N01264:29
Compassions called for. An essay of profitable reflections on miserable spectacles
Compassions called for. An essay of profitable reflections on miserable spectacles. : To which is added, A faithful relation of some late, but strange occurrences that call for an awful and useful consideration. Especially distresses and deliverances, of a company lately shipwrecked on a desolate rock, on the coast of New-England. ; [Three lines of Scripture texts]Compassions called for. An essay of profitable reflections on miserable spectacles. : To which is added, A faithful relation of some late, but strange occurrences that call for an awful and useful consideration. Especially distresses and deliverances, of a company lately shipwreck'd on a desolate rock, on the coast of New-England. ; [Three lines of Scripture texts]
printed by B. Green, 1711
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.
Our Amiable and Admirable JESUS, ⟨p. 10⟩had often before Him, Heart-affecting Spectacles. How did He Entertain them? We read, He was Grieved. We read, He Sigh'd. We read, He Wept. We read, He was moved with Compassion. His Holy Soul was full of Agony. Oh, How He laid to Heart, the Evil which He saw that the First Adam had brought upon the World! His Heart broke, and bled upon it! When He saw any Good, He Cried out, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven & Earth! And for the Good He did! He went about, still doing of Good. Yea, the Sun in the Firmament, it never did the Good, that was done by this Brighter Sun of Righteousness.
¶ I am now ready to set before your Eyes, O Congregation of the Lord, a Number of Heart-affecting Spectacles. They are Made already. They need only to be Shown. It may be, some of you have never taken due Notice of them. I am going therewithal to show you, How your Hearts are to be Affected with them.
I. Look Inward. The First Counsel, to ⟨p. 11⟩be always given; Look Inward. Let every Man, and especially every Unregenerate Man, Look Inward upon the state of his own SOUL; And, Oh, Let him own it, a most Heart-affecting Spectacle. Man, Cast an Eye upon thy own Soul! Say, was there ever such a woeful, such a rueful Spectacle? What a Spectacle is the Leper? Or, the Creature described, Isa. I. 6. From the sole of the Foot, even unto the Head, no soundness; but wounds, & bruises, & putrefying sores! Thy Soul, thy Soul, is under such a Leprosy. A Soul Wounded in all its Faculties. Blind, unable to see Truth; Lame, Unable to do Right. A Soul, full of Enmity to GOD, and all Goodness. A Soul, Depraved with most Vicious Inclinations. A Soul, Enslaved unto Satan, and the Powers of Darkness. A Soul, Born under the Guilt of Original sin, and by the Guilt of That; and, Oh! what an Enormous Heap of Actual sin! bound over to suffer the strange Punishment, which the Justice of God assigns to the Workers of Iniquity. A Perishing SOUL! A Soul every moment in danger of Eternal Perdition! Verily, An Unregenerate