Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	creator_n	young_a	youth_n	81	3	8.7602	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57574	Early religion, or, The way for a young man to remember his Creator proposed in a sermon preach'd upon the death of Mr. Robert Linager, a young gentleman, who left this world, Octob. 26, 1682, with an account of some passages of his life and death / by T. Rogers.	Rogers, Timothy, 1658-1728.; Veel, Edward, 1632?-1708.	1683 (1683)	Wing R1849; ESTC R27563	39,498	63

unhappy an Education I cannot but have charitable thoughts of him believing that if ever Death-bed Repentance be sincere it is in those that being Young are not so hardned in Sin nor have resisted so many motions of Gods Spirit nor rejected so many offers of Grace as Older Sinners have done However let not Young ones presame upon the account of this or any like Instance but Remember their Creator in the Days of their Youth and health considering their Lives are in Gods Hand who is a soveraign and may as well not give them Hearts to repent when Old as not give them Time to grow Old How many are Nipt in the Bud or Cut off in the Flower of their age when their Hearts are filled with Wordly lusts and their Minds lifted up with worldly Hopes And they Dream of nothing less than the End of their Days and an Eternal State Were there the Reason and Judgment of Elder Men in the Heads of the Younger it might be an easiertask to deal with them but Youth is a slippery Age full of Passion Rashness wilfulness and so apt to despise the Counsel of those that are more Grave and experienced and to think it proceeds not so much from the Love they have to Young Souls as the Envy they bear to their Youthful pleasures But what folly is this and how much to be lamented in them if we cannot reclaim them from it Can you Sirs Clip the Wings of Time that it may not fly from you or put off the approach of Eternity that it may not hasten upon you Can your Lusts and pleasures prevent your Death or prepare you for it think seriously of it and you will be of my Mind Why then are ye not up and doing as soon as you can Why do you not Work out your Salvation as Hard as you can all your Time and strength are little enough for such a Work Let every Example of Mortality in others and this in particular mind you of your own Live like those that know you must die and so as you will certainly wish you had lived when you come to die You are growing up to be the Successors of us that are Elder and to fill up our places in the World when we are gone out of it May you out-do us in all that is good and praise-worthy may your Zeal for God and Holiness shame the degeneracy and Coldness of present professors Religion loses ground in this age if you keep it not up in your selves it will be quite lost in the next And therefore I must again inculcate what is the scope of this discourse begin betimes and give God your strength and the Morning of your Day never think it too soon to turn to him nor too long to serve him you will not count an whole Eternity too much for your own Happiness do not count your whole Life too much for his service The Lord himself give you Counsell who is able by the Power of his Grace to make you willing to take it which is the unfeigned desire of him who is Your Souls Friend and Servant for Jesus Sake E. Veal A Funeral Sermon ECCLES 12.1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy Youth while the evil days come not nor the Years draw nigh when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them VVHEN we seriously consider the miserable and uncertain State of Men since the Fall of Adam how many wide Breaches the Transgression of our first Parents has made both for spiritual and eternal Dangers to enter in upon us and yet how secure and careless Men are of their Danger it ought to affect our Hearts with a great Tenderness and Pity but it ought much more to affect us if we consider that of all others Young Men are generally the most careless though they are besieged with more Enemies and liable to more Dangers yet for the most part they are employed in mean Affairs that have no Relation to their Happiness and are forgetful of their God and the deplorable Condition of their own Souls Secure they are though they have in their Bodies the Seeds of innumerable Distempers one whereof when it shall be conceived and brought forth will destroy its own Parent They remember not that the Clock that is now wound up and performs its regular and daily Motions and goes well must have all its Wheels broken or when the Maker pleases run down again Happy were the Persons that might put a stop to them in their mad Career or awaken them to serious Apprehensions of their real Interest before the hour of Darkness and the day of Death It hath pleased God in whose disposal are the Lives of Men by the taking away of one young Man lately from the World in his fresh and tender Age to give me this occasion at the desire of his Acquaintance to speak to others of the things that immediately concern their eternal State and how they should by his Example be taught in their early days to repent of Sin and to prepare for a better World I hope the same God will make this a merciful Season to us that are yet