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
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
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
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
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
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
the Son may be as foolish as Rehoboam O what a great work it is to make a man truly wise and good How many years study doth it usually require What wisdom and diligence in Teachers What teachableness and diligence in Learners and especially the Grace of God! And when all is done the man quickly dieth and obtaineth his ends in another world But his Children are born as ignorant and perhaps as bad as he was born He can neither leave them his Knowledge nor his Grace They must have all the same teaching and labour and blessing as he had to bring them to the same attainments The Mercy and Covenant of God taketh them into his Church where they have great advantages and helps and promiseth them more mercy for their relation to a faithful Parent if he or they do make no forfeiture of it But as their Nature is the same with others so their actual Wisdom must come by Gods blessing on the use of the same means which are necessary to the Children of the worst men A Christian's Child is born with no more Knowledge than a Heathen's and must have as much labour and study to make him wise § 2. It is certain then that the welfare of this world lyeth on a good succession of the several Generations And that all the endeavours of one Generation with God's greatest blessing on them will not serve for the Ages following All must begin anew and be done over again or all will be as undone to the next Age And it is not the least blessing on the faithful that their faith and godliness disposeth them to have a care of posterity and to devote their Children wholly to God as well as themselves and to educate them in his fear If Nature had not taught Birds and Beasts to feed their Young as well as to generate them their kind would be soon extinct O what a blessed World were it if the blessings of men famous for wisdom and godliness were entailed on all that should spring from them and if this were the common case § 3. But the doleful miseries of the World have come from the degenerating of good mens posterity Adam hath his Cain and Noah his Cham and David his Absalom Solomon Hezekiah Iosiah left not their like behind them The present State of the Eastern Churches is a dreadful instance What places on Earth were more honourable for Faith and Piety than Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem Constantinople Ephesus Philadelphia and the rest of those great and noble Countries and these also strengthened with the powerfullest Christian Empire that ever was on Earth And now they are places of Barbarism Tyranny and foolish Mahometanism where the Name of Christ is made a scorn and the few Christians that keep up that sacred Profession by Tyranny kept in so great Ignorance that alas the vices of most of them dishonour their Profession as much as their Enemies Persecutions do O what a doleful difference is there between that great part of the World now and what it was 1400 or 1000 years ago And alas were it not for the name of a pompous Christian-Church how plain an instance would Rome be of the same Degeneracy And some Countries that received the blessing of Reformation have revolted into the darkness of Popery What a change was in England by Queen Mary's Reign And how many particular Cities Towns are grown ignorant and malignant which in former times were famous for Religion The Lord grant it may never be the case of London Yea how many persons of Honourable and great Families have so far degenerated from the famous Wisdom and Piety of their Grandfathers yea and Fathers as to hate that which their Parents loved and persecute those whom their Ancestors honoured The names of many Great men stand honoured in History for their Holiness to God and their Service to their Countries whose posterity are the men that we are most in danger of Alas in how few such houses hath Piety kept any long succession yea some take their Fathers virtues to be so much their dishonour that they turn malignant Persecutors to free themselves from the supposed reproach of their Relations Yea some Preachers of the Gospel devoted to God by pious Parents become Revilers of their own Parents and despisers of their Piety as the effect of factious Ignorance § 4. And on the other side when Piety hath successively as a River kept its course what a blessing hath it proved But how rare is that And when Children have proved better than their Parents it hath been the beginning of welfare to the places where they lived How marvellously did the Reformation prevail in Germany in Luther's time when God brought out of Popish Monasteries many excellent Instruments of his Service And Princes became wise and pious whose Parents had been blind or impious Godliness or wickedness welfare or calamity follow the changes and quality of posterity And men live so short a time that the work of Educating Youth aright is one half the great business of man's Life He that hath a Plantation of Oaks may work for twenty Generations But he that planteth Gardens and Orchards with Plants that live but a little time must be still planting watering and defending them § 5. Among the Antient Sages of the World the Greeks and Romans and much more among the Israelites the care of posterity and publick welfare was the great thing which differenced the virtuous and laudable from those of a base selfish sensual disposition He was the bravest Citizen of Rome that did most love and best serve his Country And he was the Saint among the Jews who most loved Sion and the Security and Succession of its holy and peaceable posterity And the Christian Faith and Hope and Interest doth lead us herein to a much higher pitch and to a greater zeal for publick good in following him that whipt out prophaners from the Temple even a zeal of God's House which eateth us up It teacheth us by the Cross most effectually to deny our selves and to think nothing too dear to part with to edifie the Church of God nor any labour or suffering too great for common good It teacheth us to pray for the Hallowing of God's Name the Coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven before our daily Bread and any other personal Interest of our own Therefore the Families of Christians should be as so many Schools or Churches to train up a succession of persons meet for the great communicative works which God calleth all Believers to in their several measures It is eminently Teachers but it is also all others in their several ranks who must be the Salt of the Earth and the Lights of the World And indeed the Spirit of Holiness is so eminently the Spirit of Love to God and Man that it inclineth every sanctified person to a Communicative Zeal to make others wise and good and
