is to search study and pray for so firm a belief of this unseen Glory as may so resolve engage and comfort us in some good measure as if we had seen it with these eyes O! what men would one hours being in heaven make us or one clear sight of it Faith hath a greater work to do than a dreaming or dead opinion can perform If it be not well grounded first and well exercised upon Gods Love Promise and Glory from day to day you will find cause sadly to lament the weakness of it For this use you have great need of the help of such Books as open clearly the evident proofs of the Christian verity which I have breifly done in the beginning of the 2d part of my Life of Faith and more largely in 2 other Books viz. The unreasonableness of Infidelity and the reasons of the Christian Religion A firm bâ—lief of the World to come is it that must â—ake us serious Christians and over come the snares of worldly vanity And your Faith being well setled set your selves dayly to use it and live by it dwell in the joyful hopes of the heavenly Glory what is a man that liveth not in the use of Reason And you must know that you have as daily use for your Faith as for your Reason Without reason you can neither safely eat or drink nor converse with men as a man but as a Bedlam not do any business that concerneth you and therefore you must Live by your Reason And without Faith you cannot please God nor obtain Salvation no nor use your Reason for any thing higher than to serve your appetites and purvey for the flesh and therefore you must Live by Faith or live like Beasts and worse than Beasts and cannot otherwise live to God nor live in the hopes of blessedness hereafter O! Consider that the difference between living chiefly upon and for an Earthly fleshly felicity or a heavenly is the great difference between the holy and the unholy and the fore-goer of the difference between those in Heaven and those in Hell IX Still remember that the great Means of all the good that here or hereafter you can expect is the great Mediator the great Teacher Ruler and Intercessor for his people And therefore out of him you can do nothing All duty that you offer to God must be by his Mediation and so must all mercy which you receive from God To come to God by him who is the Way the Truth and the Life must be your daily work of Faith His blood must wash you from all sin past and from the guilt of daily failings and infirmities None but he can effectually teach you to know God and your selves your duty and your everlasting hopes None but he can render your persons praises and actions acceptable to God because you are sinners and unmeet for Gods acceptance without a Mediator All power in heaven and Earth is given him and your Lives and Souls are at his will and it is he that must judge you and with whom you hope to live in Glory Therefore you must so live by the Faith of the Son of God who hath loved you and and given himself for you that you may say it is he that liveth in you Gal. 2.2021 This is the Fountain from whence you must daily fetch your strength and comfort X. And still remember that it is by the operation of the holy Spirit that the Father and the Son do sanctifie Souls and Regenerate and breed them up for Glory It is by the Holy Ghost that God dwelleth in us by Love and Christ by Faith Therefore see that you rest not in corrupted nature and trust not to your selves or to the Flesh. Your souls are dead to God and Holiness and your duties dead till the Spirit of Christ do quicken them You are blind to God and mad in sin till the spirit illuminate you and give you understanding You are like Enemies out of Love with God Heaven and Holiness till this Spirit reconcile you and sanctifie your wills You will have no manlike spiritual holy pleasure till the Holy Spirit renew your hearts and make them fit to delight in God O that men knew the great necessity of the illuminating quickning sanctifying comforting influence of the Spirit of God how far would they be from deriding it as some prophane ones do By this Holy Spirit the sacred Records were written and by miracles of Christ and his Apostles and Evangelists and Prophets sealed and delivered to the Churches And by this Spirit the orders and Government of the Church were setled And by him we are inlightned to understand the Scripture and inclined to Love them and delightfully believe them and obey them Study therefore obediently these Writings of the Holy Ghost and confidently trust them O! be not found among the resisters or neglecters of the Spirits help and motions when proud self-confidence or fleshly lusts do rise against them Christs bodily presence is taken from the Earth he promised instead of it which was but in one place at once to send his Spirit which is to the soul more than the Sun light to the Eye and can shine in all the world at once This is his Agent on Earth by whom in Teachers and Learners he carrieth on his saving work This is his Advocate who pleadeth his cause effectually against unbeleif and fleshly lusts and worldly wisdom This is the well of living water springing up in us to Everlasting life the name the mark of God on Souls the Divine Regenerator the author of Gods Holy Image and the Divine Nature even Divine life and light and love the Conqueror of the World and Flesh the strengthner of the weak the confirmer of the wavering the comforter of the sad and the pledge earnest and first fruits of everlasting life O therefore pray earnestly for the Spirit of Grace and carefully obey him and joyfully praise God in the sence of his holy encouragement and help CHAP. IX Additional Counsel to Youngmen who are bred up to Learning and Publick work especially to the Sacred Ministry in the Vniversities and Schools § 1 IT was the case of the London Apprentices who are nearest me and I have oft to do with which first provoked me to this work and therefore which was chief in my intention But had I as near opportunity to be a Counsellor to others There are three sorts whom I should have preferred for the sake of the Church and Kingdom to which they are of greater signification I. Those in the Schools and Universities who are bred up for the Sacred Ministry II. Those there and in the Inns of Court that are bred up to the knowledge of the Law III. The Sons of Noblemen Knights and others that are bred up for some places of Government in the Kingdom according to their several ranks And of these it is the first that I shall most freely speak to § 2. And first I shall
