Selected quad for the lemma: glory_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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good men to wonder at the strangeness of the Dispensation But when we see a good Prophet killed by a Lion for a meer mistake as it appears to us and Josiah an excellent Prince slain in battle for a rash act and an Vzzah struck dead upon the spot for stretching forth his hand to uphold the tottering Ark all admirable men and whose Salvation we do not question we need not wonder that Providence hath permitted a Murther to be committed upon this innocent person for as in the aforesaid examples their violent death was onely a temporal affliction such as sicknesses and other Diseases are so the accident in our deceased Friend was of the same nature and such calamities in good men do but help and advance them the sooner to their everlasting harbour And yet I cannot altogether excuse our Brother here departed For as the Murther was acted in a publick Fair where great disorders rudenesses and insolencies are committed and excesses and vain Shews are all the entertainment so it 's probable and I fear that when he went to this place he ventured into one which he had no lawful call to be at The Primitive Bishops and Christians were very much against such vain and foolish Shews and forbid their Disciples to frequent them and as Peter fell by going into the High Priests Hall so it might be very just with God to let so sad a Providence befal our deceased Friend to give warning to other good men to keep ever in Gods ways that they may be confident of the Angels bearing them up in their hands lest they dash their foot against a stone But though there might be inadvertency and infirmity in our deceased Brothers going to a place he had nothing to do at to be sure it was onely a single act not a habit of juvenile vanity and though he was thereby deprived of the farther comforts of this Life yet that can be no impediment to his enjoyment of a better for God judges of us not by an accidental incogitancy but by the stream and current of our lives His mortal wounds though procured and caused by very bad instruments yet did not put him into a rage and passion but he freely forgave his Murtherers and like St. Steven pray'd that God would not lay this sin to their charge and when he had said so he fell asleep His death is a Sermon to us all and though he be dead yet he calls to us in Christ's language Watch therefore for ye know not when your Lord comes whether in the evening or at midnight or at cock crowing and what I say unto you I say unto all watch THE PRAYER GReat Glorious and Incomprehensible God! with thee is terrible Majesty touching thy Essence we cannot find it out thou art excellent in Power in Judgement and in plenty of Justice Thy ways are always equal and the most piercing as well as envious eye can spy no fault in thy proceedings Thou art infinitely pure and holy and the Light thou art deckt withal admits no spots no variableness no shadow of turning Thou art the most worthy Object for my thoughts and memory to fix upon Thou deservest to be remembred in all the actions of my life And to forget thee without whom I cannot breathe is an Indignity I cannot answer I have too long pass'd by thee as if I had no relation to thee I have been able to remember a frivolous story of my Neighbour and my memory hath serv'd me well enough to preserve a wrong or injury done to my Name and Person but thy loving kindnesses and gracious Providences and what ever concerns my everlasting welfare I have suffered to slip out of my mind How many years have I spent in the world without any serious thoughts of the great mystery of Godliness Thou hast given me Line upon Line and Precept upon Precept and how like water have I suffer'd them to be spilt on the ground I have looked upon my remembring thee as a thing indifferent which I might observe or neglect at my pleasure I have lived thou knowest as if the world had been the onely object of my hopes and desires my best and golden days how have I squandred them away as if they were things too precious to be consecrated to thy service How vain hath my mind been How hath it ranged and roved and fluttered up and down among the contents and comforts of this present life How greedily hath it applied it self to these fading Flowers and thought that here lay all the sweetness I could hope for How late do I begin to love thee How late do I begin to be wise Had I improved the Talents thou hast given me betimes assoon as I was capable to understand what Religion and an everlasting interest meant what good might I have done How many might I have drawn by my example to thy pleasant ways How great a portion of thy love and favour have I lost and how much earlier might I have enjoyed the influences of thy Charity How justly mightest thou have doomed me to a reprobate mind or struck me dead in my vanities I remember Lord how thou hast called and I have refused how thou hast stretched forth thy hands unto me and I have not regarded How justly mightest thou laugh now at my calamity and mock when my fear comes when my fear comes as desolation and my destruction like a Whirlwind But O my God in the midst of thine anger remember Mercy Remember O Lord thy tender Mercies and thy loving Kindnesses for they have been ever of old Remember not the sins of my youth nor my Transgressions according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness sake O Lord Good and upright is the Lord therefore will he teach sinners in the way O my God! I am dull I am ignorant I have stood in the way of sinners O teach thou me teach me to remember thee at my lying down and mine uprising Teach me to remember thee in my going out and in my coming in Let thy remembrance for the future be very sweet to me and let me never think of thee but with pleasure and delight Let me forget what is behind me and put me always in mind of the recompense that is before me Call not my sins to remembrance and as for my transgressions forget them and cast them behind thy back Teach me to remember what thou hast done for me and make that remembrance powerful to engage me to gratitude and obedience In death there is no remembrance of thee and who will give thee thanks in the Grave The living the living they shall praise thee O let my life be a continual remembrance of thee Morning Evening and at Noon let me remember thee and in the Night let my song be of thee who art the God of my Salvation Let me remember thy love and how thou hast humbled thy self for my sake I am apt to forget thee O refresh thou my memory with a sense of thy goodness and when the world would drive any serious thoughts out of my mind keep them in O Lord by thy mighty power and make them agreeable to my Memory and Vnderstanding Remember how frail I am and uphold me with thy free Spirit Forget me not O my God though I have forgotten thee Deal not with me according to mine iniquities neither reward me according to my transgressions Remember thy promise unto the penitent and how graciously thou hast offered Pardon and Salvation to those that turn from their evil ways O God it is the desire of my Soul and the real purpose of my Heart to turn to thee to seek thy face to walk in thy ways and to bid farewel to all the sinful Pleasures of this life Put me in mind of all the Motives and Arguments thou hast given me to make my Calling and Election sure When they wear out in my Mind write them there afresh and renew them still that being ever before me they may lead me to thy holy Hill O bring to my remembrance every Precept and every Duty I am to perform and when ever I am to perform any say unto me call to me This is the way walk in it and turn neither to the right nor to the left then shall I praise thee with joyful Lips and give thanks at the remembrance of thy Holiness through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. Mosch prat Spir. c. 195. Damasc. Hist. Barl. Jos.
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