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
not help your selves Doubtless one reason why God hath put so strong a love in Parents to their Children and made your Birth and Breeding so costly to your Mothers and made the Milk which is formed in her own Body to be the first nourishment of your lives is to oblige you to answerable Love and Obedience And if after all this you prove worse than Bruits and become the grief of their Souls that thus bred and loved and nourished you do you think God will not at last make this far sadder to you than ever it was to them If cruelty to an enemy much more to a stranger to a neighbour to a friend be so hateful to the God of Love that it goeth not unrevenged O what will unnatural cruelty to Parents bring upon you Yea even in this Life as honouring Father and Mother hath a special promise of prosperity and long life so dishonouring and grieving Parents is usually punished with some notable calamity as a forerunner of the great revenge hereafter And you cannot but perceive that such as live in Sensuality and Lust and Wickedness are the great troublers of Church and State God himself hath said it There is no peace to the wicked Isa. 48.52 and 57 21. For the wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt There is no peace saith my God to the wicked v. 22. Isa. 59.8 The way of peace they know not there is no judgment in their goings They have made them crooked paths whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace They give no peace to others and God will deny peace to themselves Yea the nature of their own sin denieth it them as broken Bones and griping sickness deny ease to the Body And can you think you shall become the shame of the Church and the troublers of the Land and that God will not trouble you for it If you will be enemies of God and your Country you will prove the sorest Enemies to your selves And who is the gainer by all this No one in the World unless you will call it the Devil's gain to have his malicious cruel Will fulfilled And sure the pleasing the Devil and a fleshly Lust Fancy or Appetite can never compensate all your losses nor comfort you under the sufferings which you wilfully bring upon your selves Young Men the reason I thus deal with you by way of question is that I may if possible engage your own thoughts in answering them For I find most are aptest to learn of themselves And indeed without your selves and your own serious thoughts we cannot help you to true understanding He that readeth the wisest Lecture to Boys or Men that take no heed to what is said yea or that will not make it their own study to understand and remember doth but cast away his labour It 's hard saving any man from himself but there is no saving any man without himself and his own consent and labour If you will but now take these twenty questions in secret into your serious thoughts and consider of them till you can give them such an answer as reason should allow and as you will stand to before God when the mouth of all iniquity shall be stopt I should not doubt but you will reap the benefit O what should a man do that pittieth blind and wilful sinners to make them willing of their own recovery Here all stops And must it stop at this Are you not willing And will you not so much as consider of the reasons that should make you willing when Heaven or Hell must be the consequence O what a thing is a blind mind and a dead and hardened heart What a befooling thing is fleshly Lust O what need had mankind of a Saviour And what need have all of a Sanctifier and of his holy word and of all the holy means of Grace Poor sinners O let not your Teachers and your Parents Counsel and Tears be brought in as witnesses against you to your condemnation O add not this to all their griefs that their Counsel and their Sorrows must sink you deeper into Hell Alas it were sadness enough to them to see that it is all in vain Let not this Counsel of mine to you be rejected to the increase of your guilt and misery If it do you no good it will leave you worse Were I present with you I should not think it too much would that prevail to kneel to you to beg that you would but well consider your own case and ways and think before of what will follow And that you will study a wise and satisfactory answer to the questions put to you till you are resolved Your case is not desperate Mercy is yet offered you The day of Grace is not yet past God is not unwilling to receive you Christ is not unwilling to be your Saviour if you consent No difficulty in the world maketh us afraid of your damnation but your own foolish choice and wicked Wills Our care is not to make God merciful nor to make Christs merits and sacrifice sufficient nor to get God to promise you pardon if you repent and come to him by Christ All this is done already but that which is undone is to make you considerate and truly willing and to live as those that indeed are willing to let go the poisonous pleasures of sin and to take God and Heaven for your hope and port on and to be saved and ruled by Christ and sanctified by his Spirit and to receive his daily help and mercies to this end in the use of his appointed means and without this you are undone for ever And is there any hurt in all this If there were is it worse than the filth of sin and the Plagues that follow here and for ever Worthy is he to bear at last Depart from me thou worker of iniquity and to be thrust away from the hopes of Heaven that after all that can be said and done chuseth sin as more desirable than this God this Saviour this Sanctifier and this Glory CHAP. VIII General Directions to the willing THough the blindness and obstinacy of fleshly Sinners too oft frustrate great endeavours yet we may well hope that the Prayers and tears of Parents and the calls of God may prevail with many and I may hope that some that have read what is before written will say We are willing to hear and learn that we may be saved tell us what it is that we must do And on that hope I shall give such miscarrying Youth some General Advice and some Counsel about their particular cases and all as briefly as I may O that the Lord would make you that read this truly willing to practise these ten Directions following How happy yet may you be I. Set your Vnderstandings seriously and diligently to the work which they are made for and consider well what is your Interest and your Duty till you come to a
