the last Verse of that Chapter the latter in the fiâ—st Verse of this in the words of the Text Both which he is backing wiâ—h the former Argument the breviâ—y of Life and the certainty of approaching Death The first Inference or Duty exhorted to in the last Verse of the former Chapter is Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart and put away evil from thy flâ—sh so I do may the young man think while I rejoyce in my youth and my heart chears me while I walk in the wayes of my heaâ—t and in the sight of mine eyes if this be not to remove sorrow from my hâ—art and put away evil from my flesh what is Such indeed is the opinion of the flesh touching sensual pleasures but sure the judgement of the Spirit of God is quite contrary hereunto and it is quite another thing that is here intended viz. the putting away sorrow by the putting away sin the removing of the Effect the evil of afflictâ—on and suffering by removing the Cause the evil of concupiscence and inordinate affâ—ctâ—â—n according to the truth of that which he is elswhere speaking Prov 14.13 Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful and the end of that mirth is heaviness A holy heart and a merry heart go together and a sinful heart and a sorrowful heart cannot will not be long asunder be that puts not away the evil of sin from his flesh cannot long put away the evil of smart and suffering whatever vain sensual men may imagine the winding up will prove that of the Wise-man true Prov. 11.29 As righteousness tendeth to life so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death and the Reason backing it is bottomed upon the same main Argument the flittingness brevity and uncertainty of Life even in the young and lusty for Childhood and Youth is vanity i.e. are fading passing uncertain soon spent Young men may bear and behave themselves as if imagining their hot blood lusty bodies activity beauty would last alwayes and their youthful pleasures never be at an end but Childhood and Youth are vanity Death may not wait till they be gray-headed or however the earliest Morning hastens apace to Noon and then to Night The second Inference or Duty exhorted to you have in the words of the Text Remember thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth As in the former he was calling off from sin vanity the empty pursuance of the Creature so in this he is calling to and putting upon the remembrance of the Creator q.d. relinquish your vanities and your sensual pleasures and contentments which will be bitterness in the latter end and set your hearts seriously God-ward turn your thoughts toward the minding him And this Exhortation of young men to the now remembring of their Creator is urged upon them by the same main Argument still The flittingness and vanity of Life and the approaching certainty and the evil and dark dayes of old Age and Death While the evil dayes come not c. as in this and the following Verses q.d. old Age and Death are hastening upon you and will certainly and soon overtake you It is the former part of the Verse Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth that I shall insist upon taking no further notice of the latter but as it may be an Argument to enforce this And here because I study expedition and the Explication will necessarily take up some room and time as also that the Reason of the duty here required of us is couched in the expressions wherein it is commended to us We shall first lay down the Conclusion or Point of Doctrine from the words and then open it to you and fetch the Reasons out of its own bowels The Observation then according to the terms of the Text which we shall after more fully unfold is this Doct. That it is every mans Duty every young mans Duty now in the dayes of his youth to Remember his Creator Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth It is every mans duty to remember God it is every young mans duty to do it now in the dayes of his youth For the clearing up of the Doctrine and making way for the Application and Improvement of it we have three things to handle and unfold 1. What this Remembring our Creator he duty which the Text and Doctrine calls for is importing 2. The Reasons of our so doing which the term of Creator is implying 3. Why the Younger may not put it off but it must be now done now in the dayes of their youth I. What this remembring God remembring our Creator is importing Remembring commonly in Scripture acceptation is not strictly taken for the simple act of memory the meer retaining a thing in our heads nor is so here to be taken for any one simple act of the Soul nor yet divers and continued acts of one and the same Faculty but it is taken for the compleat entire motion of the whole Soul the whole man towards God It is the common saying of Divines That words of knowledge of sense in Scripture imply affection and action cogitation and practice take in both the head and heart include the whole Soul by one word of knowing remembring and the like is included the compleat entire motion of the whole Soul the whole man towards God Such is the combination and concatenation of all the Faculties of the Soul as of Links in a Chain that draw one and draw all break one and break all upon this account any one act or the act of any one single Faculty as knowing remembring c. is usually in Scripture put for the compleat entire motion of the whole Soul The term of our remembring God so of his remembring us is used ordinarily not strictly but in such a latitude as we have been speaking if you consult Neh. 4.14 Judg. 8.34 Lev. 26.42 Luke 23.42 and a number of Texts more that might be named and recited but I fear to be tedious you will finde the sense of the phrase to run according to the breadth which we have been saying In a word we then remember God not when we barely think of him but when as such we affectionately and practically acknowledge him when we really own and bear our selves toward him as our Creator in sum when the whole entirâ— motion of the whole Soul is Godward Thus briefly and in general But because the burthen of the Duty of the Text hangs upon this word Remember we shall yet a little further unfold it and shew you yet somewhat more fully distinctly and particularly what the remembring God is implying and inferring briefly 1. Remembring God is implying and inferring converting turning unto God Psal 22.27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord All men naturally are forgetting God and turning from him and men then remember God when they convert and turn unto him men naturally too earnestly remember the Creature and
