life eternal life and begs your acceptance of it but he will then revenge your ungrateful refusal of his offered mercy Now he entreats you to be happy and have compassion on your selves But then he will be as deaf to your entreaties as you have been to his and that though you should urge him with the greatest importunity possible though you beseech him by the mercifulness of his Nature by the freeness of his Invitation by the Compassion of his Death by the merit of his sufferings by the kindness of his Sacrifice by the Grace of his Gospel c. Now you wil not believe his promises but then you shall experience the execution of his Threatnings Now you will not hearken to his advice and warning but you shall shortly feel the sad effects of your contempt and obstinacy Now you will not be constrained by his dying love but ere long you shall know the power of his wrath whether you will or no for though at present he offer you life yet upon your refusal he will shortly pronounce the Sentence of Eternal Death as yet he Invites you to him but then he will bid you depart Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels From that God after whose Image you were Created from that Saviour who redeemed you by his blood and from that Holy Spirit who would have sanctified you by his Grace Depart from me and all hopes of Salvation by me From me and all the blessed Company of Saints and Angels that shall live with me for ever Depart from me abandoned to an everlasting curse of which both Souls and bodies shall be the wretched unhappy Subjects into Inquisite Torments set forth by fire and such as were originally design'd for the Apostate Spirits of whom the Scripture doth suppose one to be the principal Ring leader of all the rest and who are therefore termed his Angels They who tempted you to Sin shall deride your folly and triumph in your Rain and be your Constant perpetual Tormentors since the fire is unquenchable and never goeth out Nevertheless how dreadful soever this Sentence must needs be it is not more intolerable in it self than unavoidable to the Sinner For where will you hide from his Alseeing eye or how will you resist the force of his Almighty arm as it will be in vain to think of supporting his wrath so every whit as vain to Imagine a possibility of escaping it Will the tears of a desparing Sinner extinguish the fire of Gods wrath and quench the flames of Hell will his wishing he had been wiser in the least avail when the Charge is proved and the Sentence past whither would you flee from the justice of the judge whither but to the mercy of a Saviour But this Saviour is now the Judge and become your Enemy A sight of whom shall awaken the most slumbering Conscience and make the never-dying worm gnaw your very heart when it shall mind you of the calls and invitations you refused and the warnings you slighted revive the convictons you stifled and remember you of the vows you broke and force you to reflect on the vanities of your youth and sadly look back on the time past of your ignorance and folly When for a light temptation you run the hazard of this heavy punishment when for a temporal pleasure you ventured an endless Torment for a mixt delight an unmixed pain for a momentary satisfaction an eternal Wrath for a short Sin an everlasting Sorrow O Eternity Eternity is it true or rather can it possibly be false that after millions of ages under the wrath of God it will not then be past the beginning of Sorrows but an everlasting vengeance will be yet to come and will ever be to come O cursed be my wicked Companions that inticed me to Sin and so to ruine or rather Curst be my own stupidity and folly that I would not be perswaded to believe what now I know and feel Oh that I were now on Earth again and had the benefit of one months space in order to a second trial Oh that I had never seen the light or that the Earth had open'd and and swallowed me up in my Cradle or rather Oh that in time I had received instruction and harkened to reproof that in time I had believed what I was told so plainly and warned of so Faithfully concerning God and his Righteous Judgment Now that this may never be the case of any one of us let me conclude with the advice of the Prophet Jer. 13.16 Give Glory to the Lord your God before he cause darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light he turn it into the shadow of Death and make it gross darkness FINIS
would certainly imbitter the pleasures of sin would quench our fond desire and check our Foolish hopes and spoil the relish of our carnal Joy would blast the Beauty and darken the luster of worldly greatness would sadden the delights and weaken the Temptations of fleshly pleasures For what satisfaction can that man take in Jovial Company in the pastimes of Children and the laughter of Fools who is verily perswaded that ere long he must appear to Judgment How can he be enamour'd of this Earth and after serious deliberation be fond of outward grandure who beleives and knows that shortly the Earth it self shall be burnt up 2 Pet. 3.10 the Trumpet of the Arch Angel found and our Glorious Judge summon all Man-kind before his Bar by that Thundring Voice Arise dead and come to Judment And can we grant this day of the Lord to be not only certain but near at hand and not think it time to prepare for our solemn appearance shall we contradict our principles and live in a repugnancy to our avowed Creed under the plain censure of Notorious Hypocrisy or folly The First from our profession if we do not beleive it the Second from the unsuitableness of our practise in case we do 3. Consider that your Summons to this Judgment of God may be sudden and unexpected and overtake you unawares When God will require your Souls to appear before his Tribunal how soon or suddenly he will do it you cannot say The time and place of our Death in kindness and wisdom is concealed from us that we may every where stand upon our gaurd and every moment expect our call to Judgment because we know not whether