Compassionate COUNSEL TO ALL Young-Men Especially I. LONDON-Apprentices II. Students of Divinity Physick and Law III. The Sons of Magistrates and Rich Men. By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed by T. S. and are to be Sold by B. Simmons and Ionath Greenwood at the Three Golden Cocks at the West End of St. Pauls and at the Crown in the Poultry 1681. The CONTENTS Chap. 1. Prefatory Ch. 2. Of what grand Importance the Case of Youth is to themselves that betimes they live to God Ch. 3. Of what publick Concernment the quality of Youth is Ch. 4. How the Case standeth with our Youth in matter of Fact Ch. 5. How sad the Case of many of them is Ch. 6. The joyful State and Blessing of good Children to themselves and others Ch. 7. Vndeniable Reasons for the speedy Repentance of those that have miscarried By way of Exhortation Ch. 8. Directions to them that are willing to amend Ch. 9. Special Counsel to the Candidates for the Ministry Ch. 10. Short Counsel to young Students in Physick Ch. 11. Short Counsel to young Men in the Inns of Court that study the Law Ch. 12. Short Counsel to the Sons of Nobles and Magistrates Ch. 13. Some Memorials to Parents Ch. 14. A short Word to Church Ministers for Youth To the YOUTH of London and the rest of England Richard Baxter's Last and Compassionate Warning and Advice CHAP. I. THere is no man that ever understood the Interest of Mankind of Families Cities Kingdoms Churches and of Jesus Christ the King and Saviour but he must needs know that the right Instruction Education and Sanctification of Youth is of unspeakable consequence to them all In the place where God most blest my labours at Kidderminster in Worcester-shire my first and greatest success was upon the Youth And which was a marvellous way of Divine Mercy when God had toucht the hearts of young Men and Girles with a love of goodness and delightful obedience to the truth the Parents and Grandfathers who had grown old in an ignorant worldly State did many of them fall into liking and love of Piety induced by the love of their Children whom they perceived to be made by it much wiser and better and more dutiful to them And God by his unexpected disposing Providence having now twenty years placed me in and near London where in variety of places and conditions sometimes under restraint by men and sometimes at more liberty I have Preached but as to Strangers in other mens Pulpits as I could and not to any special flock of mine I have been less Capable of judging of my success But by much experience have been made more sensible of the Necessity of warning and instructing youth than I was before The sad reports of fame have taught it me The sad Complaints of mournful Parents have taught it me The sad observation of the wilful impenitence of some of my acquaintances tells it me The many score if not hundred bills that have been publickly put up to me to pray for wicked and obstinate Children have told it me And by the grace of God the penitent Confessions Lamentations and restitutions of many Converts have more particularly acquainted me with their Case Which moved me on my Thursdays Lecture a while to design the first of every month to speak to youth and those that educate them And though I have already loaded the world with books finding that God seems to be about ending my life and labours I am urged in my mind by the greatness of the case to add yet this Epistle to the younger sort Which shall contain I. The great importance of the Case of youth II. How it stands with them in matter of fact III. What are the Causes of their sin and dangerous degeneracy IV. How great a blessing wise and godly youth are to themselves and others V. How great a plague and calamity the ungodly are VI. What great reason ungodly sensual youth have presently to Repent and Turn to God VII Directions to them how to do it VIII And some Directions to Parents about their Education And all must be with the Brevity of an Epistle CHAP. II. To begin betimes to live to God is of unspeakable importance to your selves FOR 1. You were betimes solemnly Dedicated to God as your God your Father your Saviour and your Sanctifier by your Baptismal Vow And as that was a great Mercy it obliged you to great Duty You were capable in Infancy of that holy Dedication and Relation and your Parents were presently obliged as to Dedicate you to God so to Educate you for God And as soon as you are capable of performance the Vow is upon your selves to do it If your Childhood is not presently obliged to Holiness according to your natural capacity no doubt your Vow and Baptism should have been also delayed Little think many that talk against Anabaptists how they condemn themselves by the Sacred Name of Christians while they by perfidious Sacriledge deny God that which they Vowed to him 2. All your time and life is given you by God for one End and Use and all is little enough and will you alienate the very beginning and be Rebels so soon 3. The youngest have not assurance of Life for a day or an hour Thousands go out of the World in youth Alas the Flesh of young men is corruptible liable to hundreds of Diseases as well as the old How quickly may a vein break and cold seize on your head and lungs and turn to an uncurable Consumption How quickly may a Fever a Pleurisie an Impostume or one of a thousand Accidents turn your Bodies to corruption And O that I knew how to make you sensible how dreadful a thing it is to die in an unholy state and in the guilt of any unpardoned sin An unsanctified Soul that hath lived here but to the flesh and the world will be but fewel for the fire of Hell and the wrathful Justice of the most holy God And though in the course of undisturb'd Nature young men may live longer than the old yet Nature hath so many disturbances and crosses that our lives are still like a Candle in a broken Lanthorn which a blast of wind may soon blow out To tell you that you are not certain in an unsanctified state to be one day or hour more out of Hell I expect will not move you so much as the weight of the Case deserveth because meer possibility of the greatest hurt doth not affect men when they think there is no probability of it You have long been well and long you hope to be so But did you think how many hundred Veins Arteries Nerves must be kept constantly in order and all the blood and humours in due temper and how the stopping of one vein or distemper of the blood may quickly end you it would rather teach you to admire the merciful providence of God that such a body should be kept alive one year 4. But were
