N00859:29
Prognostics of impending calamities. Delivered in a sermon preached on the lecture at Boston,…Prognosticks of impending calamities. Delivered in a sermon preached on the lecture at Boston,…
Prognostics of impending calamities. Delivered in a sermon preached on the lecture at Boston, July 17. 1701. Occasioned by the death of the truly Honourable, William Stoughton Esq. lieutenant governor, &c. of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [One line from Ecclesiastes]Prognosticks of impending calamities. Delivered in a sermon preached on the lecture at Boston, July 17. 1701. Occasioned by the death of the truly Honourable, William Stoughton Esq. lieutenant governour, &c. of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [One line from Ecclesiastes]
Boston: printed by B. Green & J. Allen for Nicholas Boone, 1701
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Prognostics OF Impending Calamities.Prognosticks OF Impending Calamities.
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.
4. The more capable they were of Service, the more afflictive is the loss of them. The best & ablest of men are subject to the infirmities of nature, and to lose the vigour and activity both of mind and body by sickness, and the decays of age, so that sometimes their work is next to done before they die; & now they would very gladly go to rest, if God will give them leave, when they can no longer be serviceable to him as formerly: and yet even such, although they die seasonably for themselves, may die in a bad hour for their people, and Judgments might but wait for their departure. But when they are in the verdure of their age, and in the midst of their work, engaged strenuously in the Service of God and his people now to be cut down and called off, is no small rebuke in Providence, & gives occasion for deep searchings of heart; such was the death of Josiah in our Context; he was now in his prime, and what a blessing might he have been to Judah? and what Service might he have yet done for the house of God, if he had pleased to have lengthened his days, and continued him still in his Station.
4. The more capable they were of Service, the more afflictive is the loss of them. The best & ablest of men are subject to the infirmities of nature, and to lose the vigour and activity both of mind and body by sickness, and the decays of age, so that sometimes their work is next to done before they dy; & now they would very gladly go to rest, if God will give them leave, when they can no longer be serviceable to him as formerly: and yet even such, although they dy seasonably for themselves, may dy in a bad hour for their people, and Judgments might but wait for their departure. But when they are in the verdure of their age, and in the midst of their work, engaged strenuously in the Service of God and his people now to be cut down and called off, is no small rebuke in Providence, & gives occasion for deep searchings of heart; such was the death of Josiah in our Context; he was now in his prime, and what a blessing might he have been to Judah? and what Service might he have yet done for the house of God, if he had pleased to have lengthened his days, and continued him still in his Station.