Christ many Books of marks are extant Bifields Rogers Harsnets Berries c. And Mr. Chishull and Mr. Mead of being almost Christians If you would have any of mine read the Right method for peace of Conscience and Directions for weak Christians where are the Characters of the false the weak and the strong III. For the dayly Government of Heart and Life read the Practice of Piety Scudders daily walk Mr. Reyners directions three excellent Books Mr. Corbets small private thoughts And if you would have any of mine read my Family Book and the Divine Life the Life of Faith or the Saints Rest and for those that can read great ones my Christian Directory IV. And it will not be unuseful to read some profitable History especially the Lives of exemplary persons and the Funeral Sermons which characterize them I have prefaced to two which are eminently worth your reading and most true both young men that is Iohn Ianeway's Life and Ioseph Alleins and given you the true exemplary Characters in their Funeral Sermons of Mr. Ashurst an excellent pattern for Apprentices and Tradesmen Mr. Stubs Mr. Corbet and of Mr. Wadsworth and Mrs. Baker Read Mr. Samuel Clarks Lives and his Martyrology and his Mirrour Dr. Beards examples or Fox's Book of Martyrs Some Church History and History of the Reformation and the History of our own Country will be useful V. As you grow up to more judgment you may read methodical Sums of Divinity especially Ames his Marrow and his Cases of Conscience which are in English translated and Commentaries Great store of all sorts of good Books through the great mercy of God are common among us He that cannot buy may borrow But take heed that you lose not your time in reading Romances Play Books vain Jests or seducing or reviling Disputes or needless Controversies This course of Reading Scripture and good Books will be many ways to your great advantage 1. It will above all other ways increase your knowledge 2. It will help your Resolutions and holy affections and direct your lives 3. It will make your lives pleasant the knowledge the usefulness the variety will be a continual recreation to you unless you are utterly besotted or debaucht 4. The pleasure of this will turn you from your filthy fleshly pleasure You will have no need to go for delight to a Play-house a Drinking-house or to Beastly lusts 5. It will keep you from the sinful loss of time by idleness or unprofitable employment or pastimes You will cast away Cards and Dice when you find the sweetness of useful Learning But be sure that you choose the most useful and necessary subjects and that you seek knowledge for the love of Holiness and Obedience VI. The sixth part of my advise is forsake ill Company and converse with such as will be helps to your Knowledge Holiness and Obedience and not such as will draw you to sin and misery You have found by sad experience what power ill Company hath on fools with such a merry Tale a Laughter a Jest a Scorn a merry Cup and a bad Example and Perswasion doth more than Reason or Gods Authority or the Love of their Souls A Physician may go among the Sick and Mad to Cure them and a Wiseman that seeth these will pitty them and hate sin the more But what do you do there where you have already catcht the infection of their disease The mind of a man is known much by the Company which he chooseth and if you choose ill no wonder if you speed ill Pro. 13.20 He that walketh with wise men shall be wise but a companion of fools shall be destroyed Prov. 28.7 Whoso keepeth the Law is a wise Son but he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his Father Psal. 119.63 David saith I am a companion of all them that fear thee and of them that keep thy precepts 26.4 5. I have not sate with vain persons neither will I go in with dissemblers I have hated the Congregation of evil doers and will not sit with the wicked 119.115 Depart from me ye evil doers for I will keep the Commandments of my God VII Especially be sure that you run not willfully upon Temptation but keep as far from every tempting bait and object as you can Fire and Gunpowder or Straw must be kept at a sufficient distance no man is long safe at the very brink of danger especially if it be his own choice and more especially if it be a sin that his nature is much inclined to No wise man will trust corrupted nature very far especially where he hath often faln already The best man that is should live in fear when an enticing bait of sin is near him If David that prayed turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity had better practiced it O! what heynous sin had he escaped Had he made a Covenant with his eyes as Iob did what wounds had he prevented The Feast that you see not the Cup that is a mile off the person that is far distant the words which you hear not are not they that you are most in danger of But when tempting meat and drink are before you and the tempting person hath secret familiarity with you and tempting or provoking words are at your ears then alas many have need of more Grace Resolution and Mortification than they have If you knew well what sin is and what is the consequence you would be more watchful and resolved against temptations than against Thieves or Fire or the places infected by the Plague VIII Make it the cheif Study of your Lives to understand what mans everlasting hope is and to get a lively well setled belief of it and to bring your souls to take it joyfully for your true felicity and end and thence daily to fetch the powerful motives of your duty and your patience and your contenting comfort in Life and at your Death The end is the Life of all the means If heavenly blessedness be not the chief end that you live hope and labour for in the World your whole lives will be but carnal vain and the way to misery for the means can be no better than the End God that is the beginning is our End We are made and governed by Him and for Him Heavenly Glory is the sight of his Glory and the Everlasting perfection and pleasure of joyful mutual Love But we are not the noblest Creatures next to God in excellency and desert yea we are sinners who have deserved to be cast out from his Love And therefore as in the way we must come to him by a Saviour so at the blessed end we must enjoy him by a Mediator and to see Gods Glory in Christ and the Heavenly Ierusalem the blessed society of Saints and Angels continually flaming in Love Joy and Praises to the most holy God This this is the felicity for which we labour suffer and hope 2. And O! how great and how needful a work it
the Body and enter into an endless World To come to judgment for all his sins and all his ill spent days and hours and for choosing the pleasures of a Swine before Heaven and the pleasures of a Saint Little know you what it is for Devils presently to take away to Hell a wretched Soul which they have long deceived I tell you the thought of appearing before God and Christ and Angels in another World and entring on an endless state is so dreadful even to many that have spent their lives in holy preparation and are indeed in a safe Condition that they have much ado to overcome the terror of Death Even some of Gods own faithful Servants are almost overwhelmed when they think of so great a change And though the belief of God's Love and the heavenly Glory do support them and should make them long to be with Christ yet alas Faith is weak and the Change is great beyond our Comprehension and therefore feared O then in what a Case is a wicked unpardoned unprepared Wretch when his guilty soul must be torn from his Body and dragged in terror to hear its doom and so to the dreadful Execution Sinners Is this a light matter to you Doth it not concern you Are you not here mortal Do you not know what Flesh is and what a Grave is And are not your abused Souls immortal Are you so mad as to forget this Or so bad as not to believe it Will your not believing it make void the Justice and the Law of God and save you from that Hell which only believing could have saved you from Will not the fire burn you or the Sea drown you if you can but run into it drunk or winking Is feeling remediless feeling easier than believing God in time Alas What should your believing Friends do to save you They see by Faith whither you are posting They foresee your terror and undone case and fain if possible they would prevent it But they cannot do it without you If you will not consent and help your selves it is not the holyest nor wisest Friends in the World that can help you They would pull you out of the fire in fear and out of the mouth of the roaring Lion but you will not be delivered They call and cry to you O fear God and turn to him while there is hope and you will not let Conscience and Reason be awakened but those that go asleep to Hell will be past sleeping there for ever O run not madly into the everlasting Fire § 7. And indeed your sleepy security and presumption doth make your case more dangerous in itself and more pittiful to all