of their heart,…
Solemn advice to young men, not to walk in the ways of their heart, and in the sight of their eyes; but to remember the Day of Judgment. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard College in Cambridge, & preacher of the Gospel at Boston, in New-England. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]Solemn advice to young men, not to walk in the wayes of their heart, and in the sight of their eyes; but to remember the Day of Judgment. / By Increase Mather, praesident of Harvard Colledge in Cambridge, & preacher of the Gospel at Boston, in New-England. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]
printed by Bartholomew Green. Sold by Samuel Phillips, 1695
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. Sin makes men Miserable. And it is therefore an hateful thing. Men hate to be miserable, but then let them hate sin the procuring cause of all their Miseries. Jer. 2. 17, 19. Hast thou not procured this unto thy self—Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy back slidings shall reprove thee, know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts. All Temporal Judgments are the bitter fruit of sin. There are Public Calamities, which cause Lamentation generally ⟨p. 79⟩throughout a whole Land which suffers under the weight of them; such as Wars, Famines, Pestilential and wasting diseases which leave great desolations behind them. These are procured by sin, Mic. 1. 8. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. There are Judgments which fall upon particular Families; sometimes a great Family is brought to ruin: Thus it was with the house of Jeroboam, Ahab and others whom we read of in Scripture; and it was sin that provoked the Lord to destroy them all. As for the man that shall do very wickedly, the Lord saith, I will set my face against that man, and against his Family and will cut him off, Lev. 20. 5. Nay, which is awful to consider, if a Godly man shall through the power of Temptation become guilty of a Scandalous sin, it may be God to testify his holy displeasure at the sin of that good man will destroy all his Family: What came on Gideons numerous Family after he was dead and his Soul in Heaven? because of their Fathers sin, threescore and ten persons of them were Murdered in one day. Gideon made an Ephod, and that became a ruining snare to his house. We have another sad instance for this in Eli: A good ⟨p. 80⟩old man, but very sinfully indulgent to his Children: The Lord said concerning him, Behold I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the Ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle: In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house,