God by sickness will advertise us of our approaching end or his stroke be sudden by an unexpected casualty And therefore Moses speaking to the Jews as to one man Deut. 30.20 saith he of God He is thy Life and the length of thy Days q d. The shortning or prolonging of thy days is in the Hand of God Hence some are taken the first hour and some at the third and some at the sixth and some at the ninth and others let alone till the eleventh but that is a great uncertainty for we may be surprised Innumerable accidents attend us every where that may blot our names out of the Book of Life and suddainly confine us to the Chambers of Death It may be this day we are Jovial and in health among our friends and worldly affairs and to morrow arrested with a Summons to Judgment In the morning in chase of earthly honour riches or delights and in the Evening laid out for our funeral by various accidents not now foreseen by us or any of our friends We may be cut off while we presume on hereafter while we resolve to repent in the midst of our holy purposes before they are performed For tho' we read in Scripture of the Sinner of an Hundred years old that he shall be accurst yet have we no example of one in a thousand that lives to that age This young person whose funeral occasion'd my discourse not many days since was as strong and healthful and as likely to Live as any of us and 'T is a very great questions whether you and I may have so much Time and Space to repent upon a Sick-bed as he had who enjoy'd his senses and the use of his reason to the very last This day therefore cannot be too soon to prepare because to morrow may be too late Every unprepared Sinner being expos'd to as many hazards of Everlasting destruction as their may be accidents to surprize 'em with sudden Death 4. Consider that youth and health is the fittest time to prepare for this final judgment As to the former if we but reflect on the manifold infirmities of old age that weakness of body and that decay of parts which doth usualy accompany that state the hardning of their hearts by a custome and continuance in Sin the loss of memory and quick apprehension the want of those vigorous Affections and flexible inclinations which they had in Youth which makes it more difficult to convince and perswade them such considerations as tkese methinks should be enough to discourage a delay in our young yerears But besides this how can such persons expect to find ' acceptance with God in the dregs of their time after the misspending of an whole Life to his dishonour for tho I would not discourage their utmost endeavours and thro' the mercy of God in Christ there is hope enough to prevent a total dispair yet what can we suppose should be the substance of such a mans prayer but to this effect Lord I have wasted my days in sin and sacrificed the flower of mine age to sport and folly to the provocation of thy Justice and the hazard of my Salvation the best of all my Time I must needs confess hath been devoted to the will of Satan and devoured by my Lusts But I here present thee with the Lees and refuse of my strength and Age the little fragments and poor remainder which they have left I beseech thee for the sake of Christ to receive me now at last tho' I did obstinately deny obedience to thy earliar calls and wilfully refus'd to return sooner tho' now my strength as well as my body is bow'd down to the Grave and I am hardly capable of doing thee any Service denyme not O Lord to live with thee in the other World tho' I have liv'd so long without thee in this What prevalency do we imagine there can possibly be in so weak an address without a Soverain extraordinary Grace to relieve the exigence of such sad and discourageing Circumstances And then as to health that for certain is the most proper time to prepare for Judgment Let us but suppose the young sinner seiz'd by a fit of Sickness if the accuteness of the disease do not influence the brain and and cause a dilirium yet is that a time to repent and make your peace with God and provide for our appearance before his judgment Seat for usually the understanding is then clouded the fancy then disturb'd the passions disordered and the thoughts distracted Consider seriously what is wont to be the hurry of a violent distemper suppose restlesness through heat or pain or want of sleep or suppose the Physician should mistake thy case or the Devil use his subtelty and malice to deceive or terrify thy guilty Soul and then tell me whether a sick-bed be a fit season to prepare for Judgment May not thy thoughts have work enough to struggle with thy pains or to settle thine estate or regard thy mourning friends about thee When thy pulse is low and thy breath short and thy Spirits almost gone thy Sins many and thy fears great and thou hast hardly Sufficient strength to get rid of a clot of Spittle is that a time to enter the lists with Principalities and powers and all the rulers
can you think when you are capable your interest by your Parents can avail you any thing against your own personal rejection of God No not tho' Abraham were your Father if you should finally shew your selves rather a generation of Vipers Which we have great hope God will mercifully forbid But if Englands Youth should generally tho' not all at once as they come not to be such all at once against their Baptismal Vow cast off God here is an intercision of the line and an end of the relation between God and us If therefore you love your Country you will love God and study to please and serve him with your whole heart If you love your Prince you will do so for would you have him to be yea would you make him the Head of a destitute People forsaken of God And how would you propose to your selves to live your days and spend your time in the World without God What in eating and drinking and pleasing your Flesh till you dye would you not take it for a scorn and ignominy to you if one should tell you you were born for no higher purposes and are capable of no higher But how