that know it O what a sight is it to see a man go merry and laughing towards damnation and make a jeast of his own undoing To see him at the brink of Hell and will not believe it Like a mad man boasting of his Wit or a drunken man of his Sobriety Or as the Swine is delighted when the Butcher is shaving his Throat to cut it Or as the fatted Lambs are skipping in the pasture that to morrow must be kill'd and eaten Or as the Bird sits singing when the Gun is levelled to kill him Or as the greedy Fish runs striving which shall catch the Bait that must presently be snatched out of her Element and lie dying on the Bank But because I touch'd much of this in the second Chapter I will pass by the rest of your own Concerns and a little further consider how sad the case of such wretched Youths is also unto others § 8. And if Parents be wise and godly and understand such Childrens case what a grief must it needs be to their hearts to think that they have begot and bred up a Chlld for Sin and Hell and cannot make him willing to prevent it To see their Counsel set at nought their Teaching lost their Tears despised and an obstinate Lad seem wiser to himself than all his Teachers even when he is swallowing the Devil's Bait and cruelly murdering his own Soul Ah! thinks a believing Father and Mother have I brought thee into the World for this Hath all my tender natural Love so sad an issue Is this the fruit of all my sorrows my care and kindness to see the Child of my Bowels whom I dedicated in Baptism to Christ to make himself the Child of the Devil the Slave of the Flesh and World the Enemy of God and Holiness and his own destroyer and all this wilfully obstinately and against all the Counsel and means that I can use Alas must I breed up a Child to become an Enemy to the Church of God into which he was baptized and a Souldier for Satan against Christ Must I breed up a Child for Hell and see him miserable for ever and cannot persuade him to be willing to be saved O what a heart breaking must this be to those that Nature and Grace have taught to love them with tenderness even as themselves § 9. But if they be wicked Parents and as bad themselves the misery is far greater though they yet feel it not For 1. As the Thief on the Cross said to his Companion Luk. 23.40 41. Thou art in the same Condemnation and we suffer justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds Wicked Parents and wicked Children are in the same Gall of bitterness and Bond of Iniquity They sinned together and they must suffer for ever together if true Faith and Conversion do not prevent it 2. And it is their wickedness which was much of the cause of their Childrens sin and misery And their own deep guilt will be more to them than their Childrens suffering God and Conscience will say to them ere long O cruel Parents that had no mercy on your Children or your selves What did Nature teach you to love more than your selves and your Children And would you wilfully and obstinately be the ruine of both You would not have done as the mad Idolaters that offered their Children in fire to Moloch And will you offer them by sin to Satan and to Hell Had a Serpent stung them or a Bear devoured them they had done but according to their Nature But was it natural in you to further their damnation This was work too bloody for a Cannibal too cruel for an Enemy fitter for a Devil than a Father or Mother As your Child had from you his vicious nature it was your part to have endeavoured his Sanctification and Recovery You should have taught him betime to know the corruption of his nature and to seek and beg the Grace of Christ to know his God his duty the evil of sin the danger of temptations and his everlasting hopes and fears You should have taught him to know what man hath done against himself by disobeying and departing from his God and what Jesus Christ hath done for his Redemption and what he himself must do to be saved You should have taught
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
very near Sure Reason would be Reason if you would but use it sure Light would come in if you would not shut the Windows and draw the Curtains on you and rather choose to sleep in darkness Is there nothing within you that grudgeth at your folly and threateneth you for being wilfully besides your selves If you would but spend one half hour in a day or a week in sober thinking whither you are going and what you have done and what you are and what you must shortly see and be how could you chuse but be deeply offended with your selves for living like men quite void of Understanding against your God against your selves against all the ends and obligations of life and this for nothing But it may be the distinctness of your consideration may make it the more effectual And if I put my Motives by way of Questions will you consider them till you have well answered them all § 2. Qu. 1. Are you not fully convinced that there is a God of Infinite Power Knowledge and Goodness who is the perfect Governour of all the World God forbid that any of you should be so bad so mad as seriously to doubt of this which the Devils believe while they would draw you to Unbelief To doubt of a perfect governing God is to wink and doubt whether there be a Sun to stop your ears against the notorious testimony of Heaven and Earth and every Creature You may next doubt whether there be any thing if you doubt of God For Atomes and Shadows are hardlier perceived with certainty than the Earth the Heavens and Sun Qu. 2. And if you believe that there is a Governing God do you not believe that he hath Governing Laws or notifications of his Will and that we owe this God more full more absolute exact Obedience than can be due to any Prince on Earth And greater love than to our dearest friend he being infinitely good and Love it self Can you owe more to your Flesh or to any than to your God that made you men by whom you have Life and Health and time and all the good that ever you received And can you give him too much Love and Obedience Or can you think that you need to fear being losers by him and that your faithful Duty should be in vain Qu. 3. Is it God that needeth you or you that need him Can you give him any thing that he wants or do you want what he hath to give Can you live an hour without him Or be kept without him from pain misery or death Is it not for your own need and your own good that he requireth your service Do you know what his service is It is thankfully to receive his greatest Gifts To take his Medicines to save your Souls To feast on his prepared comforts He calls you to far better and needfuller Obedience for your selves than when you command your Child to take his meat or wear his cloaths or when he is sick to take a necessary remedy And is such Obedience to be refused Qu. 4. Hath not Nature taught you to love your selves Surely you cannot be willing to be damned Nor be indifferent whether you go to Heaven or Hell And can you believe that God would set you on that which would do you hurt and that the Devil is your Friend and would save you from him Can you believe that to please your Throat and Lust till death snatch away your Souls to judgment is more for your own good than to live here in holiness and the love of God and hereafter to live for ever in Glory Do you think you have lived as if you truly loved your selves or as self destroyers All the Devils in Hell or Enemies on Earth could never have done so much against you as by your sensuality ungodliness and sloth you have done against your selves O poor sinner as ever thou wouldst have mercy from God in thy extremity be intreated to shew some mercy on thy self Qu. 5. Hath not Nature deeply taught all the World to make a great difference between Virtue and Vice between Moral good and evil If the good and bad do not greatly differ what makes all mankind even the sons of pride to be so impatient of being called or accounted bad and love to be accounted wise and good How tenderly do most men bear a reproof or to hear that they do amiss To be called a wicked man a lyar a perjured man a knave how ill is it taken by all mankind This certainly proveth that the Conscience of the great difference between the good and bad is a common natural notice And will not God make a greater difference who better knoweth it than man Qu. 6. If God had only commanded you Duty even a holy righteous and sober life and forbidden you the contrary and had only bid you seek everlasting happiness and made you no promise of it should you not in reason seek it chearfully in hope Our folly leadeth us to do much in vain but God setteth no man on any vain employment If he do but bid you resist Temptation mortifie Lust learn his Word pray to him and praise him you may be sure it is not to your loss A reward you may be sure of if you knew not what it will be Yea if he set you upon the hardest work or to pass the greatest danger or serve him at the dearest rate or lose your Estate for him and life