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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	father_n	person_n	son_n	3,185	5	5.8825	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70554	Early piety, exemplified in the life and death of Mr. Nathanael Mather, who ... changed earth for heaven, Oct. 17. 1688 whereto are added some discourses on the true nature, the great reward, and the best season of such a walk with God as he left a pattern of.	Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728.; Mather, Samuel, 1651-1728.	1689 (1689)	Wing M1097A; ESTC R20873	63,808	161

EARLY PIETY EXEMPLIFIED IN THE Life and Death OF Mr. Nathanael Mather WHO Having become at the Age of Nineteen an Instance of more than Common Learning and Virtue Changed Earth for Heaven Oct. 17. 1688. Whereto are added Some Discourses on the true Nature the great Reward and the best Season of such A WALK WITH GOD as he left a Pattern of The Second Edition With a Prefatory Epistle by Mr. Matthew Mead. LONDON Printed by J. Astwood for Iohn Dunton at the Black Raven in the Poultrey 1689. To the READER OF all Reading History hath in it a most taking Delight and no History more delightfull than the Lives of good Men it being not only pleasant but profitable and so while other Pleasures become a Bait to Vice this becomes a Motive to Virtue It may be said of such Lives as that Excellent Mr. Herbert said of Verses A Life may find him who a Sermon flies And turn delight into a Sacrifice Thou hast here a rare History of a Youth that may be of great use and advantage both to Old and Young That the Aged seeing themselves out-done by Green years may gird up their loyns and mend their pace for Heaven and that Young ones may be so wrought into the love of Religion as it is Exemplified in this holy Person as to endeavour with all diligence to write after his excellent Copy It is a great Work to die and to die well is a greater and no Work calls for greater diligence than this because the Errours of the first work can never be corrected in a second One great reason why this duty is seldom well done is because we grudge Time to do it in and leave it to be done at once It is never like to be well done unless it be always doing and therefore we should in Conformity to that great Apostle die daily This was the practice of this young Disciple who among all his other Learning wherein for his time he excelled most had in Nineteen years so perfectly learned this Lesson that the wise God saw it fit he should take out About Fourteen years old he did dedicate himself wholly to God and his Service and entred into a Solemn Covenant with God to that purpose which as he did not begin rashly and without great deliberation so he did not transact it slightly but with great sense and seriousness The Matter and Form of which Covenant you have in this ensuing Narrative signed with his own Hand according to that word of the Prophet Isa 44. 5. One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob and another shall subscribe with his hand to the Lord. And with what care and Conscience he p●●●formed this Covenant in Fasting in Prayer in Watchings in Self-Examination in Meditation in Thanksgiving in Walking with God in all is fully witnessed in what follows which shews that he was a true Nathanael an Israelite indeed in whom was no guile Not like those Israelites which the Prophet reproveth for that they flattered God with their Mouth lied to him with their tongues their hearts not being right with him nor stedfast in his Covenant For having once given up himself to God He kept the ways of the Lord and did not wickedly depart from his God. When his worthy Father my dear Friend was pleased to send this Narrative to me I confess I could not read it without great Reflection and Shame Thought I God will not gather his Fruit till it is ripe and therefore I live so long nor will he let it hang till it is rotten therefore Nathanael dyed so soon We are not sent into the World meerly to fill up a Number of years but to fill up our Measures of Grace and whenever that is done our time is done and we have lived to Maturity and so did this Youth and therefore came to his Grave in a full Age tho at N●●●teen like as a Shock of Corn comes in in his season The following History is written by his own Brother a worthy Minister the fittest of any for such a Province the nearness of Relation occasioning that In●●●acy which others could not easily have In what he hath done herein he hath deserved highly of all who love Goodness and Virtue having used great Faithfulness and great Modesty Great Faithfulness and that both to the Dead and to the Living To the dead in raising up the Name of such a Brother and to the living in giving us a Narration of his Life without an Oration in his Praise which indeed was altogether needless when it was so fairly written by himself for his own works praise him in the Gates And he hath used great Modesty in speaking for the most part out of the Journal of the Deceased so that it is the dead who speak● while the living writes And since his End is more to provoke to Imitation than to bespeak Admiration How greatly doth it concern them into whose hands this Narrative shall happily fall to joyn earnest Prayer and diligent Endeavour together in following this great Example otherwise he that gave it and he that writes it will both rise up in judgment against an unteachable Generation Matthew Mead. London June 17. 1689. To the READER IT is not for me to say much of the Person who is the Subject of the ensuing History for that I am his younger Brother I have read a Letter dated October 25. 1688. written to his and my ever honoured Father wherein are these Expressions Never could Parent have cause of more comfort in a Child than you have in that Son of yours I have seen his private Papers and in them such an Instance of a Walk with God as few ancient Ministers perhaps have Experience of especially for the three last years of his Life I find that he maintained a course of wonderful Devotion Supplication and Meditation every day that solemn Humiliations and Thanksgivings in secret were no strangers to his Practice that he would be often thinking with himself What shal● I do for God And in a word that Dr. Owen's Book about Spiritual-Mindedness has been in a very rare manner transcribed into his Conversation He has bin for his years a great Scholar but a better Christian The Life of the famous young Janeway I think has not more of Holiness illustrious in it than that of your dear Nathanael's I write these things because I judge you have no greater Joy. Some Eminent Ministers here have maintained a pleasant intimate familiar Conversation with him and the Character which they gave of him is very Extraordinary Thus that Letter I have likewise heard my Father say that he was more grieved for the loss which the Church of God has sustained in the death of that my Brother than for his own loss thereby When I parted from him not a year ago I hoped that would not have been my Ultimum Vale but I now lament my unhappiness in that I gain'd

