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
is to search study and pray for so firm a belief of this unseen Glory as may so resolve engage and comfort us in some good measure as if we had seen it with these eyes O! what men would one hours being in heaven make us or one clear sight of it Faith hath a greater work to do than a dreaming or dead opinion can perform If it be not well grounded first and well exercised upon Gods Love Promise and Glory from day to day you will find cause sadly to lament the weakness of it For this use you have great need of the help of such Books as open clearly the evident proofs of the Christian verity which I have breifly done in the beginning of the 2d part of my Life of Faith and more largely in 2 other Books viz. The unreasonableness of Infidelity and the reasons of the Christian Religion A firm bâ—lief of the World to come is it that must â—ake us serious Christians and over come the snares of worldly vanity And your Faith being well setled set your selves dayly to use it and live by it dwell in the joyful hopes of the heavenly Glory what is a man that liveth not in the use of Reason And you must know that you have as daily use for your Faith as for your Reason Without reason you can neither safely eat or drink nor converse with men as a man but as a Bedlam not do any business that concerneth you and therefore you must Live by your Reason And without Faith you cannot please God nor obtain Salvation no nor use your Reason for any thing higher than to serve your appetites and purvey for the flesh and therefore you must Live by Faith or live like Beasts and worse than Beasts and cannot otherwise live to God nor live in the hopes of blessedness hereafter O! Consider that the difference between living chiefly upon and for an Earthly fleshly felicity or a heavenly is the great difference between the holy and the unholy and the fore-goer of the difference between those in Heaven and those in Hell IX Still remember that the great Means of all the good that here or hereafter you can expect is the great Mediator the great Teacher Ruler and Intercessor for his people And therefore out of him you can do nothing All duty that you offer to God must be by his Mediation and so must all mercy which you receive from God To come to God by him who is the Way the Truth and the Life must be your daily work of Faith His blood must wash you from all sin past and from the guilt of daily failings and infirmities None but he can effectually teach you to know God and your selves your duty and your everlasting hopes None but he can render your persons praises and actions acceptable to God because you are sinners and unmeet for Gods acceptance without a Mediator All power in heaven and Earth is given him and your Lives and Souls are at his will and it is he that must judge you and with whom you hope to live in Glory Therefore you must so live by the Faith of the Son of God who hath loved you and and given himself for you that you may say it is he that liveth in you Gal. 2.2021 This is the Fountain from whence you must daily fetch your strength and comfort X. And still remember that it is by the operation of the holy Spirit that the Father and the Son do sanctifie Souls and Regenerate and breed them up for Glory It is by the Holy Ghost that God dwelleth in us by Love and Christ by Faith Therefore see that you rest not in corrupted nature and trust not to your selves or to the Flesh. Your souls are dead to God and Holiness and your duties dead till the Spirit of Christ do quicken them You are blind to God and mad in sin till the spirit illuminate you and give you understanding You are like Enemies out of Love with God Heaven and Holiness till this Spirit reconcile you and sanctifie your wills You will have no manlike spiritual holy pleasure till the Holy Spirit renew your hearts and make them fit to delight in God O that men knew the great necessity of the illuminating quickning sanctifying comforting influence of the Spirit of God how far would they be from deriding it as some prophane ones do By this Holy Spirit the sacred Records were written and by miracles of Christ and his Apostles and Evangelists and Prophets sealed and delivered to the Churches And by this Spirit the orders and Government of the Church were setled And by him we are inlightned to understand the Scripture and inclined to Love them and delightfully believe them and obey them Study therefore obediently these Writings of the Holy Ghost and confidently trust them O! be not found among the resisters or neglecters of the Spirits help and motions when proud self-confidence or fleshly lusts do rise against them Christs bodily presence is taken from the Earth he promised instead of it which was but in one place at once to send his Spirit which is to the soul more than the Sun light to the Eye and can shine in all the world at once This is his Agent on Earth by whom in Teachers and Learners he carrieth on his saving work This is his Advocate who pleadeth his cause effectually against unbeleif and fleshly lusts and worldly wisdom This is the well of living water springing up in us to Everlasting life the name the mark of God on Souls the Divine Regenerator the author of Gods Holy Image and the Divine Nature even Divine life and light