â—appy § 6. And God in great mercy hath â—lanted yet more deeply and fixedly the Natural Love of Parents to their Children â—hat it might be in them a spring of all this â—uty so that though fleshly vice may make men mistake their Childrens good â—s most ungodly men do their own and â—hink that it consisteth in that which it doth not yet still the general desire of their Childrens well-fare as well as of their own is deeply rooted and will work for their well-fare as soon as they well know wherein it doth consist And God hath not given them this Love only for the good of the individual Children but much more for the Common-Wealth and Church that as many sticks make one fire and many exercised Souldiers one Army so many well educated Children may make up one peaceable and holy Society § 7. And accordingly it is much to be observed that God hath not given Children a natural Love and submissiveness to Parents only for the personal benefit of their provision and other helps but especially that hereby they may be teachable and obedient to those Instructions of their Parents by which they may become Blessings in their Generations and may conjunctly make up wise and holy Societies Families Churches and Common-wealths For these ends it is that God hath bound you as to reverence your Masters Tutors and Pastors so especially both to reverence and love your Parents that you may be the more capable of their necessary Instruction and Advice § 8. Yea the great strictness of God in condemning Polygamy Adultery and Fornication seemeth to be especially for the securing of the good Education of Children for their Souls and for the publick good For it is notorious that confusion in Marriages and Generation would many ways tend to the depraving of humane Education while Mothers had not the necessary encouragement to perform their part The younger Women would be a while esteemed and afterward be cast off and made most miserable and Families be like wandring beggars or like exposed Orphans Disorder and Confusion would deprive Children of much of their necessary helps and Barbarousness and bruitishness corrupt Mankind By all this it is most evident that the great means of the wellfare of the World must be the faithful and holy endeavours of Parents and the willing teachableness â—nd obedience of Children that they may escape the snares of folly and fleshly Lusts and may betimes get that Wisdom and â—ove of Goodness which may make them fit to be blessings to the places where they â—ive CHAP. IV. How the Case standeth with our Youth in matter of Fact § 1. THrough the great mercy of God many Families are sacred Nurseries for Church and Kingdom and many Parents have great comfort in the Grace of God appearing in their Children From their early Childhood many are of humble obedient Dispositions and have a love to Knowledge and a love to the word of God and to those that are good and virtuous persons They have inward convictions of the evil of Sin and a fear of sinning and a great dislike of wicked persons and a great Love and reverend Obedience to their Parents and when they grow up they diligently learn in private and in publick They increase in their love to the Scriptures and good Books and to Godly teachers and godly Company and God saveth them from temptations and worldly deceits and fleshly Lusts and they live to God and are blessings to the Land the joy of their Friends and exemplary and useful to those whom they converse with § 2. But all even religious Parents have not the like blessing in their Children 1. Some of them though religious otherwise are lamentably careless of the duty which they promised to perform at Baptism in the education of their Children and do but superficially and formally instruct them and are too faulty as to the Example which they should give them and seem to think that God must bless them because they are theirs and because they are baptised while they neglect their promised Endeavours 2. And some Children when they grow up and are bound to resist temptations and to use Gods appointed means for their own good do wilfully resist Gods Grace and run into temptations and neglect and wretchedly betray themselves and forfeit the mercies which they needed § 3. In all my observation God hath most blessed the Children of those Parents who have educated them as followeth 1. Those that have been particularly sensible what they promised for them in the Baptismal Vow and made Conscience of performing it 2. Those that have had more care of their Souls than of their outward Wealth 3. Those that have been most careful to teach them the pravity of corrupted nature by original sin and to humble them and teach them the need of a Saviour and his renewing as well as pardoning Grace and to tell them the work of the Spirit of Sanctification and teach them above all to look to the inward state of their Souls 4. Those that have most seriously minded them of death judgment and the Life to come 5. Those that have always spoken of God with the greatest reverence affection and delight 6. Those that have most wisely laboured to make all the knowledge and practice of Religion pleasant unto them by the suitableness of Doctrines and Duties to their capacity 7. Those that have most disgraced sin to them especially base and fleshly pleasures 8. Those that have kept them from the baits of sensuality not gratifying their appetites in meats and drink to bring them to an unruly habit but used them to a habit of temperance and neglect of appetite 9. Those that have most disgraced worldliness and Pride to them and used them so low things in Apparel and Possession and told them how the proud are hateful to God and set before them the example of a crucified Christ and opened to them the Doctrine of Mortification and self-denial and the great necessity of true humility 10. Those that have been most watchful to know their Childrens particular inclinations and temptations and apply answerable remedies and not carelesly leave them to themselves 11. Those that have been most careful to keep them from ill Company especially 1. Of wicked Youths of their own grouth and neighbourhood 2. And of tempting Women 12. Those that have most wisely used them to the meetest publick Teachers and help them to remember and understand what they hear especially the fundamental truths in the Catechism 13. Those that have most wisely engaged them into the familiarity and frequent converse of some suitable godly exemplary Companions 14. Those that have most conscionably spent the Lords days in publick and in their families 15. Those that have done all this as with reverend gravity so especially with tender endearing Love to their Children convincing them that it is all done for their own good And that do not by imprudent weaknesses ignorance passions or scandal frustrate
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
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
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