you sure to live to maturity of Age alas how quickly will it come What haste makes Time How fast do Daies and Years roll on Methinks it is but as a few daies since I was playing with my School-fellows who now am in the 66th year of my Age Had I no service done for God that I could now look back upon I should seem as if I had not lived A thousand years and one hour are all one that is nothing when they are past And every year day and hour of your lives hath its proper work And how will you answer for it Every day offereth you more and more mercies and will you despise and lose them If you were Heirs to Land or had an Annuity which amounted but to an hundred pounds a year and you were every day to receive a proportionable part of it or lose it would you lose it through neglect and say I will begin to receive it when I am old Poor Labourers will work hard all the day that at night they may have their wages And will you contemptuously lose your every daies mercies your safety your communion with God your daily blessings and his grace which you should daily beg and may daily receive 5. Either you will Repent and live to God or not if not you are undone for ever Oh how much less miserable is a Dog or a Toad than such a sinner But if God will shew you so great mercy oh how will it grieve you to think of the precious time of Youth which you madly cast away in sin Then you will think O what Knowledge what Holiness might I then have got What a comfortable life might I have lived O what daies and years of mercy did I cast away for nothing Yea when God hath given you the pardon of your sin the tast of his love and the hopes of Heaven it will wound your hearts to think that you should so long so unthankfully so heinously offend so good a God and neglect so merciful a Saviour and trample upon Infinite Divine Love for the love of so base a freshly pleasure That ever you should be so bad as to find more pleasure in sinning than in living unto God 6. And be it known to you if God in mercy convert and save you yet the bitter fruit of your youthful folly may follow you in this World to the grave God may forgive the pains of Hell to a penitent sinner and not forgive the temporal chastisement to his flesh If you waste your Estate in Youth you may be poor at Age If you marry a wicked Wife you may feel it till death notwithstanding your Repentance If by drinking gluttony idleness or filthy lust you contract any uncurable Diseases in Youth Repentance may not cure them till death All this might easily have been prevented if you had but had fore-seeing Wisdom Beggary Prisons Shame Consumptions Dropsies Stone Gout Pox which make the lives of many miserable are usually caused by youthful sins 7. And if ever you think to be men of any great wisdom and usefulness in the World to your selves or others your preparations must be made in Youth Great Wisdom is not got in a little time Who ever was an able Lawyer Physician or Philosopher without long and hard Study If you will not learn in the Grammar-Schools in your Childhood you will be unfit for the University at riper Age and if when you should be Doctors you are to learn to Spell and Read your shame will tell you that you should have sooner begun O that you well knew how much of the safety fruitfulness and comfort of all your after-life dependeth on the preparations of your Youth on the Wisdom and the Grace which you should then obtain As mens after trading doth on their Apprentiship 8. And O what a dreadful danger is it lest your youthful sin become remediless and custom harden you and deceivers blind you and God forsake you for your wilful resistance of his Grace God may convert old hardened sinners But how ordinarily do we find that Age doth but answer the preparations of Youth and the Vessel ever after savoureth of the Liquor which first throughly tainted it And men are but such as they learned to be and do at first If you will be perfidious breakers of your Baptismal Vows it 's just with God to leave you to your selves to a deluded understanding to think evil good and good evil to a seared conscience and a hardened heart and as past feeling to work uncleanness with greediness Ephes. 3.18 and to fight against Grace and your own Salvation till Death and Hell convince you of your madness O sport not with the Justice of a sin-hating God! Play not with sin and with the unquenchable fire Forsaking God is the way to be forsaken of him And what is a forsaken soul but a miserable Slave of Satan 9. Yea did you but know of what moment it is to prevent all the heinous sins that else you will commit you would make haste to Repent though you were sure to be forgiven Forgiveness maketh not sin to be no sin or to be no evil no shame no grief to the soul that hath committed it You will cry out O that I had never known it To look back on such an ill-spent life will be no pleasant thought Repentance though a healing work is bitter yea oft-times exceeding bitter Make not work for it if you love your peace 10. And is it a small thing to you that you are all this while doing hurt to others And drawing them to sin and plunging them into that dangerous guilt which can no way be pardoned but by the blood of Christ upon true Conversion And when they have joyned with you in lust and fleshly pleasure it is not in your power to turn them that they may joyn with you in sound Repentance And if not they must lie in Hell for ever And can you make a sport of your own and other mens damnation But this leadeth me to the Second Point I have shewed you of what vast concernment it is to your selves to begin betimes a holy life I will next shew you of what concernment it is to others CHAP. III. Of what Publick Concernment the Quality of Youth is § 1. THe welfare of the World is of far greater worth than of any single person and he hath put off Humanity who doth not more earnestly desire it If this World consisted but of one Generation then to make that Generation wise and good would be enough to make it a happy World But it is not so In Heaven and in the future glorious Kingdom there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage but they are as the Angels in a fixed everlasting State and one continued Generation maketh up the New Ierusalem Being once holy and happy they are so for ever But here it is not so One Generation cometh and another goeth If the Father be as wise as Solomon
