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
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
not the Cyprian Bishop but another to 115. Not to mention any more and most Historians agree in it that one great means to prolong their years was their spare diet and frequent abstinence and Fasts in obedience to Religion Besides Religion commands Obedience Respect and Tenderness to Parents and to that a special blessing of long life is affixed by promise in the fifth Commandment Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy days may be long in the Land which the Lord thy God gives thee It bids us also shun all apparent occasions of mischief particularly of evil company where great rudenesses insolencies debaucheries and many times Murthers are committed to the endangering both of health and life Add to all this that Religion doth peremptorily prohibit all ill language which is too often the unhappy cause of quarrels strife fighting blows duelling and assassinations which signally shorten the life of man in allusion to which David tells us Psal. 34.12 13. What man is he that desires life and loves many days that he may see good keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips that they speak no guile So that if a man remembers his Creator betimes makes Conscience of the duties Religion prescribes and continues in doing so he lays a foundation for a long and healthy life 2. This early remembrance of God gives a man a title to Gods special Providence and what the effect of that is the Psalmist will inform us Psal. 91.14 16. Because he hath set his love upon me therefore will I deliver him with long life will I satisfie him and shew him my salvation That there is a special Providence attending those who fear God is the unanimous voice of all the inspired Writers and they all agree in this that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the world to shew himself strong in the behalf of those whose heart is upright toward him as it is said 2 Chron. 16.9 And with respect to this special Providence it is that Solomon gives this advice to the Disciple of wisdom Prov. 3.1 2. My son forget not my Law and let thy heart attend unto my commandment for length of days and long life and peace shall they add unto thee By this special Providence a man is preserved from numberless dangers which otherwise would crush both health and life It s this blesses his meat and drink to him be it more or less wholesom or unwholesom removes from it what is noxious and pestilential gives it a nutritive power and many times preserves him without meat and drink for man doth not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God as we are told Matth. 4.4 However this serious remembrance of our Creator or which is all one the fear of God makes a man immortal more effectually than Books and Monuments or Pillars or Tombstones or Fabricks or Pyramids For these onely keep up an empty name but this conscientious fear makes the man himself immortal Such a person leads a happy life here and his natural death makes no other alteration in that happy life than that it gives it greater brightness greater splendour greater lustre and adds to it higher degrees of happiness And of this Fear or serious Remembrance of God it may be said as it was of the Bread which came down from Heaven that it is Meat indeed and Drink indeed and he that feeds upon it shall never die For such a mans Soul which is the principal part of him at the end or period of his days here is onely transplanted into a richer ground and conveyed to a nobler Soil to better Land to a larger House to more pleasant Mansions and to a more ample Theater And being removed from hence it doth not change its nature but onely her abode from a Prison from a Cave from a Cottage from a Dungeon to a more spacious Pallace where she hath more Elbow-room and like a Bird freed from her Cage acts with greater liberty and sings with greater cheerfulness And her Body too sleeps onely for a few years lies down upon a bed of Turf till the Soul is throughly setled in her new Habitation and then even that at the sound of the Arch-Angels Trumpet shall awake to a happy immortality as Christ assures us Job 11.26 And though it 's true that many who sincerely remember their Creator and fear him are cut off in the prime and flower of their age and live but a short time in this world yet that early removal contradicts not the natural tendency of the Fear of God Still this is the natural course of that stream and if it met with no extraordinary stop it would certainly prolong life even here upon earth But God for special reasons puts a stop sometimes to its natural course as he hindred the Sun from going down in Joshua's time and from shining out at noon-day in our Saviour's time and the Iron from sinking in Elishah's time and the Fire from scorching in Nebucadnezzar's time and the greedy Whale from consuming or devouring Jonas These creatures had they been left to their natural course would have acted otherwise but an Almighty hand interposing its power and influence they were restrained in their natural bent and inclination So the Fear of God though its natural tendency be to prolong health and life yet God doth not so tie himself to the natural course of things but that sometimes for reasons best known to himself he may and doth make an alteration in that natural tendency nor is that alteration any just discouragement from the Fear of God no more than a mans being sometimes disappointed in his designs is a discouragement from prosecuting his Trade or Calling or Profession So that when God makes an alteration in the natural course or tendency of this holy Fear and cuts off men that conscientiously remember him in the prime and slower of their age it may be either to advance his own Glory or to accelerate their happiness or to keep them from the evil to come or to chastise their Relatives who were too fond of these outward Comforts or to wicked men who as they are by the death of such persons deprived of examples and monitors and means of grace so through just Judgement of God thereby hardned in their sins which brings on their everlasting misery Though if we consider the happiness of the next world in conjunction with this present as it makes one entire thred or web in a person that truly fears God still there can be no greater truth than that the Fear of God prolongs life for it prolongs it to all Eternity Not to mention that abundance of persons who seem to fear God do fear him very imperfectly or not exactly according to the Rules before laid down which may be the reason why they do not see this promise fulfilled to them in all the measures of its latitude It is confest that even men that do