and love the Conqueror of the World and Flesh the strengthner of the weak the confirmer of the wavering the comforter of the sad and the pledge earnest and first fruits of everlasting life O therefore pray earnestly for the Spirit of Grace and carefully obey him and joyfully praise God in the sence of his holy encouragement and help CHAP. IX Additional Counsel to Youngmen who are bred up to Learning and Publick work especially to the Sacred Ministry in the Vniversities and Schools § 1 IT was the case of the London Apprentices who are nearest me and I have oft to do with which first provoked me to this work and therefore which was chief in my intention But had I as near opportunity to be a Counsellor to others There are three sorts whom I should have preferred for the sake of the Church and Kingdom to which they are of greater signification I. Those in the Schools and Universities who are bred up for the Sacred Ministry II. Those there and in the Inns of Court that are bred up to the knowledge of the Law III. The Sons of Noblemen Knights and others that are bred up for some places of Government in the Kingdom according to their several ranks And of these it is the first that I shall most freely speak to § 2. And first I shall
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
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
it But they think they owe more belief and reverence to a Learned Reverend Preacher in the Pulpit even when he preacheth against preaching and against those that practise what he teacheth them at other times O how much of his work hath Satan done in the World by corrupting Sacred Offices and by getting HIS SERVANTS INTO RVLE and MINISTRY TO DO HIS WORK AS FOR CHRIST and his Church and by his authority and in his name Our natural enmity with the Serpent disswadeth him from speaking or sending to us in his own name Should one say in the Pulpit Thus saith the Devil hate Christs servants silence his Ministers call serious Godliness Hypocrisie which is the contrary to Hypocrisie I should not much fear his success with any but if he be a lying Spirit in the mouth of Ahabs Prophets and can get a Prophet to smite Michaiah for pretending to more of the Spirit than he had or if he can get men in the Sacred Office to say Thus saith the Lord when they speak for sin or against the Lord this is the Devils prosperous way § 13. II. I have told you what Plagues bad Clergy men will be and still have been to themselves to the souls of men and to the publick State of Churches and Kingdoms and were it not lest my Writing should be too large I should tell you what Blessings on the contrary Able and Faithful Ministers are Briefly 1. Christ maketh them the cheif instruments for the propagating of his Truth and Kingdom in the World for the gathering of Churches and preserving and defending contradicted Truth They are the Lights of the World and the Salt of the Earth All Christians are bound to teach or help each others in charity but Christs Ministers are set in his Church as Parents in Families to do it by Office And therefore must be qualified above others for it and be wholly dedicated to it and attend continually on it as a Physitian differeth from every Neighbour who may help you in your sores or sickness as they can so do the Pastors of the Church differ from private helpers of your Souls The Scripture is preserved and delivered down by the private means of all the Faithful but eminently by the publick Office of the Pastors It may be expounded and applyed privately by any able Christian but the Pastors do it eminently by Office and to them especially though to all Christians commonly are committed the Oracles of God The Priests lips must preserve knowledge and men should enquire of the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 Never yet was the Gospel well propagated nor continued in any Country in the World but by the means of the Ministers of Christ And O! what difference hath there been in their successes as they differed in ability piety and diligence And how great an honour is it to be such blessed instruments of building up the house of God and propagating the Gospel and the Kingdom of Christ and the Christian Faith and Godliness in the World 2. And thus God useth them as his special instruments for the Convincing Converting Edifying Comforting and Saving of Souls Others may be blest herein But the special blessing goeth along with those that are specially obliged to the work which is Parents in Families and Pastors in the Church O how many thousand Souls in Heaven will for ever rejoyce in the effects of the Labours of Faithful Ministers and bless God for them And what an honour what a comfort is it to have a hand in such a work He that Converteth a sinner from the Errour of his way doth save a Soul from death and cover a multitude of sins Jam. last 3. And in this they are Co-workers with Jesus Christ the great Saviour of Souls and with the Holy Spirit the Regenerator and Sanctifier Yea Christ doth very much of the work of his Salvation by them when he ascended on high he gave gifts to men for the edifying of his body till they come to a perfect man Eph. 4.6 to 16. and when the Chief Shephard shall appear they shall receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 5.4 and shall hear well done good and faithful Servant Hence are the Streams of Consolation that make glad the City of God and daily refresh many thousand precious Souls For how shall men believe without a Preacher and how shall they Preach unless they be sent qualified obliged and authorized by Christ Rom. 10. 