their own Endeavours 16. Those that use not their Children as meer patients only to hear what their Parents say but ingage them to constant Endeavours of their own for their own good especially in the reading of Scripture and the most suitable Books and meditating on them and daily personal Prayer to God 17. Lastly Those that pray most heartily and believingly for Gods Grace and his Blessing on their endeavours Such mens Children are usually blessed § 4. But it is no wonder where such means are neglected much more when Parents are ungodly fleshly worldly persons and perhaps Enemies to a holy life if the Children of such are ignorant deluded ungodly and drown'd in fleshly Lusts. And alas it is the multitude of such and their sad conditions which is the occasion of my writing this Epistle § 5. 1. We see to our grief that many Children are of a stupid and unteachable disposition and almost uncapable of Instruction who yet can as quickly learn to talk of common matters as other persons and can as easily learn a Trade or how to do any ordinary business And though some inconsiderate persons overlook the causality of the more immediate Parents sins in such judgments on their Children as if it were only Adam's Sin that hurt them I have elsewhere proved that this is their great and dangerous mistake As David's Child dyed for the Fathers sin the Children of Gluttons Drunkards Fornicators oft contract such bodily distempers as greatly tend to stupifie or further vitiate the mind And their Souls may have sad additions to the common humane pravity 2. Accordingly many Children have more violent passions and carnal desires than others which run them into wicked ways impetuously as if they were almost bruits that had no reason or power to resist And all words and corrections are to them of little force but they are as blocks that when you have said and done what you can go away as if they had not heard you 3. And some have cross and crooked natures addicted to that which is naught and the more by how much the more you do contradict them Froward and obstinate as if it were a desirable Victory to them to overcome their Parents and escape all that would make them wise and good Dogged sour proud self-willed and utterly disobedient 4. And too many have so great an Enmity and aversness to all that is holy spiritual and heavenly that they are weary to hear you talk of it and you persuade them to learn to read to pray to meditate or consider as you persuade a sick man to the meat which he doth loath or a man to dwell with those that he hateth They have no appetite to such things no pleasure in them when you have said all of God and Christ and Glory they believe it not or they savour it not They are things above their reach and love yea things against their carnal minds You tire them worse than if you talk'd in a strange Language to them such enmity is in the heart of corrupted man to God and Heaven till the Grace of the great Reconciler overcome it by a new Life and Light and Love 5. And when custom is added to all these vicious dispositions alas what slaves and drudges of Satan doth it make them For instance 1. Some are so corrupted with the Love of sport that gaming or Stage-plays or one such foolery or another becometh so pleasant to them that they can understand or believe nothing that is said against it by God or man their diseased Phantasie hath so conquered reason that they cannot restrain themselves but in their callings and in religious Exercises they are weary and long to be at their sports and must be gone neither God nor Holiness nor the Joys of Heaven are half so sweet to their thoughts as these are For they have that mark of misery 2 Tim. 3 4. They are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God The same I say of sinful mirth and the company which doth cherish it Little do they believe Solomon Eccles. 7.2 3 4. It is better to go to the House of Mourning than to go to the House of Feasting For that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart Sorrow is better than Laughter For by the sadness of the Countenance the Heart is made better The Heart of the wise is in the House of Mourning but the Heart of fools is in the House of Mirth It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the Song of fools For as the crackling of Thorns under a Pot so is the Laughter of Fools It 's true that Mirth is very desirable to nature And God is not against it but much more for it than sinners will believe But it is a rational Mirth which beseemeth a rational Creature and such as he can justifie and as will make him better and tends to felicity and everlasting mirth and not the causeless mirth of mad men that set their house on fire and then laugh and sing over it nor like the mirth of a drunken man whose shame exposeth him to pitty or derision nor any such mirth as leadeth a man from God to sin and keepeth him from the way of man-like and everlasting joy and prepareth for the greatest sorrows 2. There are some so enslaved to their Appetites that their Reason hath no power to rule them but like bruits they must needs have what the Belly and Throat desire And if they be the Children of the Rich who have always full and pleasant food constant flesh-pleasing and true Gluttony is taken for no sin and like Swine they do but live to eat whereas they should but eat to live and chearfully serve God But it 's never so dangerous as when it turneth to the love of drink Then the pleasing of the Throat the pleasing of the Brain by mirth going together do so much corrupt the appetite and fantasie that their thoughts run after it and reason hath no power to shut their Mouths nor keep them from the House of Sin Some sin against an accusing Conscience and under their convictions and Terrors do drink on which yet they could forbear if they knew there were Poison in the Cup. Some are more miserable and have sinned themselves into fearedness of Conscience and past feeling and perhaps into infidelity and a blinded mind persuading them that there is no great harm or danger in the Sin and that it is but some precise people that make so great a matter of it And some that have purposes to forsake the sin when appetite stirs forget it all and when Company enticeth and when they see the Cup they have no power to forbear O what a pittiful sight it is to see men in the flower of Youth and Strength when they should most rejoyce in God and Holiness to be still thirsty after a forbidden pleasure and hasting to the Tavern
