Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A44521
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The first fruits of reason, or, A discourse shewing the necessity of applying our selves betimes to the serious practice of religion by Anthony Horneck ...
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Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing H2830; ESTC R4566
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37,544
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144
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Torments what bitter Scoffs and Reproaches he endured to rescue and free you from the bondage of sin and of the Devil Remember you are brought with a price with the precious bloud of the immaculate Lamb. Remember you were bought to be his peculiar people and bought that you should be your own no more that you should not live to your selves but to him that bought you at the expence of his Bloud and Labour Remember he bled for you Remember he laid down his life for you Remember greater love can no man shew than that he lay down his life for his friends Remember he died for you when you were enemies Remember he thought nothing too good for you Remember who it was that did all this for you even the King of Kings the Lord of Lords the eternal Son of God that could have glorified himself in your endless misery but would no and to let you see the exceeding riches of his Grace humbled himself to the death of the Cross that the astonishing Mercy might work in you a loathing of every weight and every sin which doth so easily beset you Can you remember all this and feel no resolutions within to shew forth the Praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light Can you remember all this and forbear crying out with the Apostle I count all things dross and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord Fifthly Would we know how we may lay a foundation for a long and healthy life The principle here laid down is it Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth In youth we commonly lay the Foundation of future Diseases which shorten our days and fill our lives with various Distempers and while people trespass upon the vigour of their Age and offer violence to Nature when young they consider not how by this means they give death an opportunity to enter and the bloud in that age is commonly so corrupted that all the Medicines afterward cannot abolish the corruption or eradicate it out of the Bowels This early remembrance of God will help to restrain that extravagance and as it contributes to the soundness of the Body so it cannot but be an excellent preparative for the long continuance of it Set aside some distracted persons the desire and endeavour of mankind is to live long To this end they use Preventives Preservatives Catharticks Diureticks Emeticks Restoratives shun all things that they apprehend noxious and hearken to every little story that directs them how to free themselves from too early approaches of fullen death that King of Terrours Indeed under violent Pain or extream Poverty or intolerable Disgrace some do wish for death but that 's only a sudden passion caus'd by the present pressing misfortune but if that were once over they would be content with the Collier in the Fable to carry their burthen even the burthen of their flesh about them a little longer We are told of strange endeavours used in India by the Pagan Kings and the Grandees in their Courts to prolong life Some do even spend their Patrimonies to find out the Vniversal Medicine and an Antidote against death some with Pearls dissolved in the purest Dew of Heaven seek to lengthen out our days but this remembering our Creator in the days of our youth will do more than all Drugs and Medicines more than all the Cordials and Julips in the world and whatever either the Wisdom or Folly of man hath invented to procure longevity It 's evident that by this remembring our Creator is meant nothing but the Fear of God for thus Solomon explains himself v. 13. of this Chapter where to reinforce the admonition v. 1. he onely changes the Phrase but means the same thing Fear God and keep his commandments for that 's the whole duty of man and to assure us that this early remembrance of God in the way to long life he adds Prov. 10.27 The fear of the Lord prolongs days But because this truth is believed but by very few it will not be amiss to give such demonstrations of it as may convince any rational man of the weight and moment of it And 1. The Duties Religion enjoyns if seriously and conscientiously practised tend to health and prolongation of life as will appear from an induction of particulars Religion enjoyns Temperance in eating and drinking and all the world agrees in this that Temperance is not onely the best Physick but the best Physician too Gluttony and Drunkenness and Excesses in meat and drink are fruitful Parents of Diseases and how men do thereby precipitate themselves into Gouts Dropsies Surfeits Fevers c which are great promoters of an early death none can be supposed ignorant Religion forbids all extravagant Passions which being let loose hugely debilitate Nature It enjoyns Meekness Patience Contentedness and a reasonable service and where the Passions are kept in good order in all likelihood the temper and frame of the body will be preserved in health and a sweet and admirable harmony From letting the Passions run beyond their just bounds and limits innumerable mischiefs flow some by immoderate inordinate love have kill'd themselves others by inordinate Anger have fallen into Epilepsies Some by immoderate grief consume the marrow in their bones and History tells us of several such as Leo X Pope of Rome and some Roman Ladies that have in fits of immoderate laughter expired and given up the ghost Religion forbids all anxious and tormenting cares and carkings great enemies certainly to health and life for they not only make the Bloud stagnate clog the Spirits hinder a free circulation but too often have been and are the causes of mens laying violent hands upon themselves This administers Ingredients which make up a good Conscience and that 's a perpetual Feast It bids us rejoyce in the Lord always and a constant cheerfulness cannot but be a very great preservative of health and the vital flame within It forbids all Fornication Adultery Lasciousness and exorbitant Lusts prescribes the modest and moderate use of Marriage or commends perpetual Virginity all which is very conducive to health and longevity and this we need not doubt of when we see men who give themselves liberty in hankering after strange Flesh what work they make for Surgeons and Physicians how they poison their Bloud and are so many walking Graves Religion prescribes frequent Fasting and Abstinence and how beneficial this is to health and a long vigorous life The examples of the ancient Hermits and since their time of other religious men are ample testimonies Simeon Stylites by this means arrived to the age of 109. Anthony the Great to 105. Paul the first Ascetick to 103. Arsenius to 120. Venerable Bede to 92. Remigius the famous Archbishop of Rhemes who enjoy'd his Bishoprick 70 years which is more I think than can be said of any man in publick Office for a thousand years to 96. Epiphanius
