Speedy Repentance Urged, Title page – Introduction
Speedy Repentance urged▪ SERMON Preached at Boston, Decemb. 29. 1689.
In the Hearing, and at the Request of One Hugh Stone, … …erable Man … …tence of … for a … Hor… … …
COnscientia mea meruit Damnationem, & paenitentia mea non sufficit ad Satisfactionem: Sed … est quod mis…ricordi… … super at …
THE Introduction.
OUr Blessed Saviour, hath given that Character of his Ministers, That they be Rulers over His Houshold, and that Commandment to them, That they should give every one their meat … du… Season. Whether or no our Good Neighbours will acknowledge our Government, which we Esteem to be not at all De…potio… but wholly Ministerial, and would rejoice … we could therein, with more universal Edi…cation enjoy the Assistence of those that mig… Rule well, though they Labour … Word and D…ctrine; yet I am sure … ought with a very sollicitous Fidelity to … our Stewardship, in that … which conc…rns the Feeding of the Houshold. It is Food and not … which we are to Entertain the Soul… … people with; … Windy and Empty …, and Notions which … dant quia non habent, are … from us; but solemn and useful …, about Faith and Repentance and Holiness, which make up, The One Thing Needful, and about those things without …word4 no man shall see the Lord. And if not Froth, much less is Poison, to be found in our Discourses: not a Snake instead of a Fish; which alas, is now adayes no less frequently, than fatally met withal in Sermons about Iustification, more than about any one Article of Religion But in all this there is to be had a special Regard unto the Due Season too; in which Every Thing … Beautiful. For, tho' the Efficacy of Grace consist not in Moral Perswasions applyed (as the Arminians Dogmatize▪) Tempore & Modo Congruis, in a suitable and seasonable manner; yet a Spiritual Physician ought t… wa…ch his Time, as well as weigh his Dose; and we should prudently take what Advantage may be given by Provi…ence to make this … that particular Truth awakening to the mind… of them with whom we have to do.
The Sense of these things, caused me to Preach a Sermon, which might Excite and Assist Speedy Repentance, in that Congregation, which I would awfully Remember my self, Accountable to the Lord Iesus for. The Due Season, which this Homely, but I hope, wholsome Food, was adopted unto, was at the Request and Presence of a miserable Murderer, then under a just Sentence of Death, to be speedily Executed on him. The Man was one HUGH STONE, of Andover; who npon a Quarrel between him and his own Wife, about Selling a piece of Land, having some words as they were walking together, on a certain Evening, very barbarously reached a stroke at her Throat with a sharp Knife, and by that one stroke, fetched away the Soul of her, who had made him a Father of several Children, and would have brought yet another to him, if she had Liv'd a few Weeks longer in the World. The wretched man, was too soon surprised by his Neighbour … be capable of denying the Fact; and so he pleaded Guilty, upon his Trial. Being under Condemnation, and his End hastening upon him, he gave me his Desires to hear a Sermon from me, before he Dy'd▪ Wherefore, I thought there was now before me a Due Season, to make a Food of such Things, as I now also per others (and to permit them, is all I have done) to Print for the Edification of such as the Publishers propound thereby to benefit. I confess that I had not so much as One Day allow'd me for my Original Preparations of the Sermon; and therefore, not being able exactly to keep what I did not, could not write, necessitates me to Alter, and doubtless to Amend some Imperfections in it. Yet it is very near, what it was at its first Delivery; and from the Experience which formerly I have had, in publishing a Discourse of this kind, I encourage my self, with Hopes, that notwitstanding all the Weaknesses in it, I may find in the Day of the Lord Iesus, That I have not Laboured in vain. The Sermon is plain; but besides my inclination at all Times to make none but such, even an Heathen Seneca would have taught me, that on this occasion any other would have been improper. I excuse not the …eanness of the Composure; but am waitin… …pon the Eternal Spirit, … and blows where, He …lease, …