Travellers that have seen much of the world and old men and dying men that have had all that it can do are forced by experience to call all Vanity and Vexation unexperienced Youth that are taken up with the hopes of long prosperity and provision for all that the Flesh desireth have other thoughts of it and will not know that it is deceitful Vanity till it hath deceived them of their chiefest Hope and Treasure And when they have overtaken the Shadow which they pursue so greedily they find it what others have done before them the sweeter the more dangerous and the parting will be the more bitter Whereas had they sought first Gods Kingdom and its Righteousness and six days laboured in obedience to God and referred all corporal Blessings to spiritual uses and everlasting ends taking them as from God to serve him by them they might have had enough as an overplus to their satisfying Treasure CHAP. V. How sad a Case it is that I have described I Have told you the very lamentable case of too many young men especially rich mens Sons and Apprentices in this City I told you before of what concern the state of Youth is to themselves and others From thence and alas from sad experience it 's easy to gather the dolefulness of the case of those that are drowned in fleshly Lust and have sinned themselves into the guilt and danger which I have described But I will name some parts of the misery more particularly again § 1. Review the second Chapter and think what a doleful case this is to your selves 1. Do you not know that you are not Beasts but Men that have reason given them to know and love and serve their Maker And how sad is it to see a man forget all this and wilfully brutify himself Were the Poets fictions true of men turned into Trees and Birds and Beasts how small were the misery in comparison of yours It is no sin in Bruits to lust or to eat and drink too much They have not reason to restrain and rule them but lest they should kill themselves by excess God hath made reasonable man their Governor and moderateth their Appetite in the temper of their natures But for a reasonable Creature to subject himself to fleshly Appetite and wilfully degrade his Soul to the rank of Bruits is worse than if he had been made with the Body and the unreasonableness of Bruits Are you capable of no better things than these § 2. And what an odious thing is it when God hath chosen you out of the World to be members of his visible Church and given you the great priviledge of early Entrance into his holy Covenant and washt you in the laver of visible Regeneration and you are vowed to Christ renouncing the Lusts of the Flesh the World and the Devil that you might follow a Crucified Christ in the way of holiness to everlasting Life that you should so soon prove false perfidious Traitors and Rebels against him that is your only hope and by wickedness and Covenant breaking make your sin greater than that of Infidels Turks and Heathens that never were taken into the Church and Covenant of Christ nor ever broke the Vows which you have broken nor so cast away the mercys which you had received § 3. And what a doleful case is it that so much of your Minds and Love and Delight which were all made for God should be so misimployed even in your strength when they should be most vigorous and all worse than cast away on filth and folly If your Souls be more worth than your Money it is more folly and loss to misimploy and abuse your Souls your Reason Love and your Delight than to abuse or cast away your Money And what a Traitor or Murderer deserveth that would give his Money to hire one to kill the King or his Neighbour I suppose you know and what deserveth he that will use not only his mony but himself his soul his thoughts his love his desire and pleasure against the most glorious God that made him That you cannot hurt him is no thanks to you while you break his Laws and deny him your Love and Duty and love more that one thing which only he hateth and will never be reconciled to § 4. And how doleful a case is it that all the Care and Love and Labour of your Parents Masters and Teachers should be lost upon you God hath made all this their great Duty for your good and will you despise God and them and wilfully for nothing reject it all Shall all the pain of a Child-bearing Mother and all her trouble and labour to breed you up and all your Parents care to provide for you be but to breed up a slave for the Flesh the World and the Devil and a firebrand for Hell Shall godly Parents Prayers for you and Teaching and Counsel of you and all their desire and care for your Salvation be despised by you and all forgotten and cast away for a swinish Lust § 5. And how doleful a case is it that so much of so short a Life should be lost and a thousand times worse than lost even turned into sin to prepare for misery when alas the longest Life is little enough for our important work and quickly gone and the Reckoning and Judge are hard at hand All the Wealth Wit or Power in the World cannot bring or buy you back one hour of all that precious time which you now so basely cast away O how glad would you be of a little of it ere long on the tearms that now you have it when you lie dying and perceive that your souls are unready to appear before a righteous God! Then O for one year more of precious time O that you knew how to call again the time which you cast away on sin You will then perceive with a terrified Conscience that time was not so little worth as you once thought it nor given you for so base a work yea if God in mercy bring you hereafter to true Conversion O how it will wound your hearts to think how much of your Youth was so madly cast away while your God your Souls and everlasting hopes were all neglected and despised § 6. And alas if you should be cut off in that unholy miserable Estate no heart on earth can sufficiently bewail your case How many thousand die young that promised themselves longer pleasure in sin and Repentance after it O foolish sinners Cannot you so long borrow the use of your reason as to think seriously whither you must go next Do you never think when the small Pox or a Feaver hath taken away one of your Companions whither it is that his Soul is gone Have you your Wit for nothing but to taste the sweetness of Drink or Lust which is as pleasant to a Dog or Swine as to you O little you know what it is to die what it is for a Soul to leave