How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God O how wilt thou ever be able to hold up thy head that God that thus deeply and dearly deserved to be remembred by thee shall question thee for thy forgetfulness of him wilt thou then be able thinkest thou to make as light a matter of it as thou now dost when he himself shall reason out the case with thee when he shall say Did I indeed make and maintain thee did I house and lodge and feed and clothe and deliver thee did I visit thee every morning and take care of thee every moment and all to forget me Sinner God forgetting sinner can thy heart endure or can thy hands be strong in the day that God shall thus deal with thee Now consider this ye that forget God lest be tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver 2. I see I must but name things This forgetting God must needs be no light sin nor a little provoking having in it carrying with it arguing and too evidently holding forth much contempt a low and light esteem of him That which a man esteems he keeps in memory he treasures it up there is mindful thoughtful of and about it remembrance and esteem run together as you may see in that of the Psalmist Psal 137.5 6. If I forget thee O Jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning if I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth why whence was this you may see in the next words If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy But to forget argues a light esteem Jer. 30 14 All thy lovers hâ—ve forâ—tten thee they seek thee not q. d. Time was they doâ—ed upon th e but now they câ—â—e not for thee they come not at thee a mans miâ—â—fulness of any person or thing thoughtfulness about it argues it to b of some â—ccount with him but when a man forgets a thing especially when he câ—relâ—sly purposely wilfully forgets it it evidently shews that he sl gâ—â—ts and contemns it To forgâ—t God then is highly to coâ—temn him manâ—feâ— ly to despise him and is it a light thing to let light by God is it a conâ—â—mâ—â—ble matter to conâ—emn him O man who is God thy Maker thy Creator that he should be thus sl ghted and conâ—emned by thee as if he were not to be regarded not worth the minding and who art thou his own Creature made by him and made to g o ifie him that thou shouldest thus contemn him O that thou wouldest but think what it is for a little piece of breathing creeping Clay formed aâ—d moulded and animated and quickned and kept alive by God himself to do him such indignity and cast such contempt upon him as to forget him But 3. Consider this cannot but be a great and provoking sin not onely from the contempt it calls upon God but also from the extreme unreasonable wrong and injury that is thereby done unto him God made all things for himself is the Owner Proprietor of them and in the highest and most unquestionable Râ—ght is challenging them for himself his own glory and what more unreasonable then to deny it him what more injurious then to frustrate his end as much as lyes in you The whole Creation all the rest of the inferiour Creatures have a mediate reference unto the glory of God by and through man man by forgetting God breaks the last link of the Chain and unloosens the whole frame It is you Sirs you that forget and disacknowledge God that stand between him and his glory and service which he should have as from your selves so from all the rest of the works of his hands when the motion of the Creature God-wards Gods glory-ward comes to you you stop it divert it give check to it I beseech you Sirs seriously think what doth that man do and what doth that man deserve that doth what in him lyes to destroy and undo all that God hath doâ—e â—o render the World useless and this glorious Frame of Beings good for just nothing Art thou a forgetteâ— of God thoâ— art the man that art doing what in thee lyes â—o be frustrating God of his end and abridging him of his glory in all 4 he greatness of this sin further appears in that it is nor onely a contemning vilifying enjuring robbing God but it is a kinde of nullifying and un Gâ—â—ding of him a mak ng him no God so far forth as any forget and disown God so far forth they un Be no â—tiâ— un-God him to thems lves whâ—ch is as far as they can go â—o un Be to un-God him in himself from whom in whom all live and move and h ve their bâ—ing iâ— a high imp stibâ—â—â—y iâ—finitely beyond all câ—eated power which he himself hath made it is not the fools saying in his heart There is no God and in his life There shall be none will make none the Atheist cannot think â—im out of Being but men go as far as they can this way while they forget and disacknowledge him making him no God uâ—to themselves you cannot dethrone him from his gâ—ory or disp ss ss him f his Eternal Power and Godhead but you may yea such as forget and disacknowledge God do nullifie and un-God him to themselves say he shall be no God to them which is as much as they can do men can bid no higher reach no further then by forgetting him to say There is no God and by disacknowledging him to say He shall be no God to us Thou that forgettest God think of this the heart of God thou canst not reach thy arm is too short to take his Crown from his Head but O Traytor Rebel unthankful wretch as thou art thou art doing what thou canst do un-God God un-Be thy Maker to nullifie him who hath granted thee life and favour and whose visitations sustain thy spirit Thus dost thou require the Lord who is thy Father thy Creator who hath made thee and established thee But 5. The greatness of this sin is yet more evident in that it is a Mother-sin the Root and Cause and Fountain and Original of all other sins In this all sins are virtually eminently radically contained the forgetting God as we have before described it forgetting that there is a God who and what manner of God he is what he requires the duty and acknowledgement that we owe him is product ve of any of every sin From hence are those multiplied wickednesses and enormities that the lives of men are full of See what is said Psal 50 18 19 20. When thou sâ—west a Thief then thou consentedst to him and hast been partakers with the Adultâ—rers thou gavest thy mouth to evil and thy tongue frameth deceit thou sittest and speakest against thy brother and slanderest thine own Mothers son What is the reason of this why as it follows in the next words These things hast thou done and I kept