itself what reason can fear being losers by obeying God Yea the dearest service hath the greatest reward But when he hath moreover ascertained your reward by a Promise a Covenant sworn and sealed by his Miracles by Christs Blood by his Sacraments by his Spirit if yet you will be ungodly because you cannot trust him you have no excuse Qu. 7 Do you know the difference between a man and a Bruit Bruits have no capacity to think of a God and a Saviour and a Life to come and to know Gods Law and study Obedience and fear Hell and sin nor reason to rule their Appetites and Lusts nor any hope or joy in foreseen Glory But man is made capable of all this And can you think God maketh such noble faculties in vain Or should we live like Bruits that have none such Qu. 8. Do you not certainly know that you must die All the World cannot hinder it You must die And is it not near as well as sure How swift is time O how quickly shall we all be at our race and Warfares end And where then is the pleasure of Pride and Appetite and Lust Neither the dismal Carkass nor the dust or bones retain or taste it And alas the unconverted Soul must pay for it for ever And can you think that so short a bruitish pleasure that hath so sure and sad an end is worthy the grieving of your Friends the offending God the hazard of your Souls the loss of Heaven and the suffering of Gods justice in
to the Lust of any other He that is false to his God and Saviour after his Baptismal Vows is unlike to be true to his Country or his King if he have but the bait of a strong temptation And he that will sell his Soul his God and Heaven for a Whore or for to please his Appetite it 's like will not stick to betray Church or State or his dearest Friend for provision to satisfie these Lusts. Can you expect that he should love any man better than himself A wicked fleshly worldly man is a soil for Satan to sow the seeds in of any sort of actual sin and is fuel dryed or tinder for the sparks of Hell to kindle in Will he suffer much for God or his Country who will sell Heaven for nothing An evil Tree bringeth forth evil Fruit. If he hath the heart of an Achan a Gehazi an Achitophel no wonder if he hath their Actions and their Reward If he be a Thief and bear the Bag no wonder if Iudas sell his Master § 12. And these wretches if they live are like to be a Plague to their own posterity Woe to the Woman that hath such an Husband And how are the Children like to be bred that have such a Father Doth not God threaten punishment to the third and fourth Generation of them that hate him and to visit the iniquity of the Fathers on the Children Were not the Children of the old World drowned and those of Sodom and Gomorrah burned and Achans stoned Dathans Abirams swallowed up and Gehazi's struck with Leprosie c. for their Fathers sins And the Amalekites Children all destroyed and the posterity of the Infidel Jews forsaken the Curse coming on them and on their Children And as their Children are like to speed the worse for such Parents sins so are such Parents like to be requited by their Children As you shamed and grieved the hearts of your Parents so may your Children do by you And by that time it 's like if Grace convert you not though you have no hatred to your own sins worldly Interest may make you dislike your Childrens Their Lust and Appetite doth not tempt and deceive you as your own did Perhaps when they shame your Family debauch themselves with drink and Whores and consume the Estates which you sold your Souls for you may perceive that sin is an evil and destructive thing especially when they proceed to despise and abuse your persons also and to desire your Death and be a weary of you sooner or later you shall know better what sin is CHAP. VI. The joyful State and Blessing of good Children to themselves and others § 1. FRom what is said Chap. 2. and 5. it 's easie to gather how joyful a case to themselves and what a Blessing to Parents and others it is when Children betime are sober wise and godly and obedient The difference doth most appear at age and when they come to bring forth to themselves and others the fruits of their dispositions And the end and life to come will shew the greatest difference But yet even here and that betime the difference is very great § 2. I. As to themselves How blessed a state is it to be quickly delivered from the danger of damnation and Gods displeasure that they need not lie down and rise in fear lest they be in Hell whenever Death removeth them from the Body Can one too soon be out of so dreadful a state Can one that is in a house on fire or falln into the Sea make too much haste to be delivered If a man deep in debt be restless till it be paid and glad when it is discharged If a man in danger of sickness or a condemning Sentence of the Judge be glad when the fear of Death is over How glad should you be to be safe from the great danger of Damnation And till you are sanctified by Grace you are far from safety § 3. And if a mans Sickness Pain or Distraction be a Calamity the cure of which brings ease and joy How much more ease and joy may it bring to be cured from all the grievous Maladies of reigning sin Sanctification will cure your minds of spiritual blindness and madness that is of damnable Ignorance Unbelief and Error It will cure your affections of idolatrous distracting carnal Love of the itch of fleshly Desires or Lusts of the feaver of revengeful passions and malignant hatred to goodness and good men and of self vexing envy and malice against others of the greedy worm of Covetousness and the drunken desire of ambitious and imperious minds It will cure your Wills of their fleshly servitude and biass and of that mortal Backwardness to God and holy things and that sluggish dulness and lothness to choose and do what you are convinced must be done It will make good things easie and pleasant to you so that you will no more think you have need to beg mirth from the Devil or steal it from sin as if God Grace and Glory had none for you But it will be so easie to you to love and find pleasure in the Bible and good Books in good Company and good Discourse in spiritual Meditations and thoughts in holy Sermons Prayers and Church Communion and Sacraments even in Christ in God and the fore-thoughts of Heaven that you will be sorry and ashamed to think that ever you forsook such joys for fleshly pleasure and defiled your Souls with filthy and forbidden things And is not the itch of Lust better cured than scratch'd Is not the feaverish and dropsie thirst after Drink and Wealth and Honour better cured than pleased to the sinners death And is not a lazy backwardness to Duty better cured by spiritual health than pleased with idleness and sleep § 4. And certainly you cannot too soon attain the delights of Faith and Hope and Love of holy Knowledge and Communion with God and Saints You cannot too soon have the great blessing of Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and live night and day in peace of Conscience in assurance that all your sins are pardoned and that you are the adopted Sons of God and Heirs of Heaven sealed by his Spirit accepted in your Prayers welcome to God through Christ and when you die shall be with him Can you make too great haste from the folly and filth of sin and the danger of Hell into so safe and good a state as this § 5. And it will be a great comfort to you thus to find at age and use of reason that your baptismal Blessings ceased not with your Infancy by your own rejection but that you are now by your own consent in the Bond of God's Covenant and have a right to all the blessings of it which the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood will confirm as you had your Entrance by your Parents consent and accepted Dedication For the Covenant of Grace is our certain Charter for Grace
