the Son may be as foolish as Rehoboam O what a great work it is to make a man truly wise and good How many years study doth it usually require What wisdom and diligence in Teachers What teachableness and diligence in Learners and especially the Grace of God! And when all is done the man quickly dieth and obtaineth his ends in another world But his Children are born as ignorant and perhaps as bad as he was born He can neither leave them his Knowledge nor his Grace They must have all the same teaching and labour and blessing as he had to bring them to the same attainments The Mercy and Covenant of God taketh them into his Church where they have great advantages and helps and promiseth them more mercy for their relation to a faithful Parent if he or they do make no forfeiture of it But as their Nature is the same with others so their actual Wisdom must come by Gods blessing on the use of the same means which are necessary to the Children of the worst men A Christian's Child is born with no more Knowledge than a Heathen's and must have as much labour and study to make him wise § 2. It is certain then that the welfare of this world lyeth on a good succession of the several Generations And that all the endeavours of one Generation with God's greatest blessing on them will not serve for the Ages following All must begin anew and be done over again or all will be as undone to the next Age And it is not the least blessing on the faithful that their faith and godliness disposeth them to have a care of posterity and to devote their Children wholly to God as well as themselves and to educate them in his fear If Nature had not taught Birds and Beasts to feed their Young as well as to generate them their kind would be soon extinct O what a blessed World were it if the blessings of men famous for wisdom and godliness were entailed on all that should spring from them and if this were the common case § 3. But the doleful miseries of the World have come from the degenerating of good mens posterity Adam hath his Cain and Noah his Cham and David his Absalom Solomon Hezekiah Iosiah left not their like behind them The present State of the Eastern Churches is a dreadful instance What places on Earth were more honourable for Faith and Piety than Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem Constantinople Ephesus Philadelphia and the rest of those great and noble Countries and these also strengthened with the powerfullest Christian Empire that ever was on Earth And now they are places of Barbarism Tyranny and foolish Mahometanism where the Name of Christ is made a scorn and the few Christians that keep up that sacred Profession by Tyranny kept in so great Ignorance that alas the vices of most of them dishonour their Profession as much as their Enemies Persecutions do O what a doleful difference is there between that great part of the World now and what it was 1400 or 1000 years ago And alas were it not for the name of a pompous Christian-Church how plain an instance would Rome be of the same Degeneracy And some Countries that received the blessing of Reformation have revolted into the darkness of Popery What a change was in England by Queen Mary's Reign And how many particular Cities Towns are grown ignorant and malignant which in former times were famous for Religion The Lord grant it may never be the case of London Yea how many persons of Honourable and great Families have so far degenerated from the famous Wisdom and Piety of their Grandfathers yea and Fathers as to hate that which their Parents loved and persecute those whom their Ancestors honoured The names of many Great men stand honoured in History for their Holiness to God and their Service to their Countries whose posterity are the men that we are most in danger of Alas in how few such houses hath Piety kept any long succession yea some take their Fathers virtues to be so much their dishonour that they turn malignant Persecutors to free themselves from the supposed reproach of their Relations Yea some Preachers of the Gospel devoted to God by pious Parents become Revilers of their own Parents and despisers of their Piety as the effect of factious Ignorance § 4. And on the other side when Piety hath successively as a River kept its course what a blessing hath it proved But how rare is that And when Children have proved better than their Parents it hath been the beginning of welfare to the places where they lived How marvellously did the Reformation prevail in Germany in Luther's time when God brought out of Popish Monasteries many excellent Instruments of his Service And Princes became wise and pious whose Parents had been blind or impious Godliness or wickedness welfare or calamity follow the changes and quality of posterity And men live so short a time that the work of Educating Youth aright is one half the great business of man's Life He that hath a Plantation of Oaks may work for twenty Generations But he that planteth Gardens and Orchards with Plants that live but a little time must be still planting watering and defending them § 5. Among the Antient Sages of the World the Greeks and Romans and much more among the Israelites the care of posterity and publick welfare was the great thing which differenced the virtuous and laudable from those of a base selfish sensual disposition He was the bravest Citizen of Rome that did most love and best serve his Country And he was the Saint among the Jews who most loved Sion and the Security and Succession of its holy and peaceable posterity And the Christian Faith and Hope and Interest doth lead us herein to a much higher pitch and to a greater zeal for publick good in following him that whipt out prophaners from the Temple even a zeal of God's House which eateth us up It teacheth us by the Cross most effectually to deny our selves and to think nothing too dear to part with to edifie the Church of God nor any labour or suffering too great for common good It teacheth us to pray for the Hallowing of God's Name the Coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven before our daily Bread and any other personal Interest of our own Therefore the Families of Christians should be as so many Schools or Churches to train up a succession of persons meet for the great communicative works which God calleth all Believers to in their several measures It is eminently Teachers but it is also all others in their several ranks who must be the Salt of the Earth and the Lights of the World And indeed the Spirit of Holiness is so eminently the Spirit of Love to God and Man that it inclineth every sanctified person to a Communicative Zeal to make others wise and good and
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
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