Slavery to Sin and Satan Death and Hell God was pleased to make a Second Covenant of Grace and Mercy with lost Man and therein promises to send his Son that Seed of the Woman which should break the Serpents Head who should be a King Priest and Prophet to us A King to rule us a Priest to make an Atonement for us with his Father and to intercede for us and a Prophet to teach and instruct us in all things necessary to our Happiness in the whole Will and Mind of God Accordingly the Blessed Jesus in fulness of Time was sent into the World from Heaven to take our Nature upon him to become Man and so in our stead as our Surety then paid the Price of our Redemption by shedding his most precious Blood upon the Cross offering up his Soul a Sacrifice to God to satisfy his Father's Justice of which great Sacrifice all the legal Sacrifices were Types and as such were acceptable with God for he was the Lamb of God slain from the Beginning of the World and by this means to reconcile us to God to procure to us the sinful Offspring of sinful Adam upon our true Repentance a Pardon of all our Sins For he purchased a general Pardon to all the Rebellious Sons of Adam upon their Submission and laying down their Arms and ceasing their Hostilities against Heaven and becoming dutiful and obedient Subjects and of the Servants of Sin and Slaves of Satan the greatest Slavery in the World to be made the Sons and Servants of God whose Service is perfect Freedom to be in some Measure restored to their first State of Innocence and Happiness to be made vertuous and holy conformed to the Image of their heavenly Father to enjoy his Friendship and Favour and to be blessed by him here in this Life and at Death to be translated into the blessed Regions of Happiness above in Heaven there to behold love contemplate praise and admire Him to all Eternity with all his holy Angels Now consider seriously God-son Was not this great Love and good Will of God in this great Contrivance and Work of our Redemption And in his sending his beloved Son into the World for the effecting the same And was it not also great Love and condescending Goodness in the Son of God the blessed Jesus to stoop from Heaven to Earth to take upon him the Nature of sinful Man To be born of a Woman to live here upon Earth a mean and despicable Life to be hated reviled persecuted even while he went about designing and doing all the Good he could both to the Bodies and Souls of Men and publishing the glad Tydings of Salvation to all the World and by his divine Doctrine rectifying the great Errors Mistakes and Delusions that the World lay under making a clear and full Discovery of what was Truth and being the great Exemplar of all Vertue Holiness true Worth and Goodness to all the World Being notwithstanding herein exposed to all the Malice and Rage of Men and Devils And at last to lay down his precious Life by a shameful ignominious painful and cruel Death of Crucifixion Hereby perfecting the Work of our Redemption That whosoever would accept of this Salvation and would believe in him repent and be baptized and so become his faithful Disciple should be saved Now God-son you being happily born of Christian Parents were according to the holy Institution of this blessed Jesus our Lord and Master and the constant Practice of his Church baptized and thereby initiated in his Church and made a Member of the same as I mentioned before and so made not only capable of but really partaker of this great Redemption and Salvation It very much concerns you now you are come to a competent Age of Understanding to consider how you stand obliged to God and to be true and faithful to your baptismal Vow and Covenant which now you must renew in your own Person except you will renounce your Christianity and think that you were obliged also to them who were assistant and instrumental in this charitable Work of bringing you to this holy Baptism and devoting and dedicating you to God and to be the Disciple of the blessed Jesus Christ you being thereby Partaker of all the Privileges and Benefits of the Gospel Now I beseech you with all Chearfulness and Alacrity of Soul resolve forthwith to ratify and confirm this Advantageous Contract and Vow made for you by your God-fathers and God-mothers in your Minority and Nonage and perform the same in your own Person now you are of Capacity and abhor to profess what you do not intend to practise In pursuance thereof be modest and humble and teachable be very sollicitous to know and understand fully what your Christianity means and also what it requires of you And abhor to be of the Number of them too many in the World who neglect that most wherein their chiefest and greatest Care should be viz. Their Religion and by that means know little more of their Christianity but the Name First therefore God-son have recourse with humble Reverence of Heart and Body to God in Prayer and with great Fervency beg the Guidance of his Grace and