Hell for ever O foolish sinners I beseech you think in time how mad a bargain you are making O what an Exchange For a filthy Lust or fleshly Pleasure to sell a God a Saviour a Comforter a Soul a Heaven and all your hopes Qu. 9 If the Devil or deceivers should make you doubt whether there be any Judgment and Life to come should not the meer possibility and probability of such a day and life be far more regarded by you than all fleshly pleasure which is certainly short and base Did you ever hear a man so mad as to say I am sure there is no Heaven or Hell for Souls But you are sure that your flesh must not in a dark grave you are sure that death will quickly put an end to all that this world can afford you House and Land and all that now deceive poor worldlings will be nothing to you No more than if you had never seen them save the terrible reckoning that the Soul must make Sport and Mirth and Meat and Drink and filthy Lusts are ready all to leave you to the final Sentence of your Judge And is not even an uncertain hope of Heaven more worth than certain transitory Vanity Is not an uncertain Hell to be more feared and avoided than the forsaking of these certain trifles and deceits Much more when God hath so certainly revealed to us the life to come Qu. 10. Is it a wise and reasonable expectation that the righteous God should give that man everlasting Glory who will not leave his Whores his Drunkenness or the basest vanity for all his Love and for all his Mercies for the sake of Christ nor for the hopes of all this Glory Heaven is the greatest reward of holiness and of the diligent and patient seekers of it Heaven is the greatest gift of the great Love of God And can you believe that he will give it to the slaves of the Devil and to contemning wilful Rebels May not you next think that the Devils may be saved If you say that God is merciful it 's most true and this will be the unconverted mans damnation that he would for a base Lust offend so merciful a God and sell everlasting mercy for nothing and abuse so much mercy all his life Abused and refused mercy will be the fewel to feed the flames of Hell and torment the Conscience of the impenitent for ever Doth not God know his own mercy better than you do Can he not be merciful and yet be holy and just Is the King unmerciful if he make use of Jails and Gallows for Malefactors It 's mercy to the Land to destroy such as would destroy others The bosom of eternal Love is not a place for any but the holy The heavenly Paradise is not like Mahomet's a place of Lust and sensual Delights You blaspheme the most just and holy God if you make him seem indifferent to the holy and the unholy to his faithful Servants and to the despisers of his Grace Qu. 11. If there were any possibility that unsanctified Souls should be sanctified and saved in another World is it not a madness to cast everlasting life upon so great uncertainty or improbability when we have life and time and helps to make our Salvation sure God hath called you to give all diligence to make it sure 2 Pet. 1.10 He hath made infallible promises of it to sanctified Believers He calleth you to examine and judge your selves 2 Cor. 13.5 And do you know the difference between certainty and uncertainty in so great a case O none can now sufficiently conceive what a difference there is between a Soul that is going out of the Body with joyful assurance that Christ will presently receive him and a Soul that in the guilt of sin must say I am going to an endless life and know not but it may be an endless misery I am here now and know not but I may be presently with Devils that here deceived me Just fear of passing presently to Hell fire is a dreadful case to be avoided above all earthly sufferings Luk. 12.4 and 14.33 Much more when Gods threatnings to the impenitent are most sure Qu. 12. Do you think in your hearts that you have more pleasure and sound content and peace with your Whores and in your Sports and Drink or Riches than true Believers have in God in Christ in a holy life and the hopes of everlasting Glory Judge but by the cause Is not the Love of that God that is the Lord of Life and Death and all and the pleasure of pleasing him and the sense of pardon and mercy through Christ and the firm expectation of endless joy by a promise of God sealed by his Son his Sacraments and his Spirit I say is not all this matter more worthy to rejoyce a Soul than Money and Meat and Drink and Lust Have not you those secret gripes of Conscience when you think how short the sport will be and that for all these things you must come to judgment which much abateth the pleasure of your sin Had you spent that time in seeking first the Kingdom of God and its Righteousness and in honest obedient labouring in your callings you need not have lookt back on it with the gripes of an accusing Conscience If you see a true Believer sorrowful it is not for serving and obeying God or being holy and hating sin but for serving God no better and hating sin no more Qu. 13. Have you not oft secret wishes in your hearts that you were in the case of those persons that you judge to be of the most holy and heavenly hearts and conversations Do you not think they are in a far safer and better case than you Unless you are forsaken to blindness of mind it is certainly so And doth not this shew that you chuse and follow that which is worse when your Consciences tell you it is worse and refuse that which your Consciences tell you is best But it is not such sluggish wishes that will serve To lye still and live idle and wish your selves as rich as the industrious is not the way to make you so Qu. 14. At least if you have no such wishes now do you not think that you shall wish it at Death or Judgment Do not your Consciences now tell you that you shall shortly wish O that I had hated sinful pleasure O that I had spent my short life in obeying and trusting God Will you not say with Balaam Let me die the death of the Righteous and let my last end be like his O that I were in the case of those that mortified the Flesh and lived to God and laid not up their Treasure on Earth but in Heaven And why choose you not now that which you know you shall deeply wish that you had chosen Qu. 15. I take it for granted that your merry and sensual and worldly Tempters and Companions deride all this and persuade you to despise
it as if it were but needless melancholy troublesom talk But tell me do you think in Conscience that it is sound reason that they give you and such as should satisfie a sober man that careth what becomes of his soul for ever If it be I make a motion to you Bring any of them to me or any such man and in your hearing let the case be soberly debated I will hear all that they can say against a holy sober life for the World and for their fleshly pleasure And you shall hear what I can say on the contrary and then do but use the reason of a man and judge as you see cause As Elias said to the Israelites Why halt you between two Opinions If the Lord be God follow him If Baal be God follow him If Money Preferment Drink and Lust be best take it But if God Heaven Christ Faith Hope and Holiness be best at your peril refuse them not and halt no longer I suppose you sometime think of the case or else you are dead in sin I pray you tell me or tell your selves which cause seemeth best upon the deepest thoughts and consideration But if you will take the laughter or scorns of ignorant Sots instead of reason and instead of sober consideration you are well worthy of the damnation which you so wilfully choose Qu. 16. But if you think highly of their Wit or Learning who sin as you and who encourage and deceive you I pray you answer these two questions 1. Which side is Christ and his Prophets and Apostles on Which side doth the Scripture speak for Which way went all the Saints whose names are now honoured Were they for the fleshly or the spiritual life Were they for the love of pleasures more than God Doth Christ from Heaven teach you an earthly or a heavenly choice and life Did he come to cherish sin or to destroy it and save us from it You can make no doubt of this if ever you read or heard the Bible And 2. Which do you think were the wiser and better men and worthy to be believed and followed Whether Christ and all his Apostles and Saints that ever were in the world to this day or the Drunkards and Whoremongers and Worldlings who deride the Doctrine sent from Heaven If there be a Heaven is Drunkenness or Sobriety liker to be the way to it But if indeed you will take the mocks of a swinish Sot to be wiser than God than Christ than Prophets and Apostles and all that ever went to Heaven and their jears to be more credible than all God's Word what can a man say to convince such Wretches with any hope Qu. 17. I further ask you Have you not some secret purposes hereafter to repent If not alas how far are you from it and how forlorn is your case But if you have Conscience is a Witness against you that you choose and live in that case and course which you know is worst Were it not worst you need not purpose to repent of it And will you wilfully choose known evil when the very nature of mans Will is to love good Qu. 18. And if you believe that the faithful are in a happier case than you tell me What hindereth yet but you may be like them and yet be happy as well as they Hath God put any exception against you in his word Is not Mercy and Salvation proclaimed and offered to you as freely as to them Did any thing make you so bad as you are but your own choice and doing And can any thing yet hinder you from pardon and Salvation if you your selves were but truly willing What if your Parents were bad and bred you up amiss God hath told you in Ezek. 18. and 33. that if you will but do your own part yet and take warning and avoid your Parents sin and give up your selves unfeignedly to him he will save you whatever your Parents were What if Princes or Lords or learned men should be your tempters by words or example None of them can force you to one sin God is greater and wiser than they and more to be believed and obeyed and your Salvation is not in any of their