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
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
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
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
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
mention the Importance of their case and secondly the Danger that they are in of miscarrying and what they should do to escape it § 3. I. And indeed their condition as they prove good or bad is of unspeakable importance 1. To the Church and the Souls of men 2. To the Peace of the Kingdom 3. To themselves And 4. To their Parents above the common case of others § 4. 1. Of how great importance the Quality of the Clergy is to the Church and mens Salvation many thousands have found to their Joy and Happiness and I fear many more thousands to their sorrow and destruction And then of what importance the Quality of Scholars and Young Candidates is to the soundness of the Clergy I need not many words to make men of reason and experience know § 5. 2. God who hath instituted the sacred office and by his Spirit qualifieth men for the work doth usually work according to the fitness of their work and qualifications As he doth the works of Nature according to the fitness of Natural second causes giving more light by the Sun than by a Star or Candle c. so he doth the works of Morality according to the fitness of Moral Causes Holiness is the true Morality and usually wrought by holy means And though it be so supernatural in several respects as it is wrought by the supernatural revelation or doctrine or a supernatural Teacher Christ by the operation of the holy Ghost a supernatural Agent commonly called infusion and raising the soul to God a supernatural object and to a better state than that of corrupted nature yet we are natural recipients and agents and it is our natural faculties which Grace reneweth and being renewed exercise the acts of holiness and God worketh on us according to our nature and by causes suited to our capacities and to the work As he useth not to give men the knowledge of Languages Philosophy or any Art by the Teaching of the ignorant and unskilful so much as by Learned skilful Teachers we must say the same of our Teachers of sacred Truth and though Grace be the gift of the holy Ghost experience constraineth all sorts of Christians almost to acknowledge what I here assert Why else do they so earnestly contend that they may live under the Teachers which they count the best Will Hereticks teach men the Truth as well as the Orthodox why then is there such a stir made against Hereticks in the World and why are the Clergy so eager to silence such as Preach down that which they approve Will Papists choose Protestant Teachers or Protestants choose Papists And as men are unfit to teach others that which they know not themselves so unbelieving men and unholy men are far less fit to perswade the hearers to Faith and Holiness than believing holy Teachers are Though some of them may be furnished with the same notions and words which serious Godly Teachers use yet usually even in that they are greatly wanting because they have not so throughly studied saving Truth nor percieved its evidence nor set their hearts upon it nor deeply recieved and retained it For serious affection quickneth the mind to serious consideration and causeth men speedily and deeply to recieve that truth which others recieve but slowly superficially or not at all How eagerly and prosperously do men study that which they strongly love And how hardly do they learn that which they have no delight in much more which they hate and their very natures are against But if an Hypocrite should have good notions and words yet he will usually be greatly wanting in that serious delivery which is ordinarily needfull to make the Hearers serious Christians It seldom reacheth the heart of the Hearer which cometh not from the heart of the Speaker As light causeth light so heat causeth heat And the dead are unfit to generate Life The arrow will not go far or deep if both the Bow and Arm be not strong that shoot it constant experience telleth us undeniably of the different successe of the reading or saying of a Pulpit-lesson or a dull or a mere affected Speech of the judicious serious Explication application of well chosen matter which the experienced Speaker well understandeth and which he uttereth from the feeling of his Soul And the Love of a Benefice no nor of applause neither will not make a man preach in that manner as the love of God and the lively belief of heaven and hell and as the desire of saving Souls will do The means will be chosen and used and the work done agreeably to the principle and the end But if a Stage-Hypocrite should learn the knack or art of preaching with affected fervency and seeming zeal yet Art and Paint will not reach the power and beauty of Nature Usually affectation bewrayeth it self and when it is discerned the Hypocrisie is loathed And it faileth ordinarily in point of Constancie Will the Hypocrite pray alwaies Iob 27.10 Art will not hold out like Nature when the motives of Gain which is their Godliness ceaseth the pleasure of applause the means will cease Yea usually it turneth to a malignant reviling of the serious piety which they counterfeited before or of the persons whose applause they did affect For where the Hypocrisie of the Preacher is discovered by his contrary self-condemning words or life and the people accordingly judg of him as he is his proud heart cannot bear it but he turneth a malicious reproacher of those whose applause he sought thinking by disgraceing them to defend his own esteem by making their censure of him incredible or contemptible And if the Hypocrite should hold on his Stage affectation with plausible art yet it will not reach to an answerable discharge of the rest of his ministerial work It is from men that he expecteth his reward and in the sight of men on the publick Stage that he appeareth in his borrowed Glory But in his Family or his Conversation or his ministerial Duty to men in private he answereth not his publick shew He will not set himself to instruct and win the ignorant and impenitent and zealously to save men from their sins and to raise mens earthly minds to Heaven by praying with them and by heavenly discourse and by a heavenly Conversation nor will he be at much cost or labour to do good § 6. But alas the far greatest part of bad unexperienced Clergie men do prove so hurtful to the Church that they have not so much as the Hypocrites seeming Zeal and Holyness to cloak their sin or profit their people with The sad case of the Christian World proclaimeth this not only in the Southern and Eastern Churches Abassia Egypt Syria Armenia the Greeks and Moscovites c. nor only the Papists Priests in the West but too great a number in the Reformed Churches And it is more lamentable than wonderful For there goeth so much to the general planting of a worthy faithful Ministry