â—appy § 6. And God in great mercy hath â—lanted yet more deeply and fixedly the Natural Love of Parents to their Children â—hat it might be in them a spring of all this â—uty so that though fleshly vice may make men mistake their Childrens good â—s most ungodly men do their own and â—hink that it consisteth in that which it doth not yet still the general desire of their Childrens well-fare as well as of their own is deeply rooted and will work for their well-fare as soon as they well know wherein it doth consist And God hath not given them this Love only for the good of the individual Children but much more for the Common-Wealth and Church that as many sticks make one fire and many exercised Souldiers one Army so many well educated Children may make up one peaceable and holy Society § 7. And accordingly it is much to be observed that God hath not given Children a natural Love and submissiveness to Parents only for the personal benefit of their provision and other helps but especially that hereby they may be teachable and obedient to those Instructions of their Parents by which they may become Blessings in their Generations and may conjunctly make up wise and holy Societies Families Churches and Common-wealths For these ends it is that God hath bound you as to reverence your Masters Tutors and Pastors so especially both to reverence and love your Parents that you may be the more capable of their necessary Instruction and Advice § 8. Yea the great strictness of God in condemning Polygamy Adultery and Fornication seemeth to be especially for the securing of the good Education of Children for their Souls and for the publick good For it is notorious that confusion in Marriages and Generation would many ways tend to the depraving of humane Education while Mothers had not the necessary encouragement to perform their part The younger Women would be a while esteemed and afterward be cast off and made most miserable and Families be like wandring beggars or like exposed Orphans Disorder and Confusion would deprive Children of much of their necessary helps and Barbarousness and bruitishness corrupt Mankind By all this it is most evident that the great means of the wellfare of the World must be the faithful and holy endeavours of Parents and the willing teachableness â—nd obedience of Children that they may escape the snares of folly and fleshly Lusts and may betimes get that Wisdom and â—ove of Goodness which may make them fit to be blessings to the places where they â—ive CHAP. IV. How the Case standeth with our Youth in matter of Fact § 1. THrough the great mercy of God many Families are sacred Nurseries for Church and Kingdom and many Parents have great comfort in the Grace of God appearing in their Children From their early Childhood many are of humble obedient Dispositions and have a love to Knowledge and a love to the word of God and to those that are good and virtuous persons They have inward convictions of the evil of Sin and a fear of sinning and a great dislike of wicked persons and a great Love and reverend Obedience to their Parents and when they grow up they diligently learn in private and in publick They increase in their love to the Scriptures and good Books and to Godly teachers and godly Company and God saveth them from temptations and worldly deceits and fleshly Lusts and they live to God and are blessings to the Land the joy of their Friends and exemplary and useful to those whom they converse with § 2. But all even religious Parents have not the like blessing in their Children 1. Some of them though religious otherwise are lamentably careless of the duty which they promised to perform at Baptism in the education of their Children and do but superficially and formally instruct them and are too faulty as to the Example which they should give them and seem to think that God must bless them because they are theirs and because they are baptised while they neglect their promised Endeavours 2. And some Children when they grow up and are bound to resist temptations and to use Gods appointed means for their own good do wilfully resist Gods Grace and run into temptations and neglect and wretchedly betray themselves and forfeit the mercies which they needed § 3. In all my observation God hath most blessed the Children of those Parents who have educated them as followeth 1. Those that have been particularly sensible what they promised for them in the Baptismal Vow and made Conscience of performing it 2. Those that have had more care of their Souls than of their outward Wealth 3. Those that have been most careful to teach them the pravity of corrupted nature by original sin and to humble them and teach them the need of a Saviour and his renewing as well as pardoning Grace and to tell them the work of the Spirit of Sanctification and teach them above all to look to the inward state of their Souls 4. Those that have most seriously minded them of death judgment and the Life to come 5. Those that have always spoken of God with the greatest reverence affection and delight 6. Those that have most wisely laboured to make all the knowledge and practice of Religion pleasant unto them by the suitableness of Doctrines and Duties to their capacity 7. Those that have most disgraced sin to them especially base and fleshly pleasures 8. Those that have kept them from the baits of sensuality not gratifying their appetites in meats and drink to bring them to an unruly habit but used them to a habit of temperance and neglect of appetite 9. Those that have most disgraced worldliness and Pride to them and used them so low things in Apparel and Possession and told them how the proud are hateful to God and set before them the example of a crucified Christ and opened to them the Doctrine of Mortification and self-denial and the great necessity of true humility 10. Those that have been most watchful to know their Childrens particular inclinations and temptations and apply answerable remedies and not carelesly leave them to themselves 11. Those that have been most careful to keep them from ill Company especially 1. Of wicked Youths of their own grouth and neighbourhood 2. And of tempting Women 12. Those that have most wisely used them to the meetest publick Teachers and help them to remember and understand what they hear especially the fundamental truths in the Catechism 13. Those that have most wisely engaged them into the familiarity and frequent converse of some suitable godly exemplary Companions 14. Those that have most conscionably spent the Lords days in publick and in their families 15. Those that have done all this as with reverend gravity so especially with tender endearing Love to their Children convincing them that it is all done for their own good And that do not by imprudent weaknesses ignorance passions or scandal frustrate
Travellers that have seen much of the world and old men and dying men that have had all that it can do are forced by experience to call all Vanity and Vexation unexperienced Youth that are taken up with the hopes of long prosperity and provision for all that the Flesh desireth have other thoughts of it and will not know that it is deceitful Vanity till it hath deceived them of their chiefest Hope and Treasure And when they have overtaken the Shadow which they pursue so greedily they find it what others have done before them the sweeter the more dangerous and the parting will be the more bitter Whereas had they sought first Gods Kingdom and its Righteousness and six days laboured in obedience to God and referred all corporal Blessings to spiritual uses and everlasting ends taking them as from God to serve him by them they might have had enough as an overplus to their satisfying Treasure CHAP. V. How sad a Case it is that I have described I Have told you the very lamentable case of too many young men especially rich mens Sons and Apprentices in this City I told you before of what concern the state of Youth is to themselves and others From thence and alas from sad experience it 's easy to gather the dolefulness of the case of those that are drowned in fleshly Lust and have sinned themselves into the guilt and danger which I have described But I will name some parts of the misery more particularly again § 1. Review the second Chapter and think what a doleful case this is to your selves 1. Do you not