Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	account_n	act_n	ancient_a	33	3	7.0823	4	false

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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

the Atchievments of David produced concerning him Whose Son is this Youth To Anticipate that Enquiry Nathanael Mather had for his Grand-Fathers Two of New-England's Fathers the Famous Richard Mather and the not less Famous John Cotton whose Names have been in the Church of God as an Ointment powred forth and whose Lives bear no little Figure in the Ecclesiastical Histories of our English Israel His 〈◊〉 being yet living it 's too soon to gi●● them their Character yet I may ventu●● to say It 's no disgrace unto him in the Opinion of Men that love Learning and Virtue that he was the Son of Increas● Mather the well known Teacher of a Church in Boston and Rector of Harward Colledge in New-England What Gregory Nazianzen judged not improper 〈◊〉 be said about his yet surviving Father in his Funeral Oration upon his Decea●●ed Brother I may without any culpa●●● Adulation on this occasion say of him He is another Aaron or Moses in the 〈◊〉 of his God. Our Nathanael was born on July 6 1669. which I find him Recording 〈◊〉 his Diary when he was fourteen Year● Old with such an humble Reflection ther●●upon How little have I improved this tim● to the Honour of God as I should have 〈◊〉 He wanted not the Cares of his Father to bestow a good Education on him which God blessed for the Restraining him from the lewd and wild Courses by which 〈◊〉 many Children are betimes resigned 〈◊〉 to the possession of the Devil and 〈◊〉 the Furnishing him with the Accomplishments as give an Ornament of Grace 〈◊〉 the Head of Youth He did Live where he might Learn and under the continual Prayers and Pains of some that looked after him he became an Instance of unusual Industry and no Common Piety so that when he dyed which was Octob. 17th 1688. he was become in less than twenty years An Old Man without Gray hairs upon him To those two Heads with a sorrowful Addition of a Third I shall consine my account of this Young Man in which the Picture to be now drawn has nothing but the Truth and at least so much of Life in it as to look upon every Reader yea speak unto him saying Go and do likewise I. His INDUSTY He was an hard Student and quickly became a good Scholar From his very Childhood his Book was perhaps as dear to him as his Play and hence he grew particularly acquainted with Church-History at a rate not usual in those that were above thrice as Old as He. But when he came to somewhat more of Youth his Tutor who now writes was forced often to Chide him to his Recreations but never that I remember for them To be Bookish was natural unto him and to be plodding easie and pleasant rather than the contrary Indeed he afforded not so much a Pattern as a Caution to young Students for it may be truly written on his Grave Study kill'd Him. The marks and works of a Studious Mind were to be discerned in him even as he walked in the Streets and his Candle would burn after Midnight until as his own Phrase for it was He thought his bones would all fall asunder This was among the passages once noted in his Diary 10 M. 26 D. three quarters of an hour after 12 at Night After the many wearisom hours days months nay years that I have spent it humane Literature and after my many toilsom Studies in those Hours when the General silence of every House in Town proclaimed it high time for me to put a stop unto my workin● Mind and urged me to afford some Re● unto my Eyes which have been almo●● put out by my Intenseness on my Studies after these I say and when 〈◊〉 am ready to do it Oh how unwilling am I to do it considering How litt●● I have served God in the day While he thus devoured Books it came to pass that Books devoured him His weak Body would not bear the Toils and Hours which he used himself unto and his Neglect of Moderate Exercise joyned with his Excess of Immoderate Lucubration soon destroyed the Digestion which his Blood should have had in the last Elaboration of it by that time sixteen Winters had snow'd upon him he began to be Distempered with many Pains and Ailes especially in some of his Joynts which at last were the Gates of Death unto him not without such very afflictive touches of Melancholy too as made him sometimes to Write himself Deodatus Melancholicus This was his way of living shall I say or of Dying And the success of this Diligence was according to the Temper of it Great When he was but Twelve Years Old he was admitted into the Colledge by strict Examiners And many Months after this passed not before he had accurately gone over all the Old Testament in Hebrew as well as the New in Greek besides his going through all the Liberal Sciences before many other designers for Philosophy do so much as begin to look into them He Commenced Batchelour of Arts at the Age of Sixteen and in the Act entertained the Auditory with an Hebrew Oration which gave a good Account of the Academical Affairs among the ancient Jews Indeed the Hebrew Language was become so Familiar with him as if to use the Expression which one had in an Ingenious Elegy upon his Death he had apprehended it should quickly become the only Language which he should have ocasion for His Second Degree after seven years being in the Colledge he took just before Death gave him a Third which last was a promotion infinitely beyond either of the former He then maintained for his Position Datur Vacuum and by his Discourse upon it as well as by other Memorials and Experiments left behind him in Manuscripts he gave a specimen of his Intimate Acquaintance with the Corpuscularian and only right Philosophy By this time he had informed himself like another Mirandula and was admirably capable of arguing about almost every Subject that fell within the Concernments of a Learned Man. Not only Philosophy but also Divinity did he now own a Body of The Difficulties of the Mathematicks he had particularly overcome and the abstruse parts both of Arithmetick and Astronomy were grasped in his Knowledge His Early Almanack and Calculations do something but the MSS. Adversaria left behind him in his Closet much more speak such attainments in him His Cronology was exact unto a wonder and the State of Learning with the Names and Works of Learned Men in the World this American Wilderness hath few that understand as well as he Besides all this for the vast Field of Theology both Didactick and Polemick it is hardly Credible how little of it his Travel had left unknown Rabbinick learning he had likewise no small measure of and the Questions referring unto the Scriptures which Phylology is conversant about came under a very Critical Notice with him Indeed he was a Person but of few words and his Words with his

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