N01545:101
Two discourses showing, I. That the Lords ears are open to the prayers of…Two discourses shewing, I. That the Lords ears are open to the prayers of…
Two discourses showing, I. That the Lords ears are open to the prayers of the righteous. II. The dignity & duty of aged servants of the Lord. : Also, a preface in which the Congregational discipline of the churches in New-England is vindicated, with the authors dying testimony there-unto. / By I. Mather, D.D. ; [Four lines of quotations]Two discourses shewing, I. That the Lords ears are open to the prayers of the righteous. II. The dignity & duty of aged servants of the Lord. : Also, a preface in which the Congregational discipline of the churches in New-England is vindicated, with the authors dying testimony there-unto. / By I. Mather, D.D. ; [Four lines of quotations]
printed by B. Green for Daniel Henchman, 1716
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.
Inst. 4. Aged Persons who are Strangers to the way of righteousness are very Miserable. The hoary head which Providence has favoured them with, for want of righteousness to adorn it, will prove an aggravation of their Sin and Misery. Would you know who is the most Miserable Creature on the face of the Earth? It is an ungodly ⟨p. 107⟩Old Man. Isai. 65.20. The sinner of an hundred years old shall be cursed. O how cursed! yet there are such Miserable Creatures in the World. There are Old Atheists. Ezek. 8.12. Hast thou seen what the Ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark. They say, the Lord seeth us not. Such Atheists are they. And there are Old Liars, Old Drunkards, Old Lascivious Wretches: Such […] are Old in Adulteries, Ezek. 23.43. Whoever escape destruction from God, such Sinners shall not. There was a destroying Angel sent to Jerusalem with a slaughter weapon in his hand, and a positive order to destroy utterly: but who did he slay in the first place? Ezek. 9.6. He began at the Ancient men. They because of their long continuance in Sin best deserved the destruction. For the longer Men live in their Unregenerate Estate, the more Sin they will have to answer for at the Day of Judgment. All the Sins ⟨p. 108⟩of their Youth, and of their Middle Age, and of their Old Age, will lye down in the Grave with them, and go to Hell with them, and rise up in Judgment against them at the dreadful day. Of an Old Sinner it is said, His bones are full of the sins of his youth, which shall lye down with him in the dust, Job 20.11. Woe to the Old Impenitent Sinner, for he has only done evil before the Lord from his youth, Jer. 32.30. His grey hairs would have been a crown to him, if he had Served God, but the crown is fallen from his head, woe unto him that he has sinned. How much Sin is a wicked man guilty of in one Year? But then if he shall live Sixty or Seventy Years, & all that time continue Sinning against God, what a Prodigious heap of guilt, will he have contracted on his woeful Soul! God has given an Old Sinner a large space to Repent in, and that will aggravate his Impenitency and Condemnation, as it