that it is the great Mercy of God that such are not more rare 1. If they have not Natural Capacity there is not matter for Art and Ordinary Grace to elevate 2. And if this Capacity be not improved by diligent and long study which most will not undergo it is no wonder if it be useless or much worse 3. And if it be not directed by a sound and skilful Teacher but fall into the hands of an erroneous or bad Guide you may conjecture what the Fruits will be 4. And if that good parts and studies be not kept from the mischievous enmity of a Worldly Mind and Fleshly Lusts how easily are they corrupted and turned against their use and end to the great hurt of the Church and of themselves 5. And if those that choose Prelates or Church-Governours should be either of corrupted Judgments wicked Hearts or vicious Lives how probable is it that they will choose such as themselves or at least such as will not much cross their Lusts. 6. And if such worldly and wicked Prelates be the Ordainers Examiners Judges and Institutors of the Inferior Clergie or be their Rulers it 's easie to know what sort of men they will Introduce and Countenance and what sort they will silence and discourage 7. And if Lay-Patrons have the choice of Parish Pastors and most or many of them should be such as Christ tells us the Rich most usually are a worldly and sensual sort of men or such as have no lively sense of Heavenly things we may easily conjecture what men such are likely to present 8. And if the people have any where as anciently the Choice when most of them are bad what men will they choose Or if they have not the choice yet they are so considerable that their Consent or Dissent Love or Hatred will sway much with those that much live among them But I must afterward say more of these Impediments § 7. And as all these Impediments are like to make worthy Pastors to be rare so its certain that their naughtiness of such is like to make them exceeding hurtful which is easily gathered from 1. What they will be 2. What they will do 3. In what manner they will do it In all which the effects may be probably foreseen And 1. It is supposed that they will be worldly minded men that will take Gain for Godliness and will judge that to be the best cause and those the best persons who most befriend their worldly Interest They will love the Fleece more than the safety of the Flock and their Benefices more than the benefit of the people's Souls they will serve their Bellies more than Christ Phil. 3.18 Rom. 16.17 and being Lovers of the world they will be real enemies to God The Love of Money in them will be the root of all Evil. As Achan and Gehezi they will think they have reason for what they do and if tempted will with Iudas betray their Master 2. And their fleshly desires will have little restraints but what one sin doth put upon another or Gods controuling Providence give them Their Reputation may make them avoid that which would be their disgrace But secretly they will serve their Appetites and Fleshly Lusts. For they will not have Gods effectual Grace nor much tenderness of Conscience to restrain them 3. And Pride will be their very Nature Esteem and applause will be taken for their due and seem as necessary to them almost as the Air and as VVater to a Fish Ambition will be their Complexion and will actuate their thoughts And all these Vices will so corrupt their judgments that there will want little more than worldly Interest and temptations to turn them to any Heresie or ill Design And it is much to be feared that their prophanation of Holy things will make them worse and more impenitent than other men Partly by the Righteous Judgment of God forsaking them and partly by the hardning of their own hearts by long abuse of that truth which should have sanctified them For when they have imprisoned it in unrighteousness and long plaid as Hypocrites with that which they preached and professed to believe custom will so harden them that their knowledge will have little power on their Hearts § 2ly And no wonder if the Fruit be like the Tree These Vices will not be idle nor bring forth Holy or Just Effects 1. It 's likely they will make it the chief care of their minds to get that which they most love And that they will study preferment which is the Clergie-mans nearest way to wealth 2. And then they must be Flatterers of those that can preferr them Or at least must not seriously call them to repentance or tell them of their sin 3. In all differences of what Consequence soever they will usually pass their judgment on the side of such as can preferr or hurt them 4. In Religious controversies they will usually be on the side that is for their wordly Interest be it right or wrong 5. They will harden great men in their sins by flattering them 6. They will harden the prophane by pleasing them in their ignorance and ungodliness to get them on their side 7. They will be Enemies to the serious Religious people because they discern the Vice and Hypocrisie which they would conceal and because they honour such as fear the Lord while vile Persons are contemned in their Eyes Psal. 15.4 8. They will turn their preaching against such partly to vent their malignant Spleen and partly to overcome them as their Enemies Hereupon they will describe their serious piety as Faction Self Opinion and Hypocrisie and will raise jealousies against them in the minds of Rulers and increase the Rabbles malignity and rage and will extenuate the sin and danger of the most ungodly sort that take their own part 9. They will shame their Office and Profession by base mutability turning with the Time and Tide as Temptations from their worldly Interest lead them 10. They will by their making light of Godliness and by the scandal or unholyness of their own Conversations make the vulgar believe that Godliness is either a cheat or a matter of meer words and outward observances and to be of the Religion of their Rulers and a thing to keep men in some awe and order in a worldly Life 11. Their ignorance oft makes them unfit for hard Controversies and yet their pride and malignity will make them forward to talk of what they understand not and to take thence an occasion to revile those whom they dislike and speaking evil of what they never knew they will make up their want of knowledge with outward Titles pretended Authority confident Affirmation censorious Reproach and violently oppressing by power the Gainsayers 12. If any mans Conscience be awakned to call him to true Repentance they will either tell him it is needless melancholy trouble and give him an opiate of some flattering false comfort or preach him