4. In a word Churches States and Christian Kingdoms are chiefly blest and preserved by the Labour of the faithful part of the Ministry For 1 If we have the rare blessing of a wise and holy and loving Magistracy it is usually by the success of the labours of the Ministry 2 And there is no better means to bring the Subjects to the Conscionable performance of their Duty to Superiours 3 And by the blessing of their Labour the sins of a Nation are prevented or healed which would else bring down Gods heavy Judgments 4 They teach people to live in Love and Peace with one another and to abhor Contention Cruelty Oppression Injury and Revenge and all to do their several duties to promote the common Good 5 When the ignorant and slothful and scandalous sort of bad Ministers betray Souls and would bring the Ministry and Religion into contempt it is a wise and holy Ministry that counter-worketh them by labouring while others are idle and doing that wisely which others do foolishly and shewing in their lives the power of that truth which others disgrace and the reality of that Holiness Love Justice Peace and Concord which others would banish out of the World by making it seem but a name or Image 6 VVhen proud men tear the Church by the Engines of their domineering VVits and VVills these humble Pastors as the servants of all will labour to heal it by Christian meekness and condescension VVhen malignant Priests seek to strengthen themselves by the multitude of the ungodly and to bring serious piety into contempt which doth molest them these faithful Pastors open the just disgrace of sin and the great necessity and honour of holiness endeavouring that vile persons may be contemned and those may be honoured that fear the Lord Psal. 15.4 and distinguishing the precious from the vile the righteous from the wicked and him that sweareth from him that feareth an Oath and him that serveth God from him that serveth him not God saith They are as his mouth Jer. 15.19 Mal. 3.17 18. Eccl. 9.2 To be short as An Ignorant Worldly Carnal Proud Vnholy sort of Prelates and Priests are and have been the great Plague of the Churches these 1300 years at least so the Skilful Holy Humble Faithful Laborious Patient Ministers of Christ have been and still are the great blessings of the World for saving Souls promoting Knowledge Faith Holiness Love and Peace opposing Errour Pride Oppression VVorldliness Sensuality
or of strong drinks or wine that also exhilarates or of some needless or hurtful pastime called Recreation Cards Dice Gaming c. or to think of Women and filthy Lusts or to read Romances Play-Books or other corrupting vanities More idle Scholars far are strongly haunted with Temptations to self-pollution and other filthy lusts than the poor and afflicted sort of men And if these should prevail alas you are undone they will offend God expell his Grace either wound or seare your Consciences destroy all spiritual affections and delights turn down your hearts from Heaven and Holiness to filth and folly and Beasts will be unfit for the pleasures or the work of Saints § 22. Away therefore from idleness pamper not the Flesh with fulness or delights abhorre all time wasting needless Recreations away from the baits of fleshly lust be no more indifferent herein and unresolved than you would be about drinking poyson or leaping into a Coal-pit or willfully going among Murderers or Theives Presume not on your own strength he is safest that is furthest from the danger Gunpowder must not stand near the fire § 23. IV. Be sure to make a prudent choice of your Companions especially of your bosom Friends It is supposed that a man loveth the Company which he chooseth though not which he constrainedly is cast upon And love and familiarity will give them great advantage over you If they be wise they will teach you wisdom if they be Holy Spiritual they will be drawing you towards God and setling you in the resolved hatred of sin and love of Holiness But if they be Worldly and Ambitious they will be filling your heads with ambitious worldly projects and if they be ungodly Hypocrites that have but the dead image and name of Christians they will be opposing or deriding serious Godliness and pleading for the carkass and formalities of piety as better than serious spiritual devotion and if they be hardned malignants they will be trying to make you such as they by lies revilings or plausible cavils against the things and persons that are spiritually contrary to their fleshly minds and interests And while you hear not what can be said on the other side it will possess your minds if God preserve you not with false thoughts of Gods Servants and with scorn or contempt of such as you hear described falsly as Papists think of Protestants as Hereticks you will take serious Godliness for Fanatical self-conceit and think of the best Christians as you do of Quakers or others that are mad with fear or pride Wise and Religious Companions and bosom Friends are an unspeakable blessing but