Imprimatur C. Alston R. P. D. Hen. Episc. Lond. à sacris Domesticis THE First Fruits OF REASON OR A DISCOURSE Shewing The Necessity of applying our selves betimes to the serious Practice of Religion By Anthony Horneck D. D. Preacher at the Savoy LONDON Printed by F. Collins for D. Brown at the Black Swan and Bible without Temple-bar and are to be sold by John Weld at the Crown between the Temple-gates in Fleet-street 1686. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THE following Discourse was occasioned by a young Man's being unfortunately kill'd in Bartholomew Fair whose Friends led partly by natural Affection partly by love to the young Mans Vertues were pleas'd to desire me to preach a Sermon at his Funeral and because they would thereby be serviceable to the living and more especially to men of the same age with the Deceased entreated me to pitch upon the Text which appears in the front of the ensuing Treatise Having gratified their desire in that particular they gave me some Motives and Arguments to publish it which I could not well resist But the Discourse as it was deliver'd at St. Sepulchres Church on the 20 of September being too short to make any thing like a Book of it I resolved upon second thoughts to enlarge it and with these enlargements additions it comes now abroad though in an age so fertile of excellent Sermons I might be discouraged from adding any of mine own yet since every man in his station is bound to contribute to the common Interest of Religion having this opportunity I was willing to embrace it because it 's possible that some or other who lights upon these Papers may think of the Contents and by the assistance of the divine Spirit be perswaded early to consecrate himself to unfeigned and impartial Devotion The great debauchery and looseness of the Youth of this Age is enough to oblige us and a sufficient call to do all we can to stem the floud of Impiety which rages so much in the younger sort and proves too often the occasion both of their temporal and eternal ruine All I shall add is this to entreat the Reader to become a Supplicant with me at the Throne of Grace that both this and other mens endeavors of this kind may prove effectual to recal both young and old from the errours of their ways and that God as it is our Liturgy would shortly accomplish the number of his Elect that we with all those who are departed in the true Faith may have our perfect consummation and bliss in his Eternal and Everlasting Glory THE First Fruits of Reason ECCLES 12.1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth THis Book of Ecclesiastes is generally looked upon as Solomon's recantation Sermon in which he renounces his former Follies and having seen the vanity of the world and the pleasures of it like a man come to himself again aspires to nobler delights and after a woful fall lifts up his sinking head and beholds and re-embraceth the true and glorious liberty of Gods Children Curiosity had led him not onely into a search of Nature but into that of Sin and Impiety too and while Greatness and Riches and a sawning Court flattered him with power to do what he pleased he at once forgot the baseness of his slavery and over-looked the heinousness of his Iniquity As if it had been too mean for a Soveraign Prince to commit puny sins he transgressed above the ordinary rate of Mortals and if it be true what the Jewish Rabbins say that his inquisitive humour made him even venture upon the mystery of the black art it 's like that together with his fondness of Heathenish Women enticed him to Idolatry If this Book be his penitential Monument we may believe his Repentance was great and signal and that after this his Cloathing was Sackloth and he mingled his drink with weeping Sins of a deep dye require profound Contrition and it is impossible to be truly sensible of monstrous and unparalell'd Ingratitude and not to express that sence by very visible and eminent Humiliations One great Character of true Repentance is a hearty endeavour after the Conversion of others and this excellent sign we find in this Convert or returning Prodigal For not to mention the Counsel he gives to all degrees of men in the foregoing Chapters in that before us his kindly Calls and Admonitions to young men speak a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Koheleth or a Soul earnestly desirous to gather all men into the Sheepfold of Grace and Mercy And of these Calls that in my Text is not the least Remember now thy Creator in thy days of thy youth By way of Explication I shall only tell you First That what we render here in the days of thy youth is in the Original in the days of thy Choice So youth is called 1. Because in that Age man chuseth his Employment and when he first enters upon the Stage of the World after he comes from under Tutors and Governours he determines what Calling or Profession he shall take to 2. Because in that Age particularly when Reason exerts its full strength God sets the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil before us Heaven and Earth Paradise and the World Righteousness and Sin Life and Death and leaves us to our choice according to which our portion and reward will be when the Soul appears before Gods dread Tribunal Secondly As our youth is the Age wherein a Choice must needs be made so the Wiseman here bids us chuse remembring our Creator Which the Chaldee Paraphrast expounds Remember thy Creator so as to glorifie him in the days of thy youth which Paraphrase is so sound that we need not search out for another interpretation for as the serious practice of Religion is meant by that Remembrance so that practice is in a manner nothing else but glorifying God in our Souls and Bodies called so by the Apostle 1 Cor. 6.20 And Herein is my father glorified that ye bear much fruit saith our Saviour Joh. 15.8 Nor need we wonder how God can be glorified by Fruits of righteousness that we bring forth For as these point at the Sun which warms them into being or at God by whose Word and Power and Influence they grow and ripen and come to perfection so they proclaim the glory of his Grace and discover how kind how merciful how bountiful and how liberal that Supreme Being is in bestowing such gifts on men gifts which Nature cannot confer nor Angels distribute nor the greatest Monarchs impart to their Favorites And hereby the happy person whose life bears such Fruits is encouraged to glorifie the spring and Fountain of them Others also that see them and receive comfort or benefit by them cannot but adore and admire the Divine Goodness which is pleased to display its glory in such communications of his Holiness and as Angels rejoyce at a sinners Conversion here on