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
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
not trouble their heads about Religion Swearers Drunkards Atheists Blasphemers Beasts and Brutes live to a prodigious age sometimes without the Fear of God yet is not therefore the conscientious man that lives long in the world a loser by his fear for though he that fears God and he that lives in contempt of his Laws do both enjoy the same blessing even long Life yet there is a vast difference in the causes of this Blessing for in the former Blessing comes from a Father's hand in the other from a Judges In the former it is a gift of love in the other of meer generosity In the former it comes by promise in the other by a large and diffusive bounty To the former it is given that he may be a blessing to his Neighbours to the other that he may be a Scourge and Rod to those who live neer him In the former it is an effect of vertue in the other of natural constitution The former receives it because of his universal Obedience the other hath may be done some little inconsiderable service to Gods Church or Servants which God scorns to leave unrewarded and as the service will bear no bigger reward so God puts him of with a blessing of his left hand And from hence it follows that there must be a great difference in the comforts of this blessing In the former this long Life is in order to greater Mercy in the other in order to his greater condemnation In the former like a gentle River which hath run many miles and enriched the neighbouring Grounds it mingles at last with the vast Ocean of Glory in the other though like the River Jordan it hath extended its course a great way yet falls at last into the dead Sea into endless howlings In the former it is a spiritual Blessing as well as a temporal in the other only a temporal In the former it is a sign that a great deal more is to be added to it in the other that after that all his Blessings are at an end and that he shall have no more By all which it appears that this Remembrance of God is no useless thing It is profitable to the Body as well as the Soul and by what I have said it should seem it is the best Physick in the world So wisely hath God ordered his Laws and Precepts that they signally advance the welfare not onely of the inward but outward man too O the blindness of poor Mortals that will not see this truth How calmly how sweetly how contentedly may a man live with the Fear of God while sin and pleasing his extravagant Lusts hurries the sinner on to a thousand troubles and inconveniencies Nay the unwary man sees how his sinful courses his drinking and keeping ill Company breaks his Estate his Body and his Health and perhaps the Heart of his Wife and Children The Fear of God would preserve all these yet the heedless wretch will take no warning Do these men believe another life do you think No if they did they durst as well eat fire as we say as venture upon sins to which the Almighty Judge hath affixed damnation by an irreversible Decree But what do we talk of another life If their temporal interest and the interest of their Bodies and Estate and health cannot make them wiser I know nothing but feeling the flaming anger of a just God that will do it To see men run into death and misery and diseases as if they were angry with their lives and took it ill that God hath given them a being in the world what can a man think but that they are distracted and out of their wits But it were well if their madness were invincible and that they could not help it but now have they both seen and known and might prevent their danger and will not therefore their sin remains But I will not stand upon the long and healthy life which the Remembrance of God or a holy Fear of his name procures in this life I will carry this motive farther as this long Life relates to everlasting and endless life Behold Christians this prize this mighty Commodity we set before you in his Name who hath sent us to be Embassadours for Christ Jesus Men Fathers and Brethren and ye that fear God give audience The God of our Fathers the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob hath raised his Son Jesus from the dead who hath brought life and immortality to light This immortal Life he offers you and by us entreats you to accept of it He doth promise you that you shall live eternally in his Bosom in the Sunshine of his Favour in the Beams of his inaccessible Light He doth promise you that you shall live eternally without Fear without Want without Poverty without Trouble without Sickness without Care and without Anxiety He doth promise you that vou shall live eternally in all the Ease and Plenty and Prosperity that reason can desire He doth promise you all this not that he stands in need of you or is in distress for your company or that this eternal Life lies like a Drug upon his hands or that he knows not what to do with it No but his Almighty Immense and infinite love moves him to offer all this and by way of exchange he requires not an Oblation of the Beasts of the field or of a thousand Rivers of Oyl but all he expects at your hands is this early Remembrance of your Creator a Remembrance without which you cannot live happy here without which you can never relish that eternal Life he doth promise you without which you are incapable of conversing with him and without which it is impossible you should ever be his Friends and Favourites And have you no ambition to live as long as Angels live Are you so low-spirited that you have no desire to live eternally Ye young people ye are loth to die behold this conscientious Remembrance of your God will make your days like the days of God whose Years do not fail and who endures from one Generation to another Ye that are stricken in age as old as ye are ye are unwilling to die If you are loth to die behold here is a Tree of Life if you stretch forth your hand and eat of this Tree you shall live for ever This Remembrance of God this Fear of his Name is the true Antidote again Death aye and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against you And will ye refuse so great a Mercy and a Pearl of that inestimable value Did any of the damned see you loth and unwilling to embrace this offer what strange Creatures would they take you to be O then see that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not that refused him who spake on Earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaks from Heaven Heb. 12.21 Sixthly It is rational to