Spirit wherein your blessed Lord and Saviour hath furnished you with the most excellent Form composed by himself which should be a Pattern to all our Prayers and always to accompany them But herein also your Mother the Church hath furnished you as also other pious Men especially that most excellent Book the whole Duty of Man which now I have mentioned to you let me recommend it to you as an Attendant to the sacred Scriptures in which in the next place I would advise you to be very Conversant I mean the Scriptures with a spiritual Guide to direct you and take you by the Hand especially in doubtful and difficult places and hearkening to good Sermons and the learning and understanding the Principles of your Religion contained in our Church Catechism in which you should request your Parents and Friends to assist and help you And consider God-son Whereas in your Baptismal Vow you renounced The Devil and all his Works the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked World and all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh That is to say all Acts of Sin and Disobedience to the Divine Laws for Sin is the Transgression of God's Law as also all the vain and evil Customs of the World the Pride Excess and Vanity of worldly and wicked Men together with the gratifying of your carnal and sensual Desires and Appetites in opposition to those Restrictions and Rules God hath set us And whereas in the next place you promise to believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith briefly summed up in the Apostles Creed in which is comprehended the Knowledge and Belief of all those Truths of Christianity necessary to be known by us to be the Guide of our Lives it being the Foundation of all Christian Practice It is very needful
as the Prophet Zachariah speak Zach. 9.17 How great is his Goodness and how great is his Beauty And as the Author of the Book of Wisdom Chap. 11. Verse 23 24 26. sets forth the Goodness and Excellency of God But thou saith he hast Mercy upon all and winkest at the Sins of Men because they should amend for thou lovest all things that are and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made How could any thing have endured if it had not been thy Will or been preserved by thee But thou sparest all for they are thine O Lord thou lover of Souls Now if under the Law God appeared so good and Gracious that he was stiled the Lover of Souls how Resplendent and Illustrious must needs appear the divine Goodness to us under the Gospel when God spared not his own Son but hath given him up for us all Rom. 8.32 Yea so loved the World that he sent his only begotten Son into the World that whosoever believeth in him should not Perish but have eternal Life How should we Christians love God with the strongest and greatest Affections imaginable And in an ecstacy of Joy loudly proclaim him to be the Lover of Souls indeed and cry out with holy David O love the Lord ye his Saints c. Psal 31.23 In the next place as to our Neighbour our Religion teaches us to do unto all Men as we would they should do to us that is to say to honour and reverence our Parents to be Humble towards all our Superiours to be Loyal and Faithful to our Prince and Sovereign obedient to his Laws and Government to submit our selves to all our Governours Teachers spiritual Pastors and Masters To be Just and Honest in all our Dealings friendly and peaceable towards all our Neighbours to be Charitable and ready to do all the Good we are able both to the Bodies and Souls of those who stand in need of it To be Sober Temperate and Chast and to follow Peace with all Men and Holiness And in respect to the Duties both of the First and Second Table to follow the Apostles comprehensive Direction Philip. 4.8 Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good Report if there be any Vertue and if there be any Praise think on these things So that this most excellent Religion must needs make its Votaries the best the most lovely Persons in all the Earth even like unto their Lord and Master the ever blessed Jesus who himself was the express Image of his Father God blessed for ever For this is the great End of Religion as a late Author discourseth viz. The purifying and refining the Nature of Man correcting the wild Exorbitances of Passion and Lust by which he is so estranged from God and disabled to arrive at the Life of Vertue and Goodness it restores us to that primitive State of Happiness that we lost in Adam Thus in short you have the true Representation of the Christian Religion than which nothing can be more excellent as to its Laws and Rules of Life And altho' it is true it is a Yoke and Restraint yet as our Lord and Master testifies his Yoke is easy and his Burthen light His excellent Religion is not a sowre melancholy Thing as is falsly represented by ignorant and wicked Men It is not an Enemy to your Mirth Pleasure and Delight in this Life as one hath well observed you may Sing