know that you are not Beasts but Men that have reason given them to know and love and serve their Maker And how sad is it to see a man forget all this and wilfully brutify himself Were the Poets fictions true of men turned into Trees and Birds and Beasts how small were the misery in comparison of yours It is no sin in Bruits to lust or to eat and drink too much They have not reason to restrain and rule them but lest they should kill themselves by excess God hath made reasonable man their Governor and moderateth their Appetite in the temper of their natures But for a reasonable Creature to subject himself to fleshly Appetite and wilfully degrade his Soul to the rank of Bruits is worse than if he had been made with the Body and the unreasonableness of Bruits Are you capable of no better things than these § 2. And what an odious thing is it when God hath chosen you out of the World to be members of his visible Church and given you the great priviledge of early Entrance into his holy Covenant and washt you in the laver of visible Regeneration and you are vowed to Christ renouncing the Lusts of the Flesh the World and the Devil that you might follow a Crucified Christ in the way of holiness to everlasting Life that you should so soon prove false perfidious Traitors and Rebels against him that is your only hope and by wickedness and Covenant breaking make your sin greater than that of Infidels Turks and Heathens that never were taken into the Church and Covenant of Christ nor ever broke the Vows which you have broken nor so cast away the mercys which you had received § 3. And what a doleful case is it that so much of your Minds and Love and Delight which were all made for God should be so misimployed even in your strength when they should be most vigorous and all worse than cast away on filth and folly If your Souls be more worth than your Money it is more folly and loss to misimploy and abuse your Souls your Reason Love and your Delight than to abuse or cast away your Money And what a Traitor or Murderer deserveth that would give his Money to hire one to kill the King or his Neighbour I suppose you know and what deserveth he that will use not only his mony but himself his soul his thoughts his love his desire and pleasure against the most glorious God that made him That you cannot hurt him is no thanks to you while you break his Laws and deny him your Love and Duty and love more that one thing which only he hateth and will never be reconciled to § 4. And how doleful a case is it that all the Care and Love and Labour of your Parents Masters and Teachers should be lost upon you God hath made all this their great Duty for your good and will you despise God and them and wilfully for nothing reject it all Shall all the pain of a Child-bearing Mother and all her trouble and labour to breed you up and all your Parents care to provide for you be but to breed up a slave for the Flesh the World and the Devil and a firebrand for Hell Shall godly Parents Prayers for you and Teaching and Counsel of you and all their desire and care for your Salvation be despised by you and all forgotten and cast away for a swinish Lust § 5. And how doleful a case is it that so much of so short a Life should be lost and a thousand times worse than lost even turned into sin to prepare for misery when alas the longest Life is little enough for our important work and quickly gone and the Reckoning and Judge are hard at hand All the Wealth Wit or Power in the World cannot bring or buy you back one hour of all that precious time which you now so basely cast away O how glad would you be of a little of it ere long on the tearms that now you have it when you lie dying and perceive that your souls are unready to appear before a righteous God! Then O for one year more of precious time O that you knew how to call again the time which you cast away on sin You will then perceive with a terrified Conscience that time was not so little worth as you once thought it nor given you for so base a work yea if God in mercy bring you hereafter to true Conversion O how it will wound your hearts to think how much of your Youth was so madly cast away while your God your Souls and everlasting hopes were all neglected and despised § 6. And alas if you should be cut off in that unholy miserable Estate no heart on earth can sufficiently bewail your case How many thousand die young that promised themselves longer pleasure in sin and Repentance after it O foolish sinners Cannot you so long borrow the use of your reason as to think seriously whither you must go next Do you never think when the small Pox or a Feaver hath taken away one of your Companions whither it is that his Soul is gone Have you your Wit for nothing but to taste the sweetness of Drink or Lust which is as pleasant to a Dog or Swine as to you O little you know what it is to die what it is for a Soul to leave
him early how to live and how to die and what to seek and what to shun You should have given him the Example of a holy and heavenly mind and life You should have watch'd over him for his safety and unweariedly instructed him for his Salvation But you led him the way to despise God's Word and set light by Christ and Holiness and Heaven to hate Instruction and Reproof to spend the Lords day in idleness or worldly vanity and to seek first the World and the prosperity of the Body and glut the Flesh with sinful pleasure What wonder if a Serpent breed a Serpent and quickly teach him to hiss and sting and if Swine teach their young to feed on dung and wallow in the mire This is part of the fruit of your worldliness fleshliness ungodliness and neglect of your own Salvation and your Childs Now he is as you are a slave of sin and an heir of Hell Was this it that you vowed him for to God in Baptism Was it to serve the Flesh the World and the Devil against our God our Saviour and our sanctifier Or did the mistake of the Liturgy deceive you to think that it was not you but the God-Fathers that were bound by Charge and Vow to bring him up in the Faith and Fear of God and teach him all that a Christian should know for his Soul's Health Was it not you that God bound to all this The sin and misery of your Child now is so far your curse as you are guilty of it and will add to your misery for ever Such are the sorrows that wicked Parents and wicked Children do prepare and heap on one another Such miseries will come but woe to those by whom they come it had been good for that man that he had never been born § 10. And it is no small grief to faithful Ministers to see their labour so much lost and to see so much evil among their flocks and such sad Prognosticks of worse to come He is no true Minister of Christ as to his own acceptance and Salvation whose heart is not set on the winning and sanctifying and saving of Souls What else do we study for preach for live for long for suffer for in our Work All faithful-Teachers can say with Paul that they are willing to spend and be spent for them and now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord. 2 Cor. 12.15 1 Thes. 3.8 He told them weeping of those that were Enemies to the Cross of Christ whose God was their Belly who glory in their shame and mind earthly things instead of a Conversation in Heaven Phil. 3.18 19. When God hath blessed us with the comfortable enjoyment of many ancient holy Christians who are the beauty and honour of the Assemblies and