among the Living that we may by the memorial of the Deceased be in a continual preparation for that time when we shall hear his Call and leave the World And that we may be so let us attend to the grave Counsel of this Preacher the wisest of Men that after a long Experience of all that had but a shew of Pleasure or was accounted worthy to be loved by the Sons of Men reap'd nothing but Vexation and Bitterness and a sharp Remembrance and therefore concluded that it was most useful and expedient to guard the Mind against those Follies and betimes to remember God In the former Chapter having explained what were the Comforts and Happiness of Life Vers 7 that the Light was sweet and that it was a pleasant thing for the Eyes to behold the Sun i.e. to enjoy a prosperous unafflicted State and all that our Hearts can well desire Yet he tells us that though we live many Years Vers 8 and rejoyce in them all yet we ought to remember the Days of Darkness for they will be many After we have satisfied our Appetites with all that is delicious and grateful we must retire into the next World and dwell for a long time in the gloomy Chambers of the Grave Then he upbraids the Follies and Neglects of Young Men that are immers'd in sensual Delights not thinking of the Day of Judgment and that great Account that must be made hereafter at the Bar of God And the Preacher concludes his Sermon of the Unsatisfactoriness and Vanity of all sensual transitory Things with this serious Application Remember thy Creator now in the days of thy Youth c. In which Words we may observe 1. The Duty it self To remember God 2. The time when it is to be practised Now in the days of Youth 3. The reason of this

they are also forgetful of their God who it may be spend more time in reading of Plays and Romantick Histories and the Adventures of feigned Heroes than in reading of the Bible that would teach them to remember God and inspire them with none but lawful Passions such as have reigned in the Breasts of those worthies who have endured all imaginable Dangers with a valour more than human for the Love they bore to their Creator and who well deserve our Imitation Nor are they less unmindful of God who are much addicted to sinful Games and Sports where the Devil often is the greatest Gainer and at which they for a Trifle throw their Souls away and such also deserve no better Character that spend more time at their Glass than on their knees in Prayer That are more concerned if a Wig or a Crevat sit wrong than for all the interior Blemishes and Disorders of the Mind that are more observant of the Rules of Civility than of the Laws of God though both these might consit well enough together Such also cannot be supposed to be mindful of their Creator that use a greater Care to be affable and courteous in their Behaviour than to be holy in their Lives tho when duly limited an agreeable chearful Conversation and an upright Heart before God are things greatly necessary for the Comfort of Life and the Honour of Religion I delight not to insist upon the Miscarriages of Youth God knows they are too many nor will I enlarge upon the Crime of such that in their Health consult their Taylor more than their Divine and while they strive to cloath their less valuable part in a genteel splendid Habit have their poor unregarded Souls full of Ulcers and Putrefaction and void of Grace This too great Affection to the Body and the sensual Life darkens the Glory of the Mind and the intemperate luxurious Person to use the Comparison of Maximus Tyrius upon this Subject Dissert xxviii Is troubled with a Vertigo in his Head and like one that has drunk too much Wine he is not far from Madness but that now and then he recollects himself and uses a little Reason but by and by that Light is quench'd and he reels to and fro again as one left in the Dark and in a strange Place Thus he is lost as to all wise and sober Considerations and 't is no wonder if he who has forgot himself forget his God or that he who is not Master of his own Thonghts have not the sense of his Creator there When the Manhood is drowned 't is no wonder that we see not the Religion floating on the Water With these sensual Delights are Young Men too often charmed asleep And then like Persons in a Dream they cannot govern their own Spirits which will often be possest with the meanest inconsiderable things The Philosophers as one observes To separate the Mind from things sensual Smith 's Select Disc p. 11. devised Mathematical Contemplations whereby the Souls of Men might shake off their Dependency on Sense and learn to go alone without the Crutch of any sensible or material thing to support them and so be a little inured being once got above the Body to converse freely with Immaterial Natures So should we learn to separate our Affections from what is present and to let them frequently take their Flight to the Heaven above the Throne of God the sight of which we lose when we bring upon our selves the Punishment of the Serpent when we creep on this Earth and lie groveling in the Dust What will all the Cares that Young Men take about this mortal ruinous Habitation avail when they must ere long exchange their fine Cloaths for a winding Sheet and when they are nailed up in their Coffins