N01264:30
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.
¶ 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 ⟨p. 12⟩Soul, is the most Lamentable Spectacle in the World! Imagine a man Deformed in every Limb, Deprived of every Sense; Over-run with Loathsome Ulcers. Imagine a Poor Man, Starving to Death, or Burning at the Stake, or Breaking on the Rack; Tragical Spectacles! O Unregenerate, Thy SOUL, Thy SOUL, is worse than all of This. What a Spectacle is foretold; Deut. XXVIII. 67. In the Morning thou shalt say, Would God it were Evening: And at Evening thou shalt say, Would God it were Morning: for the Fear of thine Heart, wherewith thou shalt fear, & for the sight of thine Eyes, which thou shalt see. Alas, Alas, Unregenerate; The sight of thine Eyes, which thou mayst see, is as Astonishing!