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A55560
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The beauty, vigour and strength of youth bespoke for God in a sermon lately preached to young men / by Thomas Powell ...
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Powell, Thomas, 1608-1660.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing P3069; ESTC R33947
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28,699
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91
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shalt say I have no pleasure in them Is it not better to live than die turn than burn O Sirs persist not till it be too late but choose God your chiefest Good onely Good suitable Good and everlasting Good Fifthly To Remember our Creator implies a due Considering what may Please or Displease him Col. 1. 10. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing But how few are there that make this their work studying how to please God Doth not the Course of their Lives rather tend to the contrary Who lives to please God but rather to displease him How little is Gods Favour now adayes esteemed of Most of us are ambitious of doing things that may please Persons highly dignified in this World but the pleasing of God is look'd upon as a superfluity and that which may be as well omitted as perform'd as if Gods good word would not honour us so much as a Mortals and His Favour do us more good than the Favour of Man whose breath is in his Nostrils and must suddenly perish Mans Favour is good in its place but when compar'd with Gods there is vast difference as to the Nature Property Effects and Perpetuity of it Foolish therefore is he who preferres the pleasing of Man before the pleasing of God and chooseth rather the one than the other that can remember what pleaseth the Creature but not what pleaseth the Creator This is preferring the less before the greater and the Servant before the Master How stands it therefore with us Are Gods Smiles our Heaven and his Frowns our Hell Is there nothing that we take in hand but we seriously pensitate and ponder it in our Minds saying with our selves Will this and that make for Gods Glory if so I 'le do it if not I shall forbear But Oh Christians how many are remiss in this kind of spiritual Exercise excusing themselves with Phrases that will not excuse them at the Day of Judgement This is too strict say some what need is there of it say others and Who can do so is the language of many But I wish I might have the Opportunity of telling part of my Mind to such persons Is there not a Necessity of Remembring our Creator if we would prosper but can we remember him aright if we please him not and if we please him not can we be saved Sixthly To Remember our Creator implies a remembring his Mercies and retaining a thank full sense thereof Psal. 106. 21. They forgat God their Saviour which had done great things in Egypt Doest thou often think on the Mercies of God so frequently and bountifully conferred on thee Doest thou often revish thy Soul in calling Mercies past to mind living upon Mercies present and depending upon Mercies to come Remember your Creator will surely bear this Interpretation without any wrong to the words Remember what your Creator has done for you his Mercies bestowed on you in such and such a kind at such and such a Time in such and such a Place among such and such Company It is a sign that we sincerely esteem and heartily remember a Friend when we do not forget his Kindness but do even write them down in our Memorandum Book And so it stands good in this Case also if we say we remember God and forget his Mercies we lie and the Truth is not in us it being that which cannot stand together Such who have received Mercies from the hands of God yea such Mercies without which they could not have subsisted and yet are unthankfull forgetting both God and his Benefits too surely such of all are most ungratefull Mercies above us and beneath us Mercies before us and behind us Mercies on the right hand and on the left renders us if still we are barren the most ungratefull Monsters that ever lived on Earth To be unthankfull where there is the greatest reason of being thankfull is Folly in the Abstract And where Mercy is not a Load-stone to draw to God it will be a Mill-stone to sink into Hell Vinegar you know 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Filius Vini and the sweetest Wine degenerates into the sharpest vinegar And as nothing is more cold than Lead yet nothing more scalding than that when melted so nothing is more sweet than mercy when thankfully received yet nothing more terrible than that when abused Grace abused turns to fury and Mercies forgotten turn to sore Wrath. Seventhly and lastly To Remember our Creator is to serve and obey him and this indeed is the summe of all Deut. 8. 11. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God in not keeping his Commandments and his Iudgements and his Statutes which I command thee this day Many nay more serve the Devil and their own Lusts than there do serve God God made man for himself but he hath less from him than any other Creature Man should serve God and that in the first place but instead thereof he serves himself first the Devil and his Lusts first Oh wonderfull Degeneration and the Cursedness of our lapsed Estate One would think it incredible that the Creature should not serve the Creator we may Wonder at it indeed and yet Believe it we must because that it is nothing is more certain God who is Truth it self hath said so and we by daily Experience find it so here then is a Mystery of Iniquity That Man should Renounce God who made him and Side with the Devil who hates him and will Eternally destroy him if still sided with That Man should take more Delight in Self-destruction than in Self-felicitating That Man should sell himself to sin and take more delight therein than in Obeying one reasonable Commandement Why should all this be O vain man Are the wayes of God unequal his Demands impossible his Commands intollerable Have a care of harbouring hard thoughts of God who hath said that his Yoak is easie and his burden is light Matth. 11. 29. If thou hast but a mind to be engaged in the Service of God let not the Difficulties that attend it discourage thee but know that God can by the sweet Discoveries of himself whilest thou art in his Service chear thy Heart and make that which seemed hard and difficult the very Delight of thy Soul Iacobs meeting with and enjoying of Rachel rendered his hard and long Service easie and delightfull unto him And so a feeling of Gods Spirit moving on thy Heart when thou art engaged in any Religious Exercise will make it joyous and not grievous a Delight and not a Burden a Heaven and not an Hell Besides holy Obedience is only hard and difficult to the Ignoble part of a Saint viz. the Flesh not to the Noble part of a Saint viz. the Soul All the Wayes of God though tending to the pulling out of right Eyes and cutting off of right Hands are wayes of Pleasantness to the Noble part of a Saint So far as every Christian is Renewed