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
Confirmation rightly used It s great use to our Reformation 8 vo 56. A Worcestershire Petition for the Ministry defended against Quakers 4 to 57. The Quakers Catechised 4 to 58. One Sheet against the Quakers 8 vo 59. Short Advice to some Parliament Men. 4 to 60. A Letter of pacification to Mr. Dury 4 to 61. Universal Concord imperfect 8 vo 62. The Magistrates and Pastors Offices distinguished against Erastians To Lud. Moulin 4 to 63. The Cure of Church Divisions 8 vo 64. The Defence of it against Edw. Bagshaw 8 vo 65. A 2d Admonition to Mr. Bagshaw 8 vo 66. Plain Scripture proof of Infants Church-Membership and Baptism with a Defence of it against Mr. Tombes 4 to 67. More Reasons for Infants Church-Membership c. against Mr. Tombes and Mr. Danvers 8 vo 68. The Nonconformists Papers 1660 and 1661 with the Bishops in their fruitless Treaty for Concord Some are yet unprinted 4 to 69. The Nonconformists Judgment of the Interest of Reason in Religion 4 to 70. The Nonconformists Plea for Peace naming the things which they dare not Conform to 4 to 71. Their 2d Plea for Peace fully opening their Judgment for the Power of Kings and the Obedience of Subjects of Church-power of Scandal of Morality and Grace c. 4 to 72. A Defence of the first Plea against Mr. Cheny 8 vo 73. A further Defence in Answer to Mr. Hinkly about the causers of the late War Mr. Cheny the impleader the Reflecter c. 8 vo 74. Sacrilegious Desertion of the Ministry rebuked and our Preaching justified 8 vo 75. An Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's Sermon accusing him of Separation 4 to 76. A Reply to Dr. Stillingfleet in a 2d Defence 4 to 77. The true and only Terms of Concord of all the Churches A full Treatise confuting all false Terms especially Mr. Dodwell's 8 vo 78. A full Treatise of Episcopacy shewing what Episcopacy we own and what is in the English Diocesan frame for which we dare not swear never to endeavour any alteration of it in our places 4 to 79. A Moral Prognostication of the future State of the Church 4 to 80. An Apology for the Nonconformists Preaching though forbidden With an Answer to the Accusations of Bishop Morley Bp. Gunning H. Fowlis Dr. Parker the Debate maker Durell Saywell Dodwell Asheton and abundance more such Accusers 4 to 81. A search for the English Schismatick comparing the Canoneers and Nonconformists 4 to 82. An Answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherloke confuting an Vniversal-humane Church Soveraignty Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church Tiranny and Popery and defending Dr. Iz. Barrows excellent Treatise 4 to 82. Universal Church Soveraignty and foreign Jurisdiction the great points of the late differences in the Church of England Who were for it This Church against it Reasons proving it Tyranny and Popery not yet published 4 to VII Doctrinal Controversies 84. Disputations of Justification 4 to 85. Of saving Faith whether it differ from common Faith in degree or kind against Dr. Barlow 86. An Apology against the Exceptions of Mr. Crandon Mr. Eyres Dr. Kendall and others 4 to 87. An Account of his present Thoughts about Perseverance and falling away 4 to 88. The Divine appointment of the Lords day and cessation of the 7 th day Sabbath proved 8 vo 89. An Answer to Mr. Firmins Accusation of his urging men to Meditation 4 to 90. Two Disputations of Original Sin One of the prime original the other of the additional by the sin of nearer Parents 12 mo 91. A Treatise of Justification Imputation of Righteousness and Imputation of our Parents sins against the Accusations of Dr. Tully 8 vo 92. Catholick Theology for reconciling the Controversies about Prescience Predestination Redemption Grace Free-will Perseverance and Justification First stating the reconciling Truths and then by way of Dialogue applying them and proving their Ignorance who have aggravated the differences about these on both sides fol. 93. Reconciling Truths epitomized to end these and many other Controversies not yet Printed 94. Short Counsel to Corporation Justices A sheet 95. This compassionate Counsel to young men especially Apprentices Students and rich mens Sons belongs to the 3d Classis 8 vo 96. The Political Aphorisms or Principles of Government Divine and Humane c. are suspended Called a Holy Common-Wealth More Treatises not yet printed 97. A Treatise of Knowledge and Love Or against Presidence and for necessary Doubting shewing that hasty Judging and self-conceitedness of Knowing what we know not is one of the most calamitous diseases of mans Soul 98. A short Solution of all the Controversies about Justification 99. A Collection of some Histories of Appaparitions and Witches 100. Troublesome Neednots reprehended Sermons on Luke 10.42 An Addition to a Saint or a Bruit 101. On Iud. 10. Speaking evil of the things they know not 102. On Gen. 45.75 Gods use of sin 103. Repent O England 104. Universal Concord A breviate of the just terms of Christian Concord 105. How far all sober parties in England are agreed in Church matters 106. The Catechising of Families A Teacher of Housholders how to teach their Housholds Useful also to Tutors Being a full and familiar Exposition of the Creed Lords Prayer and Commandments Baptism and the Lords Supper By Question and Answer 107. R. B's Dying Thoughts preparatory to his approaching Change FINIS
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
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