Death calls home one of them after another to Christ and the rest are ready to depart Alas Must a seed of Serpents come after them Must those take their places to our grief and shame who are bred up to the World and Flesh in Drunkenness Fornication and Enmity to God and a holy Life O what a woful change is this And if any be like to be the stain and Plague of the Church it is such as these If we preach holy truth to them Lust cannot love it If we tell them of Gods word the fleshly mind doth not savour it nor can be subject to it Rom. 8.5 6 7. If we reprove them sharply they smart and hate us If we call them to Confession and Repentance their Pride and Carnality cannot bear it If we excommunicate them for Impenitency as Christ requireth or but deny them the Sacrament as unmeet they rage against us as our fiercest Enemies If we neglect Discipline and admit Swine to the Communion of Saints we harden and deceive them and flatter them in their sin pollute the Church and endanger our Souls by displeasing the chief Pastor What then shall we do with these self-murthering ungodly men Many of them have so much Reverence of a Sacrament or so little regard of it that they never seek it but keep away themselves Perhaps they are afraid left they eat and drink damnation to themselves by the prophanation of holy things But do they think that it is safe to be out of the Church and Communion of Saints because it 's dangerous to abuse it Are Infidels safe because false hearted Christians perish What if breaking your Vows and Covenant be damnable Is it not so to be out of the holy Covenant What if God be a consuming fire to those that draw near him in unrepented heinous sin Is it therefore wise or safe to avoid him Neither those that come not to him nor those that come in their hypocrisie and reigning sin shall be saved And yet what to do with these self-suspenders we know not Are they still Members of the Churches or are they not If they are we are bound to call them to Repentance for forsaking the Communion of Saints in Christs commanded Ordinance If they are not we should make it known that Christians and no Christians may not be confounded and they themselves may understand their case And neither of these can they endure But for dwelling in the Parish and hearing the Liturgy and Sermons must still pass for Church Members lest Discipline should exasperate and further lose them This is that Discipline which is thought worthy the honour of Episcopal Dignity and Revennues and is supposed to make the Church of England the best in the world by the same men that would rage were Discipline exercised on them and must either be admitted to the Sacrament in a life of Fornication Drunkenness Sensuality and Prophaneness without any open Confession Repentance and Reformation or else must pass for Church Members without any exercise of Discipline while they shun the Sacramental Communion of the Church Such work doth wickedness make among us § 11. Indeed these are the men that are the trouble of Families the trouble of Neighbours the trouble of good Magistrates the shame of bad ones and the great danger of the Land All the foreign Enemies whom we talk so much against and fear are not so hurtful and dangerous to us as these These that spring out of your own bowels These that are bred up with care and tenderness and cost in your houses These that should succeed godly Ancestors in Wisdom and well doing and be their glory Who plot against us but home bred sinners Who more hate the good and persecute them Who are more malignant Enemies of Godliness and scorners of a holy Life and hinderers of the Word of God and Patrons of Prophaneness and of Ministers and People that are of the same mind If England be undone as the Eastern Churches and much of the Western are undone it will be by your own carnal ungodly Posterity He that is once a slave to Satan and his fleshly Lust is ready for preferment or a reward to be a slave
and Glory § 6. And is it not a joy to you to be your Parents joy To find them love you not only as their Children but as Gods Love maketh it sweet to us to please and be beloved by those whom we love If it be not your grief to grieve your Parents and your pleasure to please them you love them not but are void of natural affection § 7. And O what a mercy will you find it when you come to age and business in the World 1. That you come with a clear Conscience not clogged terrified and shamed with the sins of your Youth 2. And that you come not utterly unfurnished with the knowledge Righteousness and Virtue which you must make use of in every condition all your lives when others are like Lads that will go to the Universities before they can so much as read or write To live in a Family of your own and to trade and converse in the World and specially to go to Church to hear to pray to communicate in private to pray to meditate in a word to live or die like a Christian like a man without the furniture of Wisdom Faith and serious Godliness is more impossible and unwise than to go to Sea without Provision or to War without Arms or to become a Priest without Book or understanding § 8. II. And you that are young men can scarce conceive what a joy a wise and godly Child is to his wise and godly Parents Read but Pro. 10.1 13.1 17.2 25. 19.13 26. 27.11 23.15 19 24 c. The Prayers and Instructions of your Parents are comfortable to them when they see the happy fruit and answer They fear not Gods Judgments upon their houses as they would do if you were Cains or Chams or Absaloms They labour comfortably and comfortably leave you their Estates at death when they see that they do not get and leave it for those that will serve the Devil with it and consume it on their Lusts but will use it for God for the Gospel and their Salvation If you fall sick and die before them they can rejoyce that you are gone to Christ and need not mourn as David for Absalom that you go to Hell If you overlive them they leave the world the easier when they leave as it were part of themselves here behind them who will carry on the work of God which they lived for and be blessings to the world when they are gone § 9. III. And O what a mercy is it to Church and State to have our posterity prove better than we have been and do God more Service than we have done and take warning by our faults to avoid the like Solomon tells us of one poor wise man that saved a City And God would have spared Sodom had there been but ten righteous Persons in it Wherever yet I lived a few persons have proved the great blessings of the place to be Teachers Guides and Exemplary to others as the little Leaven that leaveneth the Lump and as the Stomach Liver and other nutritive parts are to the Body Blessed is that Church that City that Country that Kingdom that hath a wise and just and holy People The nearest good and evil are the greatest Our Estates are not so near us as Wives and Children nor they so near us as our Bodies nor they so much to us as our Souls It 's more to a Person House or Country what they are than what they have or what others do for them or against them It is these that are Gods Children as well as ours that are the Blessing so often mentioned in the Scripture who will as the Rechabites obey their Fathers wholsom Counsels rather than their Lusts and carnal Companions and God before all Who walk not in the Counsel of the Vngodly nor stand in the way of Sinners