power What if your old companions tempt you They can but tempt you they cannot constrain you to any evil All the Devils in Hell or men on earth cannot damn you no nor make you sinners if you do it not your selves Refuse not Christ and he will not refuse you And when he is willing if you be but willing truly willing to be saved from sin and misery and to have Christ Grace and Glory in the use of the means which God hath appointed you neither Earth nor Hell can hinder your Salvation Who but your selves keep you from forsaking the Company House or Baits which have deceived you Who but your selves keep you from lamenting your sin and flying to Christ and begging Mercy and giving your selves to God If you think that serious Christians are the happiest refuse not to be such your selves It will be your own doing your own wilful obstinacy if you perish But of this I have already said more in my Call to the Vnconverted Qu. 19. Dare you deliberately resolve or bargain to take your fleshly pleasures for your part instead of all your hopes of Heaven I hope none of you are yet so mad I think it is but few if any of the Witches that make so express a bargain with the Devil If they did O how they would tremble when they see their glass almost run out and death at hand If you dare not make such a bargain in plain words O do not do the same in the choice of your hearts and the practice of your lives and deceive your selves by thinking that you do it not when you do It is God and not you that maketh the conditions of Salvation and Damnation If you choose that life which God hath told us is the condition of Damnation and finally refuse that life which God hath made the condition of Salvation it will in effect be all one as to chuse Damnation and refuse Salvation He that chooseth deadly poison or refuseth his necessary food chooseth Death and refuseth Life in effect God hath said If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if by the Spirit you mortifie the deeds of the Body you shall live Rom. 8. Christ tells you that unless you are born again and converted you cannot enter into his Kingdom Ioh. 3 3 5. Matth. 18.3 and that Without Holiness none shall see God Refuse these and choose the world and sinful pleasures and you refuse Salvation and shall have no better than you choose What you judge best choose resolvedly and do not cheat your selves Qu. 20. Have you no natural love to your Parents or your Country O what inhumane cruelty is it to break the hearts of those from whom you had your Being and who were tender of you when you could
thing than meerly to take that name upon you and be of that party and to joyn with the right Church and to have the bare words and picture of believers And then consider whether God will be mocked with Shews and Ceremonies and dead Formalities and false Professions and whether the lifeless Carkass or Image of Christianity will be taken by God instead of the life and power of it and will ever save a Soul Yea whether a false counterfeit Christian bred up under Christian Instructions and Examples do not make your guilt far greater and your case more miserable than Americans or Indians that never heard what you have heard And when perhaps you have spoken against Hypocrites your selves whether there be any more notorious Hypocrites than such as you who say you are Christians and yet live to the Flesh in the odious sins which Christ abhorreth Think what a dreadful thing it is to profess a Religion which condemneth you and to say over that Creed which you believe not and those Petitions in the Lords Prayer which you desire not and those Commandments which you break and will condemn you To rebel against God while you say you believe in him To despise Christs Government while you say you trust him for Salvation To ask for his Grace when you would not have it to sanctifie you and save you from your sin To beg Mercy of God and to reject this Mercy and to have no Mercy on your selves O think what a doleful case it is to see distracted sinners such Hypocrites playing with such Contradictions so near Gods Bar and in his sight And to make no better use of Prayers and the name of Christians and the Profession of the Truth than to give the Devil more matter to accuse you and Conscience to torment you and a righteous God to say to you at last Out of thy own mouth will I judge thee thou wicked Rebel Didst thou not confess that Jesus was the Christ and that thou didst believe the Gospel and the Life to come and yet didst live in the wilful disobeying of Christ and the Gospel and base contempt of God and thy Salvation And when you have considered the sad case of Hypocrites that call themselves Christians to their own Condemnation when they are none such then think seriously what the Covenant was which was made for you in your Baptism and you have taken on you to own Think what it is devotedly to trust to God as your reconciled Father and devotedly to trust to Christ as your Saviour your great Teacher Governour and Mediator with the Father what it is devotedly to trust the Holy Spirit to illuminate sanctifie and quicken you in a holy Life and to strenthen and comfort you against and under all your Trials Consider what it is to take the Flesh the World and the Devil as they are against this holy Life and heavenly Hope for your Enemies and to list your selves under Christ in a vowed War to the death against them Think how you have perfidiously broken this Covenant on which all the Hope of your Salvation lieth And then if you dare not utterly renounce all that Hope presently and resolvedly renew this Covenant Lament your violation of it to God Do it not only in a passion but upon serious consideration make that choice and resolution which you dare stand to at a dying hour and on which you may believe that God for Christs sake will accept you and forgive you O think what a Mercy it is to have a Saviour who after all your heinous sins will bring you reconciled as Sons to God for the merits of his Sacrifice and Righteousness and by his powerful Intercession and will send from Heaven the Spirit of God into your hearts to renew those blind dead carnal minds to God's holy Image and will dwell in you and carry on your Sanctification to the end Thankfully and joyfully accept this Covenant and Grace and again give up your selves to God your Father Saviour and Sanctifier but be sure that you do it absolutely without deceitful exceptions and reserves and that you do it resolvedly and not only in a frightened mood and yet that you do it as in the strength of the Grace of Christ not trusting the stedfastness of your own deceitful mutable Hearts And when you can truly say that you unfeignedly consent and renew this Covenant in your hearts then go the next opportunity to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and there penitently and faithfully renew it openly in the solemn way that Christ hath appointed you thankfully profess your Trust in Christ and receive a sealed Pardon of your sins and Title to everlasting Life and settle your Conversation in the Communion of Saints as you hope to live with such for ever V. Hence forward set your selves as the true Schollars of Christ to learn his Doctrine and as his true Subjects to know his Laws and as those that trust their Souls into his Hand to understand and firmly believe his Promises for this Life and that which is to come And as the blessed man Psal. 1 2 3. To delight in the Law of the Lord and meditate in it day and night As you were wont to steal some hours from God and your Masters to go to the house of Sin and Death so now get such hours as lawfully you can from your other Employments and diversions but especially on the Lords-days and get alone and beg mercy and Grace from God and set your selves to read the Bible and with it read some Catechisms and some sound and serious Treatises of Divinity which are most suitable to your state It is young men that have miscarried and being convinced are willing to turn to God that I am now directing And therefore supposing that you will ask me what Books I would commend to you I will answer you accordingly supposing still that you prefer the Bible 1. For the full resolving of your Hearts to a sound Repentance and a holy life read Ioseph Allenes Book of Conversion Richard Allens Vindication of Godliness and their Book of Covenanting with God and his Victory over the World Mr. Whateleys New birth and some of the old Sermons of Repentance such as Mr. Stocks Mr. Perkins Mr. Dikes Mr. Marburys Bunny's correction of Parsons Book for Resolution Iohn Rogers Doctrine of Faith William Fenners Books Sam. Smith on the first and the fifty first Psalms and his great Assize and on the Eunuchs Conversion Bifields Marrow Mr. How 's blessedness of the Righteous and of Delighting in God And if you would have any of mine read the Call to the Vnconverted or the Treatise of Conversion and the Directions for sound Conversion and Now or Never and a Saint or a Bruit or which of all these Gods Providence shall afford you II. If you would have help to try your hearts lest they be deceived read Alleins foresaid Book of the Covenant and Pinkes Tryal of sincere Love to