disappointment will be the issue a ruinous heap irrepairable frustration causing grief and desperate sorrow shall be the harvest which the flourishing seeds-time of all their cunning careful painful pleasing promising projects shall afford them You may see how the awhile flourishing but after-withering estate of such as forget God is described Job 8.11 c. and frequently elswhere in Scripture I beseech you think of it for a time you may thrive without God in the world the more you forget him the more you may prosper and the more you prosper the more you may forget him as too many times men do they feel the world a coming and cool apace Godward the world grows upon them and God grows more and more our of remembrance with them think I say whatsoever your present flourishing estate may promise you the harvest will be a heap in the day of grief and desperate sorrow 3. Consider the forgetting God will provoke him to bring upon you Spiritual Judgements to give you up to blindness of minde hardness of heart to infatuate and befot you leave you to a seared Conscience and a senslesness in sinning You have Psal 81. God calling upon Israel while he graciously remembers them of himself to be owning and acknowledging of him but they will not and what comes of it ver 11. So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts and they walked in their own counsels You may reade and tremble to reade what is said of them Rom. 1. that when they knew God did not glorifie him at God that did not like to retain God in their knowledge that for this cause God gave them up to vile affection to a reprobate minde to be filled with all unrighteousness to all excess of and besottedness in sinning A hard heart a reprobate minde a seared Conscience a being past feeling a committing sin with greediness are the sad effects of not remembring of forgetting and disacknowledging God And Oh that those of the younger sort would think of this that blindness of minde that hardness of heart that spiritual stupor and benummedness of Conscience that greediness in sinning that excess of riot which many run unto and which grows upon them with their years are the sad and vindictive effects of their not remembring and turning to the Lord in their younger time 4. And lastly Consider God will finde a time to remember such as forget him he will finde a time to be remembred and sadly remembred too by such as most slight him God will have his glory his acknowledgement he will fetch it out of those that forget and disacknowledge him upon earth in Hell Psal 61 17. The wicked shall be turned into Hell and all the nations that forget God then and there God will be righted he will come ever with thee for all thy neglect contempt forgetfulness of him and casting him behinde thy back Prov. 16.4 The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil q. d. God will not lose his labour in making them neither he will have his honour out of them too in their perdition and destruction as God saith of Zidon Ezek. 28.22 that he will be known glorified sanctified in her in the executing of Judgements so if now thou wilt not voluntarily remember acknowledge glorifie him a day is coming when God will make thee remember acknowledge him serve to his glory though little to thy benefit or comfort whether thou wilt or no. Lay these things together then and think that as in nothing you so much remember your selves your own concerments as in remembering God so in nothing you so much forget your selves your own good as in forgetting disacknowledging him I have been longer upon this Use then I intended and must necessarily be more contracted in what remains Vse II. is for Exhortation and earnest perswasion unto all and every one to remember his Creator and do it now Remember now thy Creator c. doubtless it is a duty incumbent upon all and of every age to be now attended by them the notion of a Creator challenges this at every mans hand and that presently and out of hand be they young or be they old have they more or have they less neglected it it abides the now duty of every one it is the sin of such that have forgotten God in their youth but it is their duty to remember him in their age hast thou forgotten God so long or so long it lyes upon thee now to remember him Somewhat would have been spoken more generally unto all but time scanting upon us we shall especially urge the Exhortation upon such as are the persons to whom the Text is directing it And I beseech you my Brethren of the Rising Generation Suffer the word of Exhortation which speaketh to you and to every one of you in particular Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth It is not said Remember now your Creator or let all men remember now their Creator but Remember now thy Creator that none may put it off to the general God puts it home to each one in particular To thee young man it is spoken and to thee young woman to thee John and to thee Thomas to thee Mary and to thee Sarah the Exhortation as much as particularly concerns thee as if thy Name were written in the Text and Oh that I might be a poor Instrument in the hand of God to bring home this word to thy heart Oh that I might be thy effectual Remembrancer upon the account Oh that I might perswade prevalently perswade thee now in the dayes of thy youth to remember thy Creator Oh that now man now in the dayes of thy youth while it is yet morning with thee thou wouldest take time at advantage and improve this present precious peerless season which will be but for a little while in the serious applying thy self hereunto and minding the God and thy duty towards the God that made thee now while the evil dayes come not Remember and turn unto him now set up and acknowledge and love and fear and serve him now Do not think there is no such haste if any man may put it off for a while I may there can be no great danger or damage in deferring it a little There is such haste no man may put it off no not a while neither mayest thou the danger the damage of deferring but a little a week a day may be thy eternal undoing O do not think it is duty indeed to remember God 't is matter of importance 't is what must be done I will do it I will do it more I will be more serious in it hereafter but look upon it as thy now duty as matter of importance and necessity to be done and to be done to purpose to be seriously dealt in now truly hic labor here is the difficulty to perswade men that it is duty to remember God to convince men