nor sit in the seat of the scornful But their Delight is in the Law of the Lord and in that Law they meditate day and night Psal. 1. Lo such Children are an heritage of the Lord such fruit of the Womb is his Reward They are as Arrows in the hand of a mighty man Happy is the man that hath his Quiver full of them They shall not be ashamed but they shall speak with the Enemies in the gate Psal. 127.3 4 5. Were it not for wise and godly Children to succeed us Religion and Peace and all publick good would be but as we frail mortals are like the Grass or Flowers of a few days or years continuance and the difference between a Church and no Church between a Kingdom of Christians and of Infidels would be but like the difference between our waking and our sleeping time so short as would make it the less considerable CHAP. VII Vndeniable Reasons for Repentance and speedy amendment of those that have lived a fleshly and ungodly Life By way of Exhortation § 1. ANd now the Commands of God the Love of my Country and the Church the Love of Piety true Prosperity and Peace and the Love of Mankind even of your own Souls and Bodies do all command me to become once more an earnest suiter to the Youth of this Land especially of London who have hitherto miscarried and lived a fleshly sinful life Thousands such as you are dead in sin and past our warning and past all hope and help for ever Thousands that laught at Judgment and Damnation are now feeling that which they would not believe By the great mercy of God it is not yet the case of you who read these words but how soon it may be if you are yet unsanctified you little know O that you knew what a mercy it is to be yet alive and after so many sins and dangers to have one to warn you and offer you Salvation and to be yet in possibility and in a state of hope In the name of Christ I most earnestly intreat you a little while trie to use your reason and use it seriously in retired sober Consideration till you have first well perused the whole course of your lives and remembred what you have done and how Till you have thought what you have got or lost by sinning and why you did it and whether it was justifiable reason which led you to it and such as you will stand to in your sober thoughts yea such as you will stand to before God at last Consider seriously what comes next and whither you are going and whether your life have fitted you for your journeys end and how your ways will be reviewed ere long and how they will appear to you and tast at death Judgment and in the world to come Hold on and think soberly a little while what is in your Hearts and what is their condition what you most love and what you hate and whether God or sinful pleasure be dearer and more delightful to you and how you stand affected and related to the World that you are
asleep again with unsuitable things or a cold dull formal kind of managing holy things § 9. And such are too often the plagues of the Church and State as well as injurious to individual Souls 1. Their Ignorance or scandalous Ambition Covetousness and other sins do render them so contemptible in the Eyes of many that it tends to make the Church and all Religion so And when Nobles Gentlemen and People think basely of the Ministry Church and Religion for their sakes how sad is the case of such a people The Gospel is half taken away from a Nation when 't is taken out of their esteem and brought under their reproach and scorn And a scorned Clergie will prepare for the scorning of Religion And an ignorant or worldly ambitious fleshly scandalous Clergie will be a scorned Clergy with two many Erasmus much disgraced the Germane Protestants when he described some of them as having a Bottle of Wine at their Girdle and his Translation of the New Testament in their hands ready to dispute for it with blows And so do many that tell the world how many of the Lutheran Ministers are given to excess of Drink and unpeaceable reviling of Dissenters And the same Erasmus much depreciated either Bishops or Scotists when speaking of the Scotist Bishop of London who was Dr. Collets Adversary he saith I have known some such whom I would not call Knaves but never one whom I could call a Christian Not only Drunkenness and bruitish sins but factitiousness envy unpeaceableness Contentiousness and especially a proud and wordly mind will be in most mens Eeyes more ugly in a Minister than others For where there is a double Dedication to God that which is Common will seem Vnclean and when there should be a double Holyness sin will appear to be double sin 2. And indeed a carnal wordly Clergie are oft the most powerful and obstinate hinderers of the Peace and quietness of Church and State 1. By fitting themselves to the humours of those in whose power their preferments are be it never so much to the injury of mens Souls Bodies or Estates or against the publick good and safety Or else leading the people into errour for popular applause 2. By a domineering humour in matters of Religion taking themselves Law-givers to others and taking their witts and wills for uncontroulable laying Heaven and Hell upon their own Inventions or Conceits and the Controversies which they endlesly make but understand not and hereticating or anathematizing such as take them not for Oracles or Rabbi's that must not be gainsay'd 3. And by Corrupting the Christian Religion and Church by departing from the Christian simplicity and purity and forming Doctrine Worship and Government according to their own carnal worldly minds and interest 4. And than militating against the best that contradict them or stoop not to them though it be to the distraction and division of the Churches And usually they are the hardest to be brought to peace and reconciliation and do most against it when ever it is attempted by Peace-makers who pitty the woeful case of such a self-disturbing people § 10. All this hath been so long manifested to the sad Experience of mankind in most Nations and Ages of the Christian World that it is not to be denyed or concealed And should we pretend the Honour of the Church and Clergie for the denying or the hiding of such grievous Sins it would but make us partakers of the guilt and displease the most Holy God who will have sin in whomsoever shamed and harden others who are ready to imitate them The Holy Scriptures open and shame the sins even of Adam of Noe of Lot of David of Solomon of Peter and of Gods chosen people the Iews and this was not a faulty uncovering of their nakedness but a necessary disgrace of sin and manifestation of the Holyness and Justice of God and a warning to others that we should not sin with such Examples before our Eyes 1 Cor. 10.6 7 8. I have written the History of the Bishops and Councils of former Ages in which with their virtues I have opened their miscarriages some blame it as if it were uncovering their nakedness But I have said nothing but what is openly proclaimed of them long agoe by their own greatest flatterers and it was Christ himself that said Remember Lot 's Wife The Pit which so many have fallen into must be uncovered and God and Holyness must be honoured rather than those that dishonour them by sin Sin confessed and forsaken is not so dangerous as sin denyed and extenuated He that hideth it shall not prosper Sin is a reproach to any people Pro. 14.34 and 6.33 Even God that forgiveth it to the penitent will shame it to keep others from committing