what better will they be for all their gorgeous Apparel and their dainty Food Or will it be a good Plea in Judgment if the Young Man should say thus Lord I spent so much time abroad so much in the Tavern so much on my Recreations and my worldly Business that I had none left to remember thee or to think of the true State of my own Soul Or rather will not the Soul of such an one hereafter be amaz'd when being cloathed with the Garments of Heaviness he shall be forc'd to cry out after this or the like manner Oh that the many Days I spent in Vanity I had laid out to prepare my Soul for the Hour of my Change and the Day of Judgment then I had been in a safe and quiet Harbour whereas now I am begirt with Lighthing and Thunder Storms and Tempests and must never see the Sun shine again Oh that the Discourse I made so often about my worldly Pleasures about new Modes and Fashions I had made of God and Heaven I should not then have seen those horrid Objects of Terror nor have had my Ears peirc'd with these hideous Shrikes of my fellow Prisoners I would not in the days of my Life on Earth remember God but now I must remember him whether I will or not and no more as a Friend but as an Enemy no more as a Father but as an angry Judg. Secondly If we would remember our Creator in the days of our Youth we must avoid the Company of such who as we may judg by their Practise have him not in all their Thoughts You are not willing to venture your Bodies among those that are infected with some dangerous Distemper or in a contagious Air and will you hazard the Welfare of your better part among those who are leprous all over Rom. 3.13 and whose Throat is an open Sepulchre who if you be a Picture will deface it if you be a Glass they will spoil it with their tainted Breath Do you expect to have a serious Remembrance of your Creator Psal 1.1 if you converse with such as sit in the Chair of Scorners and deride Religion tho their Scoffs against it are to be accounted as ridiculous as it would be in a blind Man that knows not the Comfort and Benefit of Light to rail against the Sun would it not be disingenious and base for a Man to quarrel at the Light by which he sees or at the Air in which he breaths and shall we not account them unworthy of our Friendship that speak against God that God that made them Acts 17.28 and in whom they live and move and have their Being 'T is in such Company that Satan waits for our halting and we should be as careful to avoid it as we would a place where we certainly knew there was a Mine sprung and a Match lighted to fire the Train and blow us up 'T is there the Devil lies in wait for Youth and because he knows that Age is much affected with Credit and Reputation he endeavours to cloath those Sins in a genteel Fashionable Dress which would be frightful did they appear in their own ugly Shape and when

necessary Work The evil days will come and the Years wherein we shall have no Pleasure And these together afford us this plain Proposition We ought in our early days before the Approaches of old Age to remember God In the explaining of which I shall endeavour to shew you I. What is meant by the Remembrance of our Creator II. Why we are engaged to this III. What should move us to do it in our early Days IV. What Rules we must observe that we may attain this early Remembrance V. What will be the good Consequences that will accompany the Practice of so great a Duty First What it is to remember our Creator It is in all our religious and civil Actions before others and in secret to have an awful reverential Sense of God upon our Souls to acknowledg his rightful Dominion over us and all our Actions to contemplate with delight and wonder the various efforts of his Goodness and his innumerable Favours to be mindful of his August Presence and to attempt nothing that is mean or sordid as knowing we are under the sight of his jealous Eye His that sees us in all our Retirements and Solitude that ponders our Steps and has all our private Thoughts our Words and Actions on Record to love Him with a supream cordial Affection to hope in his Promise to chuse him alone as our most lasting valuable chief Good To imitate as far as we can the Loyal Angels that surround his Throne in Postures full of Reverence and Submission that wait to know his Command and when 't is once revealed delay not but with a swift Motion execute his Pleasure To observe his Laws to celebrate his Praise to acquiesce in all his Dealings and Procedures with us to think of Him with the most elevated Apprehensions to mount as high as we can in our Contemplation of his glorious adorable Excellencies and then to descend and lie low in the humble Sense of our short scanty Thoughts to make Him the constant delightful Object of our Meditation This is to remember God and is the same with being truly Religious the mark of all sincere holy Persons whereas to forget him is to be wicked and to bear the stamp of Hell Psal 9.17 II. The second thing in order is to shew what Engagements we are under to remember our Creator First All the Faculties and Powers of our Souls are given us to this end and purpose The great Creator of the World has made all things for himself Prov. 16.4 and us much more who as far exceed all inferiour