safe Time for us to adjourn our Piety unto The Young Man allots upon Old-Age as that which he may very seasonably grow sober in But Young Man what if thou should'st never arrive to Old-Age at all That is the Hap of multitudes multitudes every day The Sons of Job were all of them Young Men but they died suddenly seven of them at once We have that Warning often repeated unto us in Job 21. 23. One dyeth in his full strength Young Persons of both Sexes are liable to the Stroke of Death We read in Luke about the Funeral of a Young Man the Son of a Widdow We read in the same Evangelist about a young Woman which lay a dying when she was but about Twelve years of Age. The Arrest of Death likewise falls upon young Persons of all Estates The Son of Jeroboam was a Gracious Youth but he dyes The Sons of Eli were Vicious Youths and they dye too So does the young man Absalom after his Brother Amnon As young as thou art and as lively and as lusty too 't is possible thou may'st like Eutichus fall down dead before the Congregation be dismissed Hast thou a lewd Dream of an Old-Age to reserve all Virtue for Alas there are more die before Twenty than after Sixty Years of Age. A Child once being observed to become a very prayerful and pensive Child gave that Account of it I was in the Burying-place t'other day and there I saw a Grave shorter than my self Let the youngest of us all go to such a place and see whether there be not Graves of our Dimensions there And what if now thy Death find thee before thy Peace be made with God What if thy Death find thee a poor Unconverted Unregenerate Creature before the Lord It may be written on thy doleful Grave It had been good for that Person that he had never been Born. Infinitely more than a thousand Ages of Woes and Plagues must be the Portion of such a miserable Soul. Fourthly The young Man has many Conveniencies to excite and assist his Remembrance of the Lord. There seems to be a sort of Correspondence between Youth and Grace Youth seems mightily adapted and agreeable to the Exercise of that lovely thing A quick Wit is one Prerogative of the young Man Well how can he lay it out better than by doing like that young Man in Psal 119. 9. Taking heed unto the Word of God The Young man has a Tenacious Memory What can he do better with it than fill it with Divine Treasures Warm Affections are stirring in the young man where should he set them but upon the things which are above The Spirits of young men are mettlesome why should they not be fervent serving the Lord The Bodies of young men are vigorous why should they not be a living Sacrifice unto God There is a brave Courage in Youth how can it better show it self than by overcoming the Wicked One Youth is a merry Age let it then rejoyce in the Lord. O nothing is more comely or natural than that young Men should remember God. Prop. IV. All the three Persons in God are to be distinctly considered by us when we remember him Not only our Creator but also our Creators is to be remembred First We are to remember God the Father Him we are to remember under that consideration in Eph. 1. 3. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Remember Him as the Fountain from whence all does proceed and to which all must Return Remember Him as the first cause and so the last end of all things Remember Him as the Father of thy Lord and go to Him for a Fathers Blessing in His Name O remember Him and let the outery of thy Soul be Let this Father be my Father for evermore Secondly We are to remember God the Son Him we are to remember under that Consideration in Act. 5. 31. A Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance unto Israel and Remission of sins Remember Him as the Saviour in whom all fulness dwells Remember Him as the Jesus who delivers from Wrath to come Remember Him as a Redeemer able to save unto the uttermost and go to Him for that Salvation entreat Him to be thy Prophet and thy Priest and thy King for ever Thirdly We are to Remember God the Spirit Him we are to Remember under that Consideration in Psal 143. 10. The good Spirit that leads into the land of Vprightness Remember Him as the Quickner of them that were dead in Trespnsses and Sins Remember Him as the Comforter of all that mourn Remember Him as the Inhabitant of the Contrite and the Humble Heart and seek to be led by Him World without end Thus are we to Remember our Creator in the dayes of our Youth VSE I. Let them that have not Remembred their Creator in the days of their Youth now in the days of their Age be ashamed of it and afflicted for it There are two sorts of Aged People to be now treated with There are some that are Converted unto God but late They squandered away most of all their Youth before they turned their feet unto the Testimonies of the Lord. It becomes these Persons now as they Remember their God so likewise to Remember their Sin You make that your daily Prayer in Psal 25. 7. Remember not against me the sins of my youth Be assured that God's dealing with you will in many regards be quite contrary to your dealing with your Sins If you love them he will hate you If you slay them he will save you If you would have God not Remember them O then do you remember them your selves 'T is said in 1 Cor. 11. 3. If we would judge our selves we should not be judged of the Lord. Well then every one of you like Pharaoh's Butler now say I remember my faults this day O Remember all the lying all the idleness all the profuseness and profaneness of thy Youth When Paul was a young Man he had an hand in Abusing and Murdering an Eminent Minister of God but he Remembred it with sorrow all his dayes O! said he many Years after When the Blood of Stephen was shed I was consenting to it Come now and sit down in the Dust this day before the Lord come and lament it and bewail it that you so long lay out from God and that you so long did the things for which the Wrath of God comes upon the Children of Disobedience Be able to say My Soul has this in remembrance and is humbled in me But perhaps there are some of you that never yet were Converted unto God at all As they said in Jer. 8. 20. The Harvest is past the Summer is ended and we are not saved thus may too many confess Our youth is past and we are not Renewed Surely 't is Time 't is high Time for you to Remember your God yet at last before you go hence and be no more Let this encourage you That