it He that minceth or hideth it tempteth others to imitate it Alas what work have a worldly proud and ignorant Clergie made in most Christian Nations these thirteen hundred years Athanasius Chrysostoms Isidore-Pelusiota c. but especially excellent Gregory Nazianzene have told it us even of their flourishing times more plainly than I now intend to do They have loved this present world some set themselves by venting new and odd opinions to draw Disciples after them for applause some furiously hereticating them that differed from them by ambiguous words and making themselves Lords of the Faith of others and making their ignorant Dictates the Oracles of the Church striving who should be thought wisest and best but especially who should be greatest as if Christ had never judged in that Controversie Flattering Emperours and Princes till they got Wealth and Power by them and then over-topping them and troubling the World by Rebellious and Bloody Warrs Tearing the Churches in pieces on pretence of Union and killing and burning men on pretence of Faith and Charity and Cursing from Christ his faithful Servants on pretence of using the Keyes of Christs Kingdom setting up themselves and a worldly Kingdom on pretence of the Spiritual Government of Christ making Merchandize of Souls on pretence of feeding and ruling them cherishing the people in Ignorance and sloth and carnality that they might be more obedient to their Tyranny and lesse capable of opposing it hating and destroying the most conscionable Christians as Hereticks or Schismaticks because they are the greatest Enemies to their Sin and desires of Reformation provoking Princes to become the bloody Persecutors of such for the upholding of their worldly State and Dignity yea making them their Lictors or Executioners to destroy such as they condemn Such work as this hath destroyed the Greeks or Eastern Churches set up Turkish Tyranny by dividing Christians weakning and ruining the Emperors making Religion a meer Image of lifeless formality and Ceremony and a powerless dying thing Such a Clergie hath darkned and lamentably brought low the Christian Churches in Moscovie Armenia Georgia Mengrelia Syria Abassia and extirpated them in Nubia and brought them in Italy Poland Hungary Spain France
it But they think they owe more belief and reverence to a Learned Reverend Preacher in the Pulpit even when he preacheth against preaching and against those that practise what he teacheth them at other times O how much of his work hath Satan done in the World by corrupting Sacred Offices and by getting HIS SERVANTS INTO RVLE and MINISTRY TO DO HIS WORK AS FOR CHRIST and his Church and by his authority and in his name Our natural enmity with the Serpent disswadeth him from speaking or sending to us in his own name Should one say in the Pulpit Thus saith the Devil hate Christs servants silence his Ministers call serious Godliness Hypocrisie which is the contrary to Hypocrisie I should not much fear his success with any but if he be a lying Spirit in the mouth of Ahabs Prophets and can get a Prophet to smite Michaiah for pretending to more of the Spirit than he had or if he can get men in the Sacred Office to say Thus saith the Lord when they speak for sin or against the Lord this is the Devils prosperous way § 13. II. I have told you what Plagues bad Clergy men will be and still have been to themselves to the souls of men and to the publick State of Churches and Kingdoms and were it not lest my Writing should be too large I should tell you what Blessings on the contrary Able and Faithful Ministers are Briefly 1. Christ maketh them the cheif instruments for the propagating of his Truth and Kingdom in the World for the gathering of Churches and preserving and defending contradicted Truth They are the Lights of the World and the Salt of the Earth All Christians are bound to teach or help each others in charity but Christs Ministers are set in his Church as Parents in Families to do it by Office And therefore must be qualified above others for it and be wholly dedicated to it and attend continually on it as a Physitian differeth from every Neighbour who may help you in your sores or sickness as they can so do the Pastors of the Church differ from private helpers of your Souls The Scripture is preserved and delivered down by the private means of all the Faithful but eminently by the publick Office of the Pastors It may be expounded and applyed privately by any able Christian but the Pastors do it eminently by Office and to them especially though to all Christians commonly are committed the Oracles of God The Priests lips must preserve knowledge and men should enquire of the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 Never yet was the Gospel well propagated nor continued in any Country in the World but by the means of the Ministers of Christ And O! what difference hath there been in their successes as they differed in ability piety and diligence And how great an honour is it to be such blessed instruments of building up the house of God and propagating the Gospel and the Kingdom of Christ and the Christian Faith and Godliness in the World 2. And thus God useth them as his special instruments for the Convincing Converting Edifying Comforting and Saving of Souls Others may be blest herein But the special blessing goeth along with those that are specially obliged to the work which is Parents in Families and Pastors in the Church O how many thousand Souls in Heaven will for ever rejoyce in the effects of the Labours of Faithful Ministers and bless God for them And what an honour what a comfort is it to have a hand in such a work He that Converteth a sinner from the Errour of his way doth save a Soul from death and cover a multitude of sins Jam. last 3. And in this they are Co-workers with Jesus Christ the great Saviour of Souls and with the Holy Spirit the Regenerator and Sanctifier Yea Christ doth very much of the work of his Salvation by them when he ascended on high he gave gifts to men for the edifying of his body till they come to a perfect man Eph. 4.6 to 16. and when the Chief Shephard shall appear they shall receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 5.4 and shall hear well done good and faithful Servant Hence are the Streams of Consolation that make glad the City of God and daily refresh many thousand precious Souls For how shall men believe without a Preacher and how shall they Preach unless they be sent qualified obliged and authorized by Christ Rom. 10. 