Rejoice and be Merry God denies you nothing but Sin which spoils your Joys and dasheth your Mirth and sooner or later must be sadly accounted for As the Pious Mr. George Herbert used to say Religion doth not banish Mirth but only moderates and sets Bounds to it it is the only way to render our Delights pure and real and satisfactory For do you imagine that any one can so heartily sing and rejoice as he that hath God his Friend who lives under the Smiles of Heaven Indeed it is the Voice of all Men who will shew us any Good Omnes tendunt ad gaudium sed unde magnum stabile consequantur ignorant saith the Heathen Seneca Every Man would arrive at Joy and Contentment but how to obtain that which is great stable and lasting they know not All Men seek Happiness and Satisfaction and Tranquility of Mind in this Life Now behold here it is only to be had in a vertuous and christian Life for if we search the whole Universe where else shall we find it For we see by daily Experience that when Men have run through all the Felicities this World can afford them Riches Honours Pleasures at last when they come to be Wise and Serious at their Deaths for Death being a serious thing indeed it makes them that have played the Fool all their Lives to become then serious wise Then they all if they have their Senses loudly proclaim with Solomon That all is Vanity and vexation of Spirit And as the wise Man discourseth Wisdom 5.7 8 9. They will say We alas wearied our selves in the Way of Wickedness and Destruction What hath Pride profited us Or what good hath Riches with our Vaunting brought us All these things are passed away like a Shadow and as a Post that hasteth by c. And they repenting and groaning for Anguish of Spirit shall say within themselves of the Righteous Man This is he whom we had sometimes in Derision and a Proverb of Reproach we Fools accounted his Life Madness and his End to be without Honour How is he numbred among the Children of God and his Lot is among the Saints 3 4 5. Verses of the same Chapter But certainly true Happiness and Satisfaction and Pleasure is to be had only in a good vertuous and christian Life which leads us to and fixeth us upon that summum bonum God A good Conscience being a continual Feast that only a good Man a good Christian always carries about him For as Solomon says truly God's Ways are Ways of Pleasantness and all his Paths are Peace Prov. 3.17 A good Christian is the only Man that can with an humble and chearful Confidence look up to God as his almighty Protector and Defender as his gracious Father under the Light of whose Countenance he doth every day Rejoice For as one well observes Vertue is the Tenure by which we hold of Heaven without this we are but as Out-laws who cannot claim Protection Thus as to the Provision for a Christian's Welfare in this World And as the Wicked at their latter End see altho' too late their Folly and then Lament and Bewail their Rebellions and Wickedness against God with great Horrour and Consternation of Heart and then not being able to fly from themselves lie down in Sorrow forewarning others of their Follies So on the other Hand these faithful Disciples of their blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ when they come to die if you should
to have your Mind well instructed therein For without this Foundation be well laid the Superstructure thereupon can never stand but will come to nothing Ignorance herein is the Mother of Error He that understands amiss concludes worse and Error is endless as one speaks and as Dr. Sibs long since well observed Whosoever is corrupt in Faith is corrupt in Obedience in that Degree Evil Opinions hreed evil Life For as Truth is from above the Offspring of God so Error is from beneath from the great Deceiver the Father of Lyes the Devil Therefore nothing is so much worth as a Mind well instructed saith the Son of Syrach Eccles 26.14 And Mistakes in things of Religion are of most dreadful Danger to you wherefore it very much concerns you to be well instructed with good and sound Principles True Piety being the Consequent of a sound and orthodox Faith And whereas you promise to keep God's holy Will and Commandments and therein to persist to your Lives end It is most necessary you should know them and their true Sence and Meaning that so you may avoid the Ill they forbid and do the Good they command you which are briefly yet fully contained in the Exposition set down in your Catechism which deserves your frequent and serious Consideration And as soon as convenient Opportunity is offered have Recourse to Confirmation by the Hands of the Bishop there to renew solemnly your baptismal Vow and Covenant and receive the Benefit of the Prayers of the Congregation and of his Prayers and Blessing also For as a worthy Divine observes When Men have solemnly addicted themselves to the Christian Religion and made it their own Act by a voluntary and publick Choice it will ordinarily have a great