THE Beauty Vigour Strength OF YOUTH Bespoke for GOD IN A SERMON Lately Preached to YOUNG MEN. By THOMAS POWELL Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed for Ben. Harris at the Stationers Arms in Sweetings Rents near the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1676. TO THE READER Christian Reader THE greatest and highest Honour of the Reasonable Creature is to serve Him who is the best Good and the last End which is the design of this little Treatise The Excellency and Necessity of what is here treated justly merits a larger Volumn But I studied Brevity and that upon a two-fold account First Because I was desired that there might be little or no Variation from the Sermon as it was Preached either in Altering or Enlarging though something of each I have done yet so I hope as to please both thee the Reader and they who had the Opportunity of Hearing the same Secondly Because I was willing that more might have a share in it which possibly could not have been if I had not endeavoured to crowd my Meditations in a little room Birds when they come to a full heap of Corn chirp and call for their fellowes Goodness and Light are of a diffusive Nature And now since this is Midwifed into the World which was not intended by me such as it is I offer it to thee as the product of my sincere and cordial Love to the Souls of young Men. Let not the Plainness of the Matter and the Homeliness of the Style offend thee I designed it not for a curious Pallate being preached unto a plain Countrey-people I aymed at their Edification and not at any Popular Applause The Treatise is usefull for all that are enquiring after true Felicity especially the younger sort of People being such for the most part that were present when this Sermon was Preached What thou Reader apprehendest not Sound carry it to the Touch-stone of the Word and if but a Mite of saving Knowledge may be through Gods Blessing added to thy Understanding let God have the Glory and the Author hath his End who is Southwark Decemb. READER Thy Friend and Souls servant Thomas Powell ECCLES XII 1. Remember Now thy Creatour in the Dayes of thy Youth while the Evil Dayes come not nor the Years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them GOD set up two great Lights in Solomons Heart one shewing the Excellency of Christ in the Canticles the other the Vanity of the Creature as in Ecclesiastes which is the second Book of Solomon and it is called Ecclesiastes because Solomon was so called And that either because he speaks unto a Multitude at once or else because of his Wisdom with which he was indeed after a copious manner endowed The whole Book is a declaration of Solomons repentance written in his old age as may be gather'd both out of the title of it and the closure of it in the six last verses and also out of the whole body of it being written upon a serious view of the passages and practices of his life past and the great and manifold experience he made and found therein He treats chiefly of the worlds vanity true felicity the maladies of old age the Advantage of being good betimes Hence it is that young men in the conclusion of all are call'd upon to mind their Creator and that whatsoever they are employed in besides is vanity of vanities and no wise yielding true satisfaction but anxiety and torment unto their souls Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth while the evil dayes come not nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them The words in general do press unto a duty of the greatest moment in the world wherein you may take notice of these several things 1. The Act Remember 2. The Object Creator 3. The adjunct of Time Now in the dayes of thy youth exegetically repeated while the evil dayes come not nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them The words will afford us many points of Doctrine I shall only observe two and so insist upon them Doct. 1. That above all things whatsoever we should not forget but Remember our Creator Doct. 2. That there is great reason why we should remember our Creatour in the dayes of our youth even while we are young and before old age over-takes us These in order and with the first I begin viz. That above all things whatsoever we should not forget but Remember our Creator The prosecution of this Point I purpose through Gods assistance in this wise 1. I shall set my self to amplifie it 2. To Apply it The amplification will consist of Explication and confirmation 1. Explication and so I shall shew you 1. What this Creator is 2. What it is to remember our Creator 3. What it is to remember our Creator above all things whatsoever First I am to shew you What this Creator is whom we are call'd upon in the text to mind Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth In the Hebrews it is Thy Creatours alluding to the Trinity so that by Creatour we are to understand God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost for though the Creation of the world is peculiarly ascribed to God the Father and look't upon as his proper work in respect of order and relation as he is the first person of the Trinity yet not so as to exclude the rest for all the persons of the Trinity to speak after the manner of men had a hand in the Creation of the world Gen. 1. 26. And God said Let us make man ni our Image after our likeness who should the Father speak unto here Let us but unto the Son and the Holy Ghost Secondly What it is to Remember our Creator It is not onely a bare thinking on him and that now and then but to remember our Creator implyes these several things First To know him to know that he is and what he is That God is and that he is to be worshipped is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Law written in the heart of man and that which the book of the Creatures teacheth as well as the book of the Scriptures But now who This God is and the right mode of worshipping him many are at a loss and the candle-light of Nature without the help of the Holy Spirit in and by the Scriptures cannot direct us neither can our knowledge of God by them be a comprehensive knowledge what God is in his Essence in his Attributes in his persons in his works no man or Angel hath doth or ever shall know Though we must if we would remember our Creator aright know something of each yet he must have the wisdom of God and so be a God that comprehendeth God in his Essence Attributes Persons and works what say you now Sirs do you remember your Creator in this