4. In a word Churches States and Christian Kingdoms are chiefly blest and preserved by the Labour of the faithful part of the Ministry For 1 If we have the rare blessing of a wise and holy and loving Magistracy it is usually by the success of the labours of the Ministry 2 And there is no better means to bring the Subjects to the Conscionable performance of their Duty to Superiours 3 And by the blessing of their Labour the sins of a Nation are prevented or healed which would else bring down Gods heavy Judgments 4 They teach people to live in Love and Peace with one another and to abhor Contention Cruelty Oppression Injury and Revenge and all to do their several duties to promote the common Good 5 When the ignorant and slothful and scandalous sort of bad Ministers betray Souls and would bring the Ministry and Religion into contempt it is a wise and holy Ministry that counter-worketh them by labouring while others are idle and doing that wisely which others do foolishly and shewing in their lives the power of that truth which others disgrace and the reality of that Holiness Love Justice Peace and Concord which others would banish out of the World by making it seem but a name or Image 6 VVhen proud men tear the Church by the Engines of their domineering VVits and VVills these humble Pastors as the servants of all will labour to heal it by Christian meekness and condescension VVhen malignant Priests seek to strengthen themselves by the multitude of the ungodly and to bring serious piety into contempt which doth molest them these faithful Pastors open the just disgrace of sin and the great necessity and honour of holiness endeavouring that vile persons may be contemned and those may be honoured that fear the Lord Psal. 15.4 and distinguishing the precious from the vile the righteous from the wicked and him that sweareth from him that feareth an Oath and him that serveth God from him that serveth him not God saith They are as his mouth Jer. 15.19 Mal. 3.17 18. Eccl. 9.2 To be short as An Ignorant Worldly Carnal Proud Vnholy sort of Prelates and Priests are and have been the great Plague of the Churches these 1300 years at least so the Skilful Holy Humble Faithful Laborious Patient Ministers of Christ have been and still are the great blessings of the World for saving Souls promoting Knowledge Faith Holiness Love and Peace opposing Errour Pride Oppression VVorldliness Sensuality
the Commonwealth As the Devil first undid the World by making deceived Eve believe that Gods command was against her interest so doth he to this day but with none so much as with Nobles and Rich men God hath commanded you nothing but what is for your own good nor forbidden you any thing but what is for your own and others hurt He needs not you or any but you must allow him to be God and therefore to be wiser and better than you to know better what is best fittest for you and others But Satan will slander to you Gods Laws Ways and Servants for he is for your enmity and separation from God and therefore would draw you to believe that that he and his ways are Enemies to you and against your pleasure honour domination commodity or ease O how many Princes and Great Men have been utterly undone by believing the Flesh the Devil and his Ministers that Christianity is against their power honour or other interests and that the Scripture is too precise and that Conscience obeying God before them is against their power and prerogative and so have set them as Enemies to keep under Conscience and serious godliness lest obedience to their wills be thereby hindred Yea how many also so dote as to think that the interest of Head Heart Stomack and Members of Rulers and Subjects stand not in Union but in contrariety and victory against each other Wo to the Land that hath such Rulers and to the poor Tenants that have such Land-Lords But much more wo to such selfish oppressours that had rather be feared than loved and take it for their honour to be free and able to do mischief and destroy those whose common welfare should be more pleasant to them than their own And to them especially that take serious godliness and godly men to be against them and therefore bend their wit and power to suppress them as if they said as Luke 19.27 We will not have this man reign over us whom Christ will destroy as his unthankful Enemies and will break them with his Iron rod and dash in peices as a potters vessel Psal. 2. VII As you love your selves and the common good get good men about you read Ps. 101.15 16. Especially faithful teachers and next godly Friends and Servants and Companions and read much the Histories of the Lives of wise and Godly men such as K. Edw. 6th and the Lord Harrington young men imitate such excellent persons as Scripture and other History justly commend to your imitation It will be profitable to read the Lives of worthy men such as are gathered by Mr. Clerk Dr. Fuller Thuanus Beza yea of the Martyrs and of such Christian Princes as Constantine M. Theodosius c. Maximilian 2d Emperor Iohn Frederick of Saxony Philip of Hassia Ludov. Pius of France yea such Heathens as Titus Trajan Adrian but especially M. Aurel. Antonine and Alex. Severus Yea and such Lawyers Philosophers Physicians but especially Divines as Melchior Adamus in Four Volums hath recorded and of such Bishops as Cyprian Nazianzene Ambrose Austin Basil Chrysostome and our Vsher and such others VIII Live not in Idleness as the Sons of rich men too oft do for that will rust and corrupt your minds and cherish besotting damning lusts and render you worthless and useless in the world and consequently the greatest plagues of your Country to which you should be the greatest helps and blessings Make as much Conscience of improving your hours as if you were the poorest men you have most wages and should do God most work Let holy and useful studies one part of the day and doing good to others another part and necessary refreshment and exercise another take up your time you have none allowed you for any thing unprofitable much less hurtfull O what a blessing to the world are wise Godly Magistrates and what a curse are the Foolish and Ungodly IX Remember that the grand design of the Devil and all deceivers is to delude and corrupt the rulers of the people knowing how much they signifie by their Laws Power and Examples and how sad it will be to be judged as a Persecutor or a Captain of iniquity And therefore you must have a greater self-suspicion and fear of seduction and sin than others and must watch more carefully against wicked Counsel and example but especially the Temptations of your own flesh and corrupted nature and of your VVealth and place CHAP. XIII Counsel to Parents and Tutors of Youth SHould I now say to Parents and Teachers what on their parts is necessary to their great duty and the good of Youth it would be more than all that I have said already but that is not the present work and you may see much of it done in my Christian Directory But because so much lyeth on their hands I beseech all such that read these lines to remember I. How near their relation to their Children is and that for a Parent to betray their Souls to Sin and Hell by neglect or by ill means seems more unexcusable cruelty than for the Devil a known Enemy to do it II. How very much their welfare is entrusted to your care you have the Teaching of them before the Ministers and have them alwaies nearer with you and have greater power over them O! that you knew what holy instructions and heavenly excitations and good example God requireth of you for their good And how much of the hopes of the Church and World lie on the Holy skill and fidelity of Parents in the right education of youth III. O feed not their sinful desires and lusts use them not to pride to idleness to too much fulness or pleasing of the appetite but teach them the reasons of Temperance and Mortification and the sin and mischief of all sensuality IV. Yet use them with tender fatherly Love and make them perceive that it is for their own good and cherish their profitable delights study how to make all good delightful to them encourage and reward them Tell them of the wisdom and goodness of Gods word and let them read the Lives of Holy men V. Choose them both Callings Habitations and Relations which make most for the common good and for the advantage of their Souls and not those that most serve Covetousness Pride or Slothfulness VI. Know their particular inclinations corruptions and temptations and accordingly watch and keep them as you would do against death VII Settle them under wise and godly Pastors and in the familiar Company of godly persons especially of their age and usual converse VIII Keep them as much as possible from Temptations at home and abroad especially those that tend to sensuality and to impiety or corrupting their judgments against Religion Thrust them not beyond Sea or elsewhere unfortified among deceivers for a meer Ornament as some cruelly do IX Remember how you dedicated them to Christ in Baptism and what was promised and what renounced and what