Influence upon them in Modesty Honour and Reputation as well as Conscience that they shall not easily go back from it and renounce it And if you have not a convenient Opportunity for Confirmation take the greater Care to fit your self the sooner for the holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour and there renew solemnly you baptismal Vow and Covenant and as soon as you have so renewed your Covenant and Vow either at Confirmation or at receiving the Sacrament I would advise you to enter it down in Writing in your Bible or some other Book of Devotions and Prayers in which you are often if not daily conversant In Manner following BE it remembred that I _____ did this _____ Day of _____ Anno Domini 16 solemnly renew my baptismal Vow and Covenant with God and did then seriously devote and resign up my self to his Service from which I am resolved by his Grace never to depart but to persist in the same and be a faithful Disciple of my dear Saviour unto my Lives end in Witness whereof and that I may be mindful of it and not forget it I have here set down the same and subscribed my Name And then subscribe your Name thereunto And often afterwards have recourse to this Contract Vow and Covenant you have made with God and consider it seriously and often renew it at the holy Sacrament as also at convenient times read both the Church Office and Prayers at Baptism and at Confirmation But here let me advise you to have a great Care that your religious Warmth and early Seriousness do not carry you beyond the plain and known Measures of your Duty Let your baptismal Vow your Duty to God and your Neighbour as set down in the Catechism be chiefly in your Mind and suffer not your self mark it and remember I say suffer not your self to devise some new and particular Rules to your self which in your Zeal you 'll be apt to think necessary and then be ready to tie your self up by a solemn Vow to observe them This Forwardness in making Vows is ordinary in all beginners in Religion and especially in young People And such Vows which are no part of Duty but proceed usually from too much Heat and too little Consideration I have heard to become afterwards great Snares to those who made them robbing them of the Comforts of sincere Indeavours to keep a good Conscience by being brought under an Obligation which they had better have avoided of doing such and such particular Acts of Religion and with such Circumstances as in themselves are not necessary and perhaps not convenient for them when their own Condition of Life is altered nay perhaps were not so when they made their Vow This I the rather caution you against both for the Reason above mentioned That I conceive an early Piety is very apt to lead you this way and because I have heard some whose Scruples have been so great upon the breaking of these Vows and coming short of that Strictness and height of Religion in those particular Tasks which they had imposed upon themselves as to be ready to fall into Despair Whereas had their Souls been free from such a Bondage they would have made great Progress in vertuous Living and not have wanted the unspeakable Comfort of a good Conscience Wherefore I advise you heartily that in all these Religious Warmths you never bind up your self by any hasty Vows but consult your spiritual Guide and take his Directions For such Assistance is every whit as necessary for the well governing our Fits of Heat as it is for curing our Coldness in the Duties of Religion And do not think my Advice in these Matters to be needless or superfluous For Religion is the grand Concern of our Lives and therefore not to be trifled and played with as it is to be feared most do among us now a-days in the World I hope I need not use many Arguments or Motives to perswade you to that which is the grand Concern of your Life and in which consists your greatest Interest and Advantage I need not use many Words to perswade you to be an honest Man and to be as good as your Word as your solemn Vow and Oath made to God I hope you will say with holy David Psal 101.4 I hate the sin of Vnfaithfulness there shall no such thing cleave unto me and when your faithfulness herein is to be true to your own highest and greatest Interest and Advantage Further consider seriously the Worth and Excellency of the Rules and Precepts of the Christian Religion which in short you know is the loving God with all our Hearts and Minds with all our Souls and with all our Strength And in the next place loving our Neighbours as our selves as you are taught in our Church Catechism Now one would think there should need no Argument to perswade you to be in Love with God the most excellent amiable soul-satisfying Object in the World the greatest and most resplendent Beauty you can ever have your Mind fixed upon in the whole Universe yea The Beauty of all the Beauties and Excellencies in the World Wisdom 13.3 For the first Author of Beauty hath created them And