Creatures as Angels do Men and the Sun the lesser Lights He has beautified our Natures with so many Resemblances of his own glorious Perfections that we cannot look upon our Frame but we must view the fair Draughts of a kind and skillful Hand and when we see that they exceed all the best Essays of Art conclude they were drawn there by the Finger of the Lord who is upon this account worthy to be remembred Our Creator has endowed us with a sprightly Vigor and a Power of moving beyond all sensible exteriour Things that we may pass these by as too inglorious and mean for our Consideration and that when we see the World even in its best Cloaths and Furniture in all its Pomp and Splendor unable fully to content our Thoughts we may with a generous Disdain act like the Spectators of a better Place and soar as on Eagles Wings from these low Regions of Unquietness and Fear to the Seat of that one solid and eternal Good who can alone satisfy the boundless Desires of the Soul and ought to be the first Object of our Choice Have we a Spirit that is in its sublime Nature not only allied to Angels but to God himself and shall we forget our honourable Kindred or fix our Minds on these Vanities below when we have a Being that is all beautiful and lovely to think upon Our thinking Powers and our Affections stream'd from his ever-flowing Goodness and therefore should like the Rivers that owe their Being to the Sea make haste to pass through the Earth and return again thither Wherefore have we this Living immaterial Substance this glorious Inhabitant in our earthly Tabernacles sent from yonder World but that it may be mindful of its illustrious Descent of the Author of its Being and strive to shake off its Chains and to return to that happy Land again Wherefore are we assigned our abode here but to be the humble Spectators of our Maker's Wisdom and to yield him Praise and that while we see the World enriched with so many wonders of the divine Power and Goodness we may contemplate and adore the Creator of it Our heaven-born Spirits are design'd for a nobler Work than to gaze upon the small glimmering Appearances of Good and Pleasure here below and when we see all Sublunary things changing with a continual Vicissitude ebbing and flowing and scarcely for one day the same we ought to fix our whole Aim on him that is unchangeable Heb. 12.9 on him that is the Father of our Spirits that when the diseased crazy World shall give up the Ghost will inspire them with Life and Health 1 Cor. 7.31 that will cloath them in new Robes when the Fashion of these present things shall pass away and when this cheating fallacious Earth Psal 102 26. and the visible Heavens themselves shall wax old and like a Vesture be changed Shall we not remember our Creator when we have innumerable Instances of his Munificence and Bounty we are warm'd with his Beams see with his Light and shall we either shut our Eyes against him or turn them to meaner Objects when we have him always to look upon Besides this the very Frame of our earthly Dwelling which is so well fitted for all the noble Uses and Operations of the Soul should engage us to remember that wise Builder that has in fair and legible Characters set his own great Name upon it so that he that runs may read there the wonderful Wisdom and the Power of God This was the Employment of the Royal Prophet of all others most devout when he considered that he was fearfully made Psal 139 14. he breaths out the Desires of an Heart enflamed with sincere Love O God when I awake Vers 18. I am still with thee As soon as ever Sleep left his Eyes they were lifted up to Heaven and his Breast was filled with new Meditations of the great Wisdom and the Power of God The Soul of Man as * Dr. More in his Antidote against Atheism ch xi p. 61. one observes is as it were a compendious Statue of the Deity her Substance is a sollid Effigies of God And therefore as with Ease we may consider the Substance and Motions of the vast Heavens on a little Sphere So we may with like Facility contemplate the Almighty in this little Medal of God the Soul of Man Secondly

that attended on his Weakness to read the Scripture to him when he could not reach it with his own Hand he desired others to administer to him that Bread of Life He was much in Prayer in the midst of his restless Nights and strong Pains resolving as long as he could to lift up those Eyes to Heaven which he believed would shortly be closed by Death and to spend that Breath in Desires after Grace which was every Moment ready to be stop'd Thus while his Body was detained on his Bed by various Pains his Soul was swiftly moving towards its proper Center And though by the Violence of his Disease he was somewhat stupified for a little while before he died yet while his Sences continued free in their Exercise he did with the bitter Cryes of a Penitent bewail his Sins expressing a great Hatred of them and a holy Indignation against himself Sometimes when he was told of Comfort he would mournfully say You know not what I feel My Sins ly very heavy on me my Sickness is not all nor is the Anguish of my Body so great as the Anguish of my Soul God gave him a very sensible tender Conscience which though it be grievous for a while yet is a great Mercy if