you bound yourselves to do X. Remember still how much the happiness or misery of Church and Kingdoms and of the World doth lie on the right or wrong educating of Youth by Parents much more than our Universities or Schools XI Remember that your own comfort or sorrow in them lyeth most on your own duty or neglect if they prove wicked and Plagues of the World and you are the cause it may tear your hearts but what a joy is it to be the means of their Salvation and of their publick service in the World XII Disgrace sin to them and commend holiness by word and practice and be your selves what you would have them be And pray daily for them and your selves The Lord bless this Counsel to them and you CHAP. XIV What are mens Duties to each other as ELDER and YONGER § 1. IT is most clear in Scripture and Reason that there are many special duties which the Elder and Younger as such owe to each other The Elder are bound 1. To be wiser than the Younger as having longer time and so to be their instructers in their several places 2. And especially to deliver down to them the Sacred Scripture which they received and the Memorials of Gods works done for his Church in their dayes and which they received from their Fathers 3. And to go before them in the example of a holy and heavenly Life Iob 32.4 and 8.8 Heb. 5.14 Tit. 2.2.3 1 Io. 2.13 14. Iudg. 6.13 Psal. 44.1 and 78.3 5. Deut. 1. 21. Exod. 12.26 Deut. 11.19 Ios. 4.6.21 22. Ioel. 1.3 § 2. And nature and Scripture tell us that the Younger owe much Duty to the Elder sum'd up 1 Pet. 5.5 Ye Younger submit your selves to the Elder this submission includeth especially a reverence to their judgments preferring them before their own and supposing that ordinarily they are wiser than the younger and therefore living towards their Elders in a humble Learning disposition and not proudly setting their unfurnished wits against their greater experience without very evident reason For the understanding of which note § 3. 1. That it is certain that meer Age doth not make men wise or good none are more sottishly and uncurably ignorant than the aged ignorants and few so bad as the old obstinate sinners For they grow worse deceiving and being deceived and more and more abuse Gods mercy and are still going further from him as the faithful are growing better and nearer to him 2. And it is certain that God greatly blesseth some young mens understandings and maketh them wiser than the aged and their Teachers 3. And such a one is not bound to think that he knoweth not what he knoweth nor to believe that every old man is wiser than he all this we grant § 4. But though Eccl. 4.13 Better is a poor and a wise Child than an old and foolish King who will no more be admonished Yet 1. It is certain that knowledge cometh much by experience and long experience and use is farre more powerful than the short And Time and Converse is necessary to it naturally or ordinarily long learning and use increaseth knowledge Do not all take it for granted that usually the boys who have been many years at School are better who Scholars than beginners and so in all other acquisitions Therefore it was the Elders that were commonly the Rulers of the people in Church and Commonwealth and the Pastors and Rulers are thence called Elders And if they were not ordinarily the wisest why did not God make the Children the ordinary Teachers and Rulers of their Parents but the Parents of the Children Old men may be Ignorant and Erroneous as well as wicked but young men cannot be ripe in wisdom without a miracle we are not therefore now to suppose unusual things to be usual Ordinarily youth is ignorant and raw their conceptions undigested not well fixed or improved It is but few things that they know and their ignorance of the rest maketh them lyable to many Errours Heb. 5.11 12. For the Time ye ought to have been Teachers fitness to teach supposeth Time the young cannot digest strong meats A Novice must not be a Bishop the reason may seem strange Lest he be lift up with Pride and fall into the condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 One would think youth should be most humble as conscious of defectiveness But because the Ignorant know not that more is to be known than ever they attained therefore they know not their own Ignorance 2. And this PROVD IGNORANCE is so odious a sin and the nurse of so many more and so great an Enemy to wisdom and all good that it is no wonder that it is the way to the condemnation of the Devil § 5. Therefore though young men should not receive any Falshood Heresie or ill example from the aged yet they should still reber that caeteris paribus Age hath the great advantage for knowledge and youth must needs live in an humble teachable sence of Ignorance other mens abuse of Time and aged folly will not prove them miraculously wise The aged are alwaies the wisest if they equally improve their time and helps § 6. It is so odious a sin for Lads and young Students to be self-conceited and unteachable and set up their apprehensions with ungrounded confidence against their Elders that all should be very fearful of that guilt and have such humble thoughts of their own understandings as to be jealous of their conceptions for all these Vices make up their self-conceited prefidence 1. It is both great ignorance of the darkness of mens understanding and great ignorance of themselves to be ignorant that they are ignorant and to think they are sure of that which they know not 2. It is an odious sort of Pride to over-value an ignorant understanding and to be proudly confident of that which they have not 3. It is folly to think that Truth can be known without sufficient time and tryal and contrary to the Worlds continual experience 4. It is an absurd an inhumane a subverting of the order of World for Lads to set up their Wits by groundless self-conceitedness against their Elders as for Subjects to set their Wills against Rulers 5. It is a continual unrighteousness there is a justice required in our common private judging as well as in Judges publick judgment And all should be heard and tryed before we peremptorily judge 6. It is a nest of continual Errour in the mind which is the Souls deformity and contrary to natures love of Truth § 7. And it hath abundance of mischievous effects 1. It keepeth out that Truth or Knowledge which should be received It obstinately resisteth necessary teaching whereas the willingest entertainment is little enough to get true knowledge even by slow degrees As God giveth birds an instinct to feed their young so the young ones by instinct hunger and open their mouths But if they abhorr'd their meat and must be cram'd they