forget him thus cannot expect God should remember them in the day of Recompense as a Father doth his Children Great will be the terrour when the thoughtless Soul comes to appear before an all-seeing God and greater yet when to such forgetful sinners he shall say I know you not for so we are told Matth. 7.23 Then will I profess unto them I never knew you Depart from me ye that work iniquity How I never knew you How can any thing be hid from him when it is expresly said Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world Acts 15.18 True he knows them as his works but not as his Friends He knows them as Traitors but not as faithful Subjects He knows them as Creatures but not as his Children He knows them as Prodigals but not as Heirs of Heaven He knows them as Strangers but not as Domesticks How should he know them when they have lost the Character of his Sheep the mark whereby the Flock must be distinguished which is to hear his Voice And what a dismal condition must that man be in whom God will take no notice of and whom he doth not remember that ever he was of his Family If God knows him not no Angel in Heaven will know him no Saint no Spirit made perfect will know him He is shut out from Heaven excluded from the best and noblest Company no Society will receive him but that of hellish Spirits You may laugh at these Terrours now but when they come to pass what wise man would be under your circumstances As a Father plagued with a disobedient Son forgets that ever he had such a Child so God will forget that ever you had any relation to him He will remember your sins indeed he 'll remember how you have fought against him how you have doted upon the world how you have pleased your Flesh and counted his Laws as strange things how you have slighted his thunders and looked upon his offers of Mercy as words in course How you have enslaved your Souls to your Lusts and made the Mistress wait upon a pitiful Hagar how you have gone on in sin when your hearts have smitten you for it and thought your jolly life would never be at an end how you have loved unrighteousness more than goodness and turned the truth of God into a lie how you have thought the duties of Religion below you and put off God with the lame and with the blind for sacrifice how soon you have been weary of serving him and how you have looked upon your duties as things needless and unprofitable how you have had mens persons in admiration because of advantage and hearkned more to the perswasions of a Sot than to his wholesome Counsels how dear your credit and honour hath been to you and how you have valued it above his honour and glory how you have derided him that hath reproved you in the Gate and been wise to do evil how you have made the riches of the world the great end of all your endeavours and set your affections upon things perishable and inconstant This he 'll remember with a witness and none of all the hard Speeches you have vented against him or the power of godliness shall be forgotten But this Remembrance will be your misery and his thinking on your faults and wilful errours your condemnation Flatter not your selves that once you did remember his Will and Laws and Mercies with great sincerity though afterward tempted by the Devil and enticed by the frailty of your Flesh you departed from the holy Commandment delivered to you for he hath made already a Proviso against that Plea and protested that if the righteous man turn away from his righteousness and commit iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth shall he live all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned in his trespass that he hath trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Ezek. 18.24 He 'll forget all your little Services and your petty hypocritical Devotions indeed they are not worth remembring fitter to be scorned than to be remembred To remember them so as to crown them with bliss is a thing they are not capable of for Love the great principle and sap that must feed them is wanting Suppose you were in danger of losing all you have even life it self and stood in need of some great Princes assistance who had formerly expressed more than ordinary kindness to you and should he upon your address turn away his face from you not onely make himself strange to you as Joseph did to his Brethren by way of tryal but be really so what a fright and confusion would you be in Behold God is that puissant Prince who hath formerly courted you by Kindnesses and Mercies and Entreaties If you forget him in your Conversation here you will certainly be in danger of losing not onely all your Goods but eternal Life to boot Before this powerful Prince who alone can save you from perishing you must stand e'er long his help and assistance will be more needful and advantageous to you than all the Advocates that Heaven and Earth can afford And if this immortal King instead of remembring you shall frown upon you be strange to you acknowledge no such forgetful Creatures for Members of his Family or Objects of his paternal care and tenderness Can any Language express the astonishment your Souls will be in when he shall put you in mind of all the sins you have forgotten and of all the secret Follies you kept concealed from the world and the eyes of men when he shall remember and lay open all that you have buried in oblivion and make the wounds you gave to your Souls and skin'd them over bleed afresh how dumb how pale how surpriz'd will ye be at the tremendous Charge O consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver Psal. 50.22 But after all methinks this Discourse is incompleat except I add something concerning our Deceased Brother whose death hath brought us hither Though I had no personal acquaintance with him yet I have some reason to believe that the account given me of him is impartial and agreeable to truth He was it seems a person faithful in his Generation a man of Conscience a pious Christian a good Church-man a loving Brother and an excellent Servant Onely of his Death it may be said as David said of a far greater man Did the Lad die as a fool dieth Thy hands were not bound nor thy feet put into fetters but as a man falleth before wicked men so fellest thou In a word Murthered he was by men bruitish and barbarous and who like the Judge in the Gospel neither feared God nor regarded man I will not be too inquisitive into the reasons of this Providence though it be natural enough when such accidents befall