compared with the great Judgment of an hard unmelting Heart which many Sinners both young and old are punish'd with so that even when they are on the Rack they do not confess their Sins nor seek after God He was greatly troubled And thus a loving Physician searches to the bottom of the Sore and puts his Patient especially when the Wounds are of a long Continuance to more then ordinary Pain that he may perform a great Cure When a Cloud of Despair seem'd to obscure his Comfort being told of the Pity and the Love of Christ to the greatest Sinners the Thoughts of his Saviour revived his dying Hopes and made him willing to pass through Darkness to Light through Pain to Rest saying I desire the Blood of Christ to cure all my internal Maladies And at another time said he desired him above all things The Night before his last he lay very Unquiet expressing a great sense of Trouble with many Sighs and Groans his Nurse rightly guessing that these were the Signs of something greatly afflictive to him advised him to ease his Mind which he immediately after did to him under whose Care he was with a serious Profession of Sorrow for the Sins he then Confessed and which he then found to be a great Burthen on his Conscience though they had been Committed long before The day before desiring the Prayers of the same Person and being ask'd what he would have begg'd of God for him He answer'd That God would shew his great Mercy on him in pardoning his Sins and healing his Soul and removing his spiritual Maladies owning with a due Sorrow his Sins of Omission and Commission and those which he had committed against the holy Spirit that would have reclaimed him from them He called to mind several suitable places of Scripture even beyond Expectation and very pertinently applyed them to the Necessities of his own Case which argued that he was no Stranger to that Rule which can more then all others teach a young Man best how to cleanse his Waies and to Remember God and at last said that he would be very willing to dye if he might have a Sense of the Mercies of Christ and of Pardon Which we have good ground to hope he did not come short of These were the Speeches and this the Behaviour of this dying young Man And lest any may be troubled to think that after so many Prayers and serious Endeavours as he used he should have so many Doubts and Fears about his Title to Forgiveness and a happy State I will add this viz. That it is greatly to be Considered that Satan whom the Scripture calls a Lyon when the Evening of Time is come to any Soul marches out of his Den and is then more full of Rage and Violence then he was before and as dying Bees or Serpents thrust out their Stings with greater vehemence so does he use the greater Force when he knows his time is but short He troubles the Souls of good People with dark and mournful Apprehensions of God and their own Condition when he sees them just at the Door of Heaven at which when they once enter his Spite is over and he can do no more Many Christians he thus Assaults that are of a long standing in the Vineyard and therefore it is not to be wondered if he thus tost to and fro this young Man who was but as a tender Plant. He had indeed a laborious Conflict and an hard Passage but we may well hope that it was but to him as a dark Night before a clear Day and that his Troubles here were but as the sharp Sauce the better to prepare his Appetite for the sweeter Tast of Happiness Many a time the Sun that sets in a Cloud does arise in Glory and many a Ship at last arrives to a quiet Harbour that met with Waves and Storms and high Winds all the way thither Let us also by this Example be perswaded to Remember our Creator now in the Days of our Youth while the evil Days come not For we see 't is he alone that can speak Peace and that to him alone we must go at last for Comfort who can heal our wounded Spirits and bear us up when if we should look to all our Friends they can only bewail our sad Case but not remove our Sorrows If we do this Mal. 3.16 17. he will write our Names in his Book of Remembrance and in that day when he makes up his Jewels he will spare us as a Man spareth his own Son that serveth him Ps 33.26 And when our Heart and our Flesh fails he will be the Strength of our Heart and our Portion for ever We may now see that all the Delights and Pleasures of the World are of no value and but miserable Comforters in the time of spiritual Distress from the sense of Sin and Guilt they will yield us then no Solace no peaceable Thoughts no Refreshment but our God is worthy to be thought upon who can by his Grace and Favour uphold and Bless the departing Soul To you that were the Acquaintance of the Deceas'd I shall only say this now you have stronger Engagements upon you to Remember your Creator then you had before for he has by the death of your Companion sent you a near and a loud Warning to prepare for your own He had but a little if any Sickness at all before that which proved his last Flatter not then your selves with the too great Hopes of long Life because of your present Health and Strength For though your earthly Tabernacles have not been undermin'd with many Infirmities and Diseases yet you know not but the first Storm that comes may shatter them