and Contention diverting Gods Judgments by Faith and Prayer forsaking all for Christ and patiently suffering for well doing and by Doctrine and Example teaching men to difference the Creator from the Creature Holiness from Sin Heaven from Earth Soul from the Body the Spirit from the Flesh and helping men to prepare by a mortified heavenly heart and life for a comfortable death and endless happiness Of such vast importance is it to the world whether the Clergy be good or bad skilful or unskilful holy or worldly and he is not a true Christian that is insensible of the difference or thinks it small And now do I need to say any more to shew young men designed for the Ministry of what importance it is that they be well prepared and qualified for it God can and sometime doth turn VVolves into faithful Shepherds and convert those that being unconverted undertake the work that should convert others and give wisdom and grace to ignorant and graceless Preachers of wisdom and grace But this is not ordinarily to be expected But as youth is trained up and disposed they commonly prove when they come to age Their first notions lie deepest and make way for their like and resist all that is contrary be it never so true and good and necessary Experience tells this to all the world Those that in youth are trained in Heathenism Mahometanism Popery or any distinct sect of Christians they commonly continue such especially if they live among those who are for it and so make it their Interest in reputation or wealth And if the Rulers and Times should be but Erroneous Heretical or Malignant at enmity to Truth and serious holiness alas how hard is it for ill-taught youth to resist the Stream How hard is it to unteach them the Errours which they first learnt A Vomit may easily bring up that which was but lately eaten but the yellow and the green humors that lie deep must cost heart-gripes before they will be cast up False Opinions as well as Truths are usually linkt together and the chain is neither easily cast off nor broken And they that have received Errours have received their defensatives These are like the Shell-fish that carry their house about them They have studied what to say for it but not what can be said against it or which is worse by a slight and false consideration of the arguments for Truth they have disabled them from doing them any good And if they had never so true Notions in their Memories if they come not in power on their hearts and make them not new spiritual holy men these will not master fleshly Lusts nor overcome ambitious and worldly Inclinations nor make men fit to propagate that Faith and Holiness which they never had And it is now that you must get those eminent qualifications of Knowledge and Holiness which you must after use And how will you use that which you have not And yet proud hearts how empty soever will be desirous of esteem and reputation and will hardly bear vilifying contempt or disregard When as though some few prudent hearers will encourage such young men as they think are hopeful yet most will judge of things and persons as they find them The ignorant dry and lifeless Orations of unexperienced carnal Preachers will not be magnified by such as know what Iudgment and holy Seriousness that place and sacred work require Few will much praise or feed on unsavoury or insippid Food meerly to flatter and please the Cook And then when you find that you are slighted for your slight and unskilful work your stomachs will rise against those that slight you and so by selfishness you will turn malignant and become Enemies to those that you take for Enemies to you because they are not contented with your unholy trifling And all your enmity will turn against your self and be like Satans against the members of Christs which is but his own self-tormenting § 15. II. The Case being so important I shall briefly conjoyn your Danger and your Remedy beseeching you as you have any care for your Souls your Country or the Church of God or any thing which Faith or reason should regard that you will soberly weigh the Counsel that I give you I. The first of your dangers which I shall mention lieth in a too hasty resolving for the Sacred Ministry Pious and prudent desires and purposes I would not discourage But two sorts of Parents in this prove greatly injurious to the Church First Worldly men that set their Sons to the Universities in order to their worldly Maintenance and Preferment looking at the Ministry meerly as a Profession or Trade to live by Secondly and many honest godly Parents ignorantly think it a good work to design their Children to the Ministry and call it a devoting them to God without due considering whether they are like to be fit for it or not And when they have bin some years at the University they think a Parsonage or Vicarage is their due Ordained they must be what have they else studied for It s too late now to change their purposes when they have been at seven years cost and labour to prepare for the Ministry They are too old and too proud to go Apprentices or Servants Husbandmen they cannot be They are used to an idler kind of Life To be Lawyers will cost them more time and study than they can now afford having lost so much and there are more already than can have practice Physicians are already so many that the younger sort know not how to live though they would for money venture on their Neighbours lives to their greater danger than I am willing to express So that there is no way left but for a Benefice to become Church Mountebanks and Quacks and undertake the Pastoral care of Souls before they well know what Souls are or what they are made for or whither they are going or how they must be conducted and prepared for their endless state And it seems to some the glory of a Nation to have many thousand such Lads at the Universities more than there be Cures or Churches in the Land all expecting that their Friends should procure them Benefices And they must be very ignorant and bad indeed that cannot find some Ministers so bad as to certifie that they are sober and of good lives and some Patrons so bad as to like such as they and for favour or somewhat worse to present them and some Bishops Chaplain bad enough to be favourable in examining them and then some Bishop bad enough to ordain and institute them And by that time nine Thousand such youths have got Benefices alas what a case will the Churches and the poor peoples Souls be in § 16. I. And what remedy is there for this That which I have now to propose is first to tell you who they be that should be devoted to the Ministry and next what both Parents and you should
be servants of the flesh and the world woe to you when your Masters turn you off and you must receive your wages § 26. VII Above all therefore choose like real Christians and take God and Heaven for your hope your all If you do not so you are not Christians indeed nor stand to your baptismal Covenant and if you be here fixed by the Grace of God and your sober consideration and belief you will then know what to choose and do It will teach you to referre all worldly things to spiritual and heavenly ends and uses and to count all things loss and dung for Christ and to choose the one thing needful which shall never be taken from you even that which will guide you in just and safe ways and save you from the greatest evil and give your minds continual peace even that which passeth understanding and will be best at last when sinners are forsaken § 27. VIII My next Counsel therefore is for the order of your Studies Begin then with your Catechism and practical Divinity to settle your own Souls in a safe condition for Life or Death And deal not so foolishly as to wast many years in inferior Arts and Sciences before you have Studied how to please God and to be saved I unfeignedly thank God that by sickness and his Grace he called me early to learn how to Die and therefore to Learn what I must be and how to live and thereby drew me to Study the Sacred Scriptures and abundance of practical spiritual English Books till I had somewhat setled the resolution and the peace of my own Soul before I had gone farre in humane Learning and then I found more leisure and more capacity to take in subservient knowledge in its proper time and place And indeed I had lost most of my Studies of Philosophy and difficult controversies in Theology if I had faln on them too young before I came to due capacity and so had been prepossessed with crude or unsound notions for they had kept out that which required a riper judgment to recieve it Such Books as I before commended to the Apprentices contain the Essentials of Religion plainly affectionately and practically delivered in a manner tending to deep impression renovation of the Soul and