the merciful Providence of God doth usually choose them for us yet so as that usually we must also be faithful choosers for our selves Ill company is a dangerous snare and God often tryeth us by casting us where such are but if we choose it not and love it not God will provide us of an antidote and we may converse with him even in the presence of the ungodly and he will teach us by the experience of their folly and sin to dislike it more than if we had never seen it § 24. V. Especially be most careful in the choice of your Tutors and Instructors Though it be first your Parents part to choose them for you it is yours to do your best herein to save your selves if your Parents by ignorance or malignity do mischoose And the Rulers that allow not men to choose their own Pastors yet hitherto allow the Parents or the Sons to choose their own Tutors and Domestick Instructors But this is the grand danger and misery of mankind that the ignorant know not what Teachers to choose Yea the more they need the help of the best the less they know who those are but I 'le tell you are far as you are capable of discerning 1. Usually the common report of men that are sober and impartial commendeth worthy men above others for Knowledge and Goodness is like Light a self discovering thing 2. Choose not a Teacher that preferreth humane Wisdom before Divine but one that maketh it his business to expound the Scripture and teach you what is the Will of God and how to please him and to be saved 3. Choose not one that is of a worldly and ambitions mind and will teach you that which most conduceth to get preferment and worldly wealth and not that which best helpeth you to Heaven 4 Choose not one that is Factious and uncharitable violent for a Party either because it is uppermost or because it standeth for some odd opinion or causeless singularity but one that is of a Christian Catholick charity and loveth a godly man as such even as himself and is for wronging none but doing good to all and maintaining Unity and Peace § 25. VI Watch with great fear against Pride Ambition and Worldly ends in your own hearts and lives The roots of these mortal sins are born in us and lie very deep And they not only live but damnably reign where they are little discerned bewailed or suspected but woe to him that is conquered by them Ye cannot serve God and Mammon The love of the World is enmity to God if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Paul spake weeping of such whose God was their Belly who gloried in their shame who minded earthly things being Enemies to the cross of Christ when their Conversation should have been in Heaven Phil. 3.18 19 20. A surprize in passion even of an ugly sin is less dangerous than such an habit of worldliness and pride And alas how many that have escaped the Temptations of sloth and sensuality have been flattered and overcome by this Those that have had better wits than others and got more Learning have thought now that preferment is their due And if they fall into times which have not been rare when the malignity of Church or State Governours it hath made it the way to preferment to declaim against some Truth or the most Religious men that are against a carnal sinful interest and to revile Gods best Servants and cry up some notion or errour of their own and magnifie the worst that promote their worldly ends and hopes alas how doth this stream usually carry down the pregnantest wits into the Gulf of perdition Yea some that seemed very humble and mortified when they had no great Temptation when wealth and honour have been set before them have lost vertue and wit before they were well aware And worldly interest hath secretly bribed and byassed their understandings to take the greatest Truth for Errour Duty for Sin and Errour for Truth and Sin for Duty and they have talkt and preacht and wrote for it and seem to believe that indeed they are in the right and cannot discern that they are perverted by interest when an impartial stander by may easily see the byass by the current of their course And if you
those that would draw you into uncharitable Factions on pretense of right Religion to hate or censure or fly from all that are not just of their Sect and way especially the proud faction of Church-Tyrants that on pretence of Order and Piety would set up a lifeless Image of Formality and burn banish silence or persecute all that are not for Domination and Usurpation and Worldly interest IV. Let not rising and riches be the chief end of your Studies but to serve God in the just service of your King and Country to promote justice and do good in the World V. Live in the familiarity of the most useful men of your Profession that is the wise and the most conscionable and choose those Pastors for your best helpers in Religion who keep closest to Gods word and warp not after any dangerous singularities or worldly preferments or unpeaceable tearing impositions on their Brethren and that live as they Preach in Love Peace and Holiness as men that set their Hearts and Hopes on future Blessedness and labour for the Churches Edification and Concord and the saving mens Souls CHAP. XII Counsel to the Sons of the Nobility and Magistrates THough men of your rank are furthest out of the hearing of such as I and usually the greatest