dare you think without knowing and becoming specially related to the God of your lives of dying and passing into an unknown World Peruse seriously the ensuing discourse that we longer detain you from it 〈◊〉 if it signifies any thing to your better preparation for Death and Judgment and in Order thereto to your holy and more useful comfortable life on Earth It will answer the Authors Design and with his the desires and prayers of Your Affectionate Friends and Servants in our Lord. JOHN HOW V. ALSOP ERRATA PAge 6. l. 2. r. grateful p. 11. l. 9. r. have right p. 12. l. 29. dele did l. last r. of a p. 17. l. 15. l. differences p. 19. l. 23. ad ye p. 21. l. 16. r. younger years p. 24. l. 29. add to p. 31. l. 2. dele and p. 3. l. 7. r. exquisite p. 32. l. 5. r. montentany A Funeral-Sermon Ecelesiastes XI 9. Rejoyce o young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee in the days of thy youth and walk in the ways of thy heart and in the sight of thine eyes but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment NOtwithstanding our manifold advantages for serious Religion in our younger years and the contrary inconvensences of deferring it to old Age or an indefinite hereafter our frequent warnings by the death of others to provide for our own and the unspeakable hazard of a sick-bed Repentance yet how apt are most persons in their youth and strength to forget their Creator and themselves too to indulge to carnal mirth and sensual delights as supposing by a fatal prejudice and mistake That obedience to God would introduce melancholly destroy the chearfulness of conversation and spoil the sweetness of human life and thereupon refuse to bestow a serious thought about Religion and another World till God by sickness or an hasty death summon them to appear before his Bar Upon which account it cannot be thought unnecessary or unseasonable upon all occasions to mind young persons of their sin and duty their snares and dangers their latter end and final judgment What at this time directed my thoughts to such a subject is not unknown to divers present viz. The death-bed Repentance of a young man lately deceased who for some time past attended this Lecture I hope at length with some seriousness and profit tho' at first he came only with a design to carp and sooff as with great remorse he told me in his last sickness And therefore if there be any now come hither upon the same errand and with the same thoughts I pray God command their attention for otherwise it would be in vain for me to beg it and accompany his own Word with a powerful efficacy to their hearts to convince their judgments and perswade their wills and awaken their Souls that they may go away with other apprehensions and resolutions than they came hither as this deceased Penitent once did whose Repentance and Funeral calls loudly to us all to consider this Apostrophe of the Wise man in the Text Rejoyce o young man in thy youth and let thy heant chear thee in the days of thy youth and walk in the ways of thy heart and in the sight of thine eyes but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment For the coherence of these words with the preceeding Verses we need only observe that Solomon in the former Chapters having given many excellent rules for the quieting of our minds and the comfort of our lives under all that vanity which he pronounc'd upon this World he comes in this Chapter to exhort us to prepare for another For when all is done that can possibly be effected in order to a contented and a happy life yet he tells us that our life it self is vain and transient our death inevitable and that the days of darkness will be many vers 8. and then confutes that unreasonable inference which the young Epicure is too prone to make from such premises deriding his foolish pretence and plea by an Ironie and yet endeavouring to awaken his Conscience by declaring the certainty of an after-reckoning and by a solemn citation of him before Gods Tribunal For to this purpose we may suppose the young sensualist to retort the Argument Are all things vain Is life uncertain and death and darkness near let me then enjoy the light as long as I can let me indulge my appetite and please my sences and gratify my lusts and make the best improvement of this vain this short uncertain life Have I but a a little time in which to enjoy this world Let me not make it shorter by a Stoical reservedness lot me not lose this day least I never have another but eat and drink for to morrow I may dye To which suppos'd Objection the Wise man answers in the Words I have read Rejoyce o young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee in the days of thy youth q. d. Let it do thee good and bring thee joy be as merry as thou canst and take all the satisfaction thy lusts can procure if thou think it best and most adviseable to do so Walk in the ways of thy heart and in the sight of thine eyes q.d. Being resolved upon a short life and a merry baulk nothing which thy lust doth flictate deny thy self no thing thy foolish heart can wish or thy senfual appetite may crave But know for certain a day of reckoning is at hand when God will call thee to an account for thy sensual lusts and youthful follies However now thou maist stifle the convictions of thy Conscience by repeated debauches and lewd company however now thou maist make a shift to drown the sentiments of a reasonable Soul by the noise of riot