spiritual experience without which you will be but like sounding brass or a tinkling Cymbal The Art of Theology without the POWER consisting in Holy Life and Light and Love is the make of the Hypocrite Yet before you come to lay exact Systems of Theology in due Method in your minds much help of subservient Arts and Sciences is necessary How ever a Council of ancient Bishops once forbad the Reading of the Gentiles Books § 28. IX And here next I advise you Throughly to Study the Evidences and nature of the Christian Faith but not to hasten too soon over confidently on hard controversies as if your judgment of them at maturity must have no change but still suppose that greater light by longer Study may cause in you much different thoughts of such difficulties § 29. Lastly I advise you that you begin not the exercise of your Ministry too boldly in publick great or judicious Auditories Over much confidence signifieth Pride and Ignorance of your imperfection and of the greatness of the work and the dreadfulness of the most Holy Majesty But if you can at first settle a competent time in the house with some ancient experienced Pastor that hath some small Country Chappel that needs your help And 1. There you may Learn as well as Teach and learn by his practice that which you must practice which in a great house as a Chaplain you will hardly do but must cast your self into a farre different mould 2. By Preaching some years to a small ignorant people where you fear not critical judgments you will get boldness of speech and freedom of utterance without that servile Study of words and learning your written notes without Book which will be tiresome time-wasting and lifeless And when freedom and use hath brought you to a habit of ready speaking of the great and necessary things and acquaintance with ignorant Countrey people hath taught you to understand their case you will have a better preparation for more publick places when you are clearly called to them than you were ever like to get either in Universities among Schollars or in great mens Houses Compassion to the Church that is plagued with bad Ministers and by the weak undergo exceeding great loss and the sence of the grand importance of the Pastors qualifications to the happiness or misery of Souls and Kingdoms have drawn me to say more to young Students that intend the Ministry than I at first intended And therefore with the other two sorts I shall be very brief ☞ One earnest warning to you and all young men I adde know that one of the most common and pernicious maladies of mankind is an unhumbled understanding rashly confident of its own apprehensions though false hasty judging and presidence the brat of Ignorance and Pride Of a multitude of persons differing how few are not obstinately confident that they are in the right even Lads that are past twenty years of age O! dread this Vice and suspect your understanding Be humble take time trie and hear before you judge Labour for knowledge but take not on you to be sure where you are not but doubt and trie till you are sure CHAP. X. Counsel to Young Students in Physick SUpposing what is said to others which equally concerneth you I briefly add I. Make not the getting of Money and your own worldly prosperity so much of your end as the doing good in the world by the preservation of mens health and lives and the pleasing of God thereby Selfish low ends shew a selfish mind that liveth not to God or publick good II. Undertake not the practice of Physick without all these qualifications 1. A special sagacity or natural searching conjecturing judgment For almost all your work lyeth in the dark and is manageed by Conjecture 2. Much Reading especially of Observators that you may know what hath been the experience of all ages and eminent men before you 3. The experience of other mens practice And therefore if possible stay some time first in the house with some eminent Practitioner whose experiences you may see and hear his counsel III. Begin with plain and easy cases and meddle only with safe and harmless remedies And think not your selves Physicians indeed till you have got considerable experience your selves there is no satisfactory trusting to other mens experiences alone IV. In cases too hard for you send your Patients to abler Physicians and prefer not your reputation or gain before their lives V. Study simples throughly especially the most powerful and affect not such compositions as by the mixture of the less powerful do frustrate the ingredients which would else be more effectual VI. Forget not the Poverty of most
Patients who have not Money to pay large chargeable Bills of the Apothecary nor give large Fees to a Physician multitudes neglect Physick and venture without it because Physicians require so much and are so much for their Apothecaries gain that they have it not to pay VII Take heed of self conceitedness and rash confidence and too hasty judging Most of your work is hard many things which you think not on may occasion your mistake Causes and Diseases have marvellous diversities Most that are quick judges and suddenly confident that all their first apprehensions are true do prove but proud self-ignorant fools and kill more by ignorances and temerity than high-way robbers or designing Murderers do And though the Grave hide you mistakes they are known to God VIII Give not too much Physick nor too often or without need nor venture on things dangerous Mans life is precious and nature is the chief Physician which Art must but help The Body is tender and easily distempered rather do too little than too much Oft tampering useth to kill at last As he that dayly washeth a glass at last breaketh it and as Seamen are bold because they have oft escaped but many if not most are drown'd at last and as Soldiers that have oft escaped are bold to venture but kill'd at last It s usually so with them that oft take Physick except from a very cautelous skillful man Therefore were I a Woman I would not marry a Physitian lest his nearness and kindness should cause him to be tampering with me so oft till a mistake did kill me All your Neighbours may mistake your Disease without your hurt but your Physitians mistake may be your present Death IX Direct men first as faithful Friends to the things which may prevent the need of Physick viz. 1. A temperate and wholesome Diet avoiding fullness and hurtful things 2. Sufficient labour to suscitate natural heat keep pure the humors and expell excrements avoiding Idleness 3. Keeping warm and avoiding occasions of Cold especially cold Drink cold Places and cold Cloathing either when they are hot or in Winter when nature needeth help 4. Contentedness and quietness of mind and chearful converse 5. Direct them to such familiar remedies at home in their Drinks and Diet as is suitable to their distempers for preservation and are safe and harmless and put them not to a needless dependance on your frequent help make not use of weak Womens fears to make them miserable by needless Medicining and so to make them as Tenants to you to pay you a constant Rent to quiet them X. Give them good Counsel for their Souls that need it flatter them not with false hopes of life when it tendeth to hinder their preparations for Death They and you are hasting to so great a change as requireth great and careful forethoughts It s sad to go out of the World and not at all to know whither and what will be their next habitation much more to be in a certain state of misery Those will hear a Physitian that will not send for a Divine and it is not a work unbeseeming your Profession but such as Christian Faith and Charity bespeaks CHAP. XI Counsel to Young Students of the Law in London GOD hath made much use of honest Lawyers as the instruments of our safety and of the just and orderly Government of the Land 1. They are not bred up in meer idleness and Luxury as too many are of higher Birth but in such diligent Study as improveth their understandings and keepeth them from that debauchery which Idleness and fulness cherish 2. And their Studies and Callings make it their interest as to know so also to maintain the Laws and that is to maintain propriety just Liberty and Order and so to preserve justice and the common peace except in Countries that have pernicious Laws Injustice in Judges and Lawyers is like Heresie ungodliness and persecution in Pastors of the Church clean contrary to their very Calling and Profession but more easily and commonly seen and hated because it is against the well known interest of mankind Shame therefore and common hatred of the unjust is here a great restraint of evil But bad men for all this will do badly and turn even the Rules of Justice to Oppression to serve the Wills and Lusts of those that can promote them that by them they may serve their own Therefore that Young men that Study the Law may prove wise and honest is of great importance to the common good as well as to their own I. And here first I warn all such to take