contemners of our Counsel yet will not that excuse us from due compassion to the Land our of Nativity nor from Love and Pity to your selves nor from any probable Ministerial attempt to do you good Your dangers are much greater than other mens or else Christ had never so often told us how hard it is for Rich men to be saved and how few such escape the Idolatrous damning Love of the World and become sincere believers and followers of a Crucified Saviour Luke 12. and 16. c. I. One part of your great danger is that you are commonly bred up among the baits of sensuality It is not for nothing that fulness of bread is made one of the sins of Sodom Ezek. 16.49 and that he that after lay in the flames of Hell is described as richly cloathed and faring sumptuously every day Not that all rich Cloathes or sumptuous seasonable Feasting is a sin but that these use both to signifie sensuality and to cherish it It s the sure brand of the ungodly to be Lovers of Pleasure more than of God They that but seldom come where tempting plenty is of delicious meats and drinks are too often overcome But they that are bred up where plenty of both these is daily before them are in greater danger lest their Table and their Drink become a snare Feast not therefore without fear remember that flesh-pleasing sensuality is as damnable in the rich as in the poor and that the greatest wealth will not allow you to take any more for quantity or quality than standeth with Temperance and truly tendeth to fit you for your duty your riches are given you in trust as God's Stewards to serve your Countrey and relieve the poor and to promote good uses but not to serve your fleshly lusts nor to be abused to excess or cherish sin To be sober and temperate is the interest of your own Souls and Bodies and under your great Temptations the more laudable II. Another of your dangers is the ill examples of too many persons of your rank You are apt to think that their wealth and Pomp and Power makes them more imitable than others as being more Honourable And if they wallow in drunkenness or filthy lust or talk prophanely you may think that such sins are the less disgraceful But can you dream that they are the less Dangerous and Damnable Will God fear them or spare them Must they not die and be judged as well as the lowest Is it not an aggravation of their sin that it s done by men that had the greatest Mercies and were put in trust and honour purposely to suppress sin in the World As their places signifie more than others so do their sins and accordingly shall they be punished Doth the quondam Wealth Honour or Pleasures of a Dives a Pharaoh an Ahab a Herod a Pilate a Nero ease a lost tormented Soul III. Another of your Temptations will be Pride and overvaluing of your selves because of wealth and worldly honour But this is so foolish a sin and against such notorious humbling evidence that as it is the Devils Image it is natures shame Is not your flesh as corruptible as a Beggars Do you not think what is within that skin And how a Leprosie or the Small Pox would make you look and how you must shortly leave all your glory and your bodies become unpleasant spectacles Do you not think what it is to lye rotting in a Grave and turn to Earth And do you not know how much more loathsome a thing all the Vice and Unholiness of your Souls is And what it is to have to do with a Holy God and to be near to judgment and an endless State He is mad in sin that such considerations will not humble IV. Another of your dangers is from flatterers that will be pleasing and praising you but never tell you of that which should humble you and awake you to the sence of your Everlasting concerns But none here are so dangerous as a Flattering Clergy who being themselvs carnal worldlings would serve that flesh which is their Master by your Favour and Beneficence Ahab had such Prophets that said go and prosper in whose mouths the Devil was a lying Spirit How many sincere men have been undone by such Remember then what it is to be a sinful man and what need you have of vigilant Friends and Pastors that will deal faithfully with you as if it were on your death Bed And encourage such and abhorre worldly flatterers Your Souls have need of as strong Physick and as plain dealing as the poorest mens and therefore bear it and thankfully accept it V. And one of your greatest dangers here will be that your own fleshly minds and this worldly sort of men especially if of the Clergy will be drawing you to false contemptuous thoughts of serious Godliness and of serious godly men When as if you be not such your selves you are undone for ever and all your flatterers your big Names Wealth and Honour will neither save you nor ease your pains in Hell As ever you believe there is a God believe that you owe him the utmost reverence obedience and love that your faculties can perform And as ever you care what becomes of you for ever pay him this great due and hate all that would divert you and much more all those diabolical suggestions which would draw you to think that a needless thing which must be your life and all VI. But above all I beseech you fear and watch lest you be drawn to espouse any thing as your interest which is against the interest and command of Christ and against his Kingdom or the good of his Church or