or bring the pleasures of the flesh to banish the presaging fears of thy immortal spirit however now thou maist flatter or delude thy self by the principles of a Sadducee or please thy senses by the practice of an Epicvre yet for all these things God will bring thee to judgment q. d. Whither thou wilt or no a scrutiny shall be made into thy past actions and an account must be given of thine ill spent life and for all the vanities of thy youth and the sensual pleasures that now entice thee God a terrible and a righteous God will bring thee to his judgment-Seat And it follows v. 10. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart by avoiding sin which is the cause of sorrow and put away evil from thy flesh for childhood and youth are vanity From the words may be collected these Three General Heads of Discourse as comprehensive of the sum of the Text. 1. In that Solomon makes use of an Ironie and so in mockery and derision bids the young man rejoice we may take notice that sinful mirth and sensual pleasure is no real and substantial joy fit for a wise man to choose It hath but the appearance and the name of joy for what is truly so is nowhere to be had without the fear of God and the faithful keeping of his Commandments 2. In that he directs his discourse to the young man in particular we have a plain intimation that young persons of all others are most apt to lay aside the fear of God and forget their Creator through the temptations of sensual pleasures and youthful lusts 3. Because he tells the young man that even He must come to judgment as an argument most proper to damp his carnal mirth and jollity and put a check to his pursuit of youthful Lusts We may hence observe in what respects the consideration of a future judgment hath any force of Argument to perswade young persons to stop in their cours of sin and to remember their Creatour in the days of their youth As to the first I shall divide it into Two Branches and so consider 1. That the carnal mirth of sinners hath but the appearance and name of joy being exprest by an Ironie while on the contrary they meet with trouble and sorrow and dissatisfaction in pursuit of their lusts 2. That the life of a serious Christian in the fear of God and the keeping of his Commandments is the only chearful and merry life 1st That sinful mirth and sensual pleasure hath but the appearance and name of joy Doubtless the thought of Joy carrieth Argument with it to allure as that of sorrow to disswade on which account we are commonly averse to serious practical Religion in our younger years as supposing it would interfere with all the pleasures of human life and doom us to a perpetual mourning melancholick state whereas the Irony in the Text may let us know That while we walk in the way of our own hearts and in the sight of our eyes we deceive our selves with the shadow of Joy and the name of Mirth 'T is true he bids the young man here rejoyce and let his heart chear him but it is in perfect scorn and derision as knowing well that all his mirth and chearfulness must be false and spurious vain and causless less in quantity and worse in quality than the rejoicing of an upright Christian For as to sensual mirth so greatful and infecting to the generality of youth either it depends upon their Company Prov. 23.29 which sometimes begets quarrels and wounds without cause or proves not suitable to their humour or else ariseth from a particular temper of Body heighten'd by meats and drinks and more than ordinary Diet and so hath more of the Beast than of the Man and by consequence must needs be of a short continuance or else is the sole effect of youth and so will undoubtedly decay as they advance in Age. However it is in it self contemptible and base as feigned and not sincere as appearing and not real as vain and without foundation as mational and without a cause and not contemptible only in it self but likewise in relation to the Subject the inferior part of Man and much more in reference to the Object of their carnal mirth when 't is not only senfual but forbidden too and as truly so in regard of the Duration also since it is easily disturb'd and quickly gone How can it be imagin'd that a course of sin can give a Man any solid mirth when the Men themselves are at such a vast expence of care and pains and trouble of unavoidable fear and shame and anxious thoughts either to contrive or to accomplish or to conceal their wicked purposes and practices so that I need not ask that question concerning the joy of the Epicure which Job doth of the Hope of the Hypocrite Job 27.8 what is it when God shall take away his Soul But in the mean time what is it now what mirth and joy have they for the present who must rack their brains and stretch their fancies and employ their most solicitous and concerned thoughts how to make provision for their lusts Rom. 13.14 and then must baffle their reasons and debauch their Consciences actually to enjoy them For oftentimes a troublesome Conscience says so many rubs in their way which they know not how to remove starts so many objections which they cannot answer makes so many doubts and Scruples which they know not how to resolve and overcome that if they will venture upon the sin it must be even in despite of themselves Sometimes the very contrivance of their sins gives them sufficient uneasiness and trouble to spoil their mirth such previous thoughtfulness being necessary to frame the model to fix the time to design the manner and to order the circumstances of some impieties and sometimes the wickedness it self is its own punishment Look upon the young sinner swelling in pride or burning in lust or drowning in sensuality consider him rackt with impatient desires and burthen'd with unavoidable fears least his attempt be unsuccesful or least he be disappointed in the secrecy of the enjoyment and his shame and folly publish'd to the world And yet this is the merry life of the sensual Epicure Besides when by a custom and continuance in sin the Devil is in full possession and Lust upon the Throne what Tyranny doth it exercise and what a blind obedience must the sinner yield How often are you forced to declare that you approve of that which your mind condemns how often do you subscribe to that as true which you know to be false and so run headlong against the light of nature and the checks of Conscience and surrender Soul and Body and all to the will of Satan and the command of an imperious domineering Lust Now what mirth or joy can consist with such a servitude yea while you weary your selves to commit iniquity Jer. 9.5