heed of the sins of sensuality Alas London doth so abound with Temptations that without Grace and wise Resolution you are unsafe There are so many sensual proud and ungodly young men ready to entice you so many Play Houses Taverns and Filthy Houses to entertain you that if you go without Grace and Wit the Flesh and the Devil will soon precipitate you into the slavery of brutish Flesh. And then you forfeit Gods favour and protection and he may leave you to more sin and misery or to grow up to be the Servants of Oppression the Enemies of Piety and the Plagues of the Commonwealth II. Study hard for Idleness never made good Lawyers nor very useful men III. Abhorre and avoid ill Company especially of two sorts 1. Those that would entice you to the places and practises aforesaid of voluptuousness 2. Those that being themselves deceived would deceive you against Religion and your Salvation It s too well known that such persons in London are not rare though the danger by them is not known enough Even those that are so unchristian and inhumane as to prate against the Christian Faith the Truth the Authority or sufficiency of the Sacred Scripture the Life to come the Souls immortality if not also against the Government and Providence of God will yet talk as confidently as if they were in their wits yea and were the greatest wits among us For my part I could never yet get one man of them soberly to joyn with me in a fair disquisition of the Truth and follow it on till we came to see the just conclusion Commonly they will fly from me and refuse disputes or turn all to some rambling rant or jest or when they are stated be gone and go no further and come no more Young unfurnished heads are unfit to dispute with the Devil or any such Messengers of his A Pest house is not more dangerous to you But if they have perplexed you desire some well studied Minister of Christ either to meet them or to resolve your doubts And if you will read what I have written on that subject you may find enough to resolve if it be justly received viz. 1. In my Reasons for the Christian Religion 2. In my Vnreasonableness of Infidelity 3. In my Life of Faith 4. In More Reasons for the Christian Religion And avoid also the snares of
age they come to true understanding of the Covenant which they made and must renew and till they give credible signs of real Godlyness by a Godly Life and of what mischievous effects it is to confirm them and admit them to the Lords Supper on their bare saying the words of the Catechism the Creeds Lords Prayer and Decalogue without tryed Vnderstanding and serious Piety And what a wrong it is to the Christian Church and Religion to confound and corrupt our Communion for want of Parish Discipline and distinctions And how little good all Canons or Laws for Reformation or Religious duty will do if the Ministry be ignorant worldly and ungodly and the Churches be not taught and guided by able godly humble self-denying and loving Pastors I beseech you read him diligently he was no violent man and his books here mentioned were purposely written for K. Edward and the Bishops and Church of England and accepted kindly by them His burnt bones were honourably vindicated by the publick praise and his memory by many in Cambridge solemnly commended to posterity I beseech you let his Counsel in these Books be revived and true Reformation be tryed by their Light I hope they will hear that great and moderate Reformer that will not hear me or such as I. And if you will adde the Reading of old Salvian and of Nic. Clemangis it may do you good and excite you to do good to others and promote the ends of this Advise to Youth March 25. 1681. FINIS A CATALOGUE of Mr. Baxter's Books to satisfie some Foreigners And are to be Sold by B. Simmons at the Three Golden Cocks at the West End of St. Pauls I. Doctrinal 1. A Phorisms of the Covenants and Justification suspended for some imperfections 12 mo 2. The Reasons of the Christian Religion 4 to 3. The Unreasonableness of Infidelity How the Spirit is Christs Witness Of the sin against the Holy Ghost 8 vo 4. More Reasons for the Christian Religion confuting the Ld. Herbert de Veritate 12 mo 5. A Confession of his Faith against Antinomians 4 to 6. The Vindication of Gods goodness against some melancholy Exceptions 12 mo 7. How far Holiness is the design of Christianity 4 to 8. A Latine Methodus Theologiae Christianae which with the Body of Practical Divinity maketh an entire System It consists of 73 Tables or Methodical Schemes pretending to a juster Methodizing of Christian Verities according to the Matter and Scripture than is yet extant furnishing men with necessary distinctions on every Subject shewing that Trinity in Unity is imprinted on the whole Creation and that Trichotomising is the just distribution in Naturals and Morals The 1st Part of the Kingdom of Nature The 2d of the Kingdom of Grace before Christs Incarnation The 3d of the Kingdom of Grace and the Spirit since the Incarnation The 4th of the Kingdom of Glory All in the Political Method in the Efficience Constition and Administration viz. Legislation Judgment and Execution The first Part mostly Philosophical with a full Scheme of Philosophy or Ontology The Doctrine de Anima most largely handled with above 200 select Disputations Prolixe ones of the Trinity Predetermination the Faculties of the Soul Original Sin And a multitude of Controversies briefly decided in Fol. II. Practicals for all sorts 9. A Christian Directory or Body of practical Divinity 1. Christian Ethicks 2. Oeconomicks 3. Ecclesiasticks 4. Politicks Resolving multitudes of Cases on each Subject Fol. 10. The Saints everlasting Rest. 4 to 11. A Treatise of Self-Denial 4 to 12. The crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ. 4 to 13. The mischiefs of Self-Ignorance 8 vo 14. A Sermon of Repentance preached to the Commons the day before they voted the King's Return 4 to 15. Right Rejoycing A Thanksgiving Sermon at St. Pauls foretelling the danger of their turning all into greater Calamity 4 to 16. The vain Religion of the formal Hypocrite And the Fools prosperity 12 mo 17. A Sermon of Faith before the King 4 to 18. The poor mans Family Book for them that cannot buy many A familiar Dialogue shewing the Unconverted how to become true Christians and the Converted how to live and die as such With a Catechism Prayers and Psalms 8 vo III. Practicals for the Vnconverted 19. A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live 12 mo 20. Directions and Persuasions to a sound Conversion 8 vo 21. Now or Never 12 mo 22. A Treatise of Conversion 4 to 23. A Saint or a Bruit 4 to 24. A Sermon of making Light of Christ. 8 vo 25. A Treatise of Judgment 8 vo 26. True Christianity Christs absolute Dominion and Mans Subjection Assize Sermons 12 mo 27. Catholick Unity How to be all of one Religion Ungodliness the great Divider 12 mo IV. Practicals for the Faithful 28. The right Method for settled Peace of Conscience and Spiritual Comfort 8 vo 29. The weak Christian strong Christian and Hypocrite characterized 8 vo 30. The Divine Life 1. A Treatise of the Knowledge of God and use of his Attributes 2. Of Walking with God 3. Conversing with God in solitude 4 to 31. The Life of Faith in every State 4 to 32. Mrs. Bakers Funeral Sermon Death the last Enemy 8 vo 33. Mr. Hen. Stubs Funeral Sermon 12 mo 34. Mrs. Coxes Funeral Sermon 4 to 35. Alderman Ashursts Funeral Sermon 4 to 36. Mr. Io. Corbets Funeral Sermon 4 to 37. Mrs. Baxters Life and her Mothers Funeral Sermon The last work of a Believer 4 to 38. Poetical Fragments Partly Thanksgiving partly the groans of the afflicted 8 vo V. Controversies against Popery 39. The safe Religion Three Disputations 8 vo 40. One Sheet of Reasons against Popery 8 vo 41. A Key for Catholicks to open the juglings of the Jesuits The first part answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4 to 42. The certainty of Christianity without Popery 8 vo 43. Full and easie satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8 vo 44. Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4 to 45. The true Catholick Church A popular Sermon of its Unity 12 mo 46. The successive Visibility of the Church where it hath been in all Ages An Answer to W. Iohnson alias Terret 8 vo 47. Which is the true Church A full Answer to his Reply proving that the General Councils and the Popes Primacy were but in one Empire 4 to 48. The Grotian Religion discovered 12 mo 49. The History of Bishops and their Councils abridged and of the Popes 4 to VI. English Church Controversies 50. Gildas Salvianus The Reformed Pastor shewing the Nature of the Pastoral Office especially of personal Instruction 8 vo 51. Christian Concord The Agreement of the associated Pastors and Churches of Worcestershire 4 to 52. Their Agreement for Catechising and personal Instructing their Parishes 8 vo 53. Disputations of Right to Sacraments 4 to 54. Disputations of Church Government Liturgies and Ceremonies 4 to 55. Of