grace in your hearts and your hope of glory in Heaven none can take from you and therefore whatever you lose of worldly wealth for Religion shall be abundantly recompensed in things of an higher nature else that divine promise must fail Jesus answered Mark 10. 29 30. and said Verily I say unto you there is no man hath left house c. for my sake and the Gospels but he shall receive an hundred fold now in this time and in the world to come eternall life Whence you may make this Orthodox Parodox no man ever lost by Christ who was a loser for Christ Then for your Liberty though men should cast your bodies into a Prison on Earth yet they cannot cast your Souls into the prison of Hell If they should throw you into a Dungeon they cannot shut Christ out of that Dungeon or hinder the light of his countenance from shining there If they take away your Civil liberty they cannot take away your spirituall liberty They may exclude you Gods House and publick Ordinances but they cannot debar you the throne of Grace Keep Friends from you they may but cannot hinder God from visiting of you with the sense of his love and pledges of his divine favour which will make the closest prison a delightfull palace And as to Life it self know that though men may kill the Body Math. 10. 28. yet they cannot kill the Soul The argument our Saviour useth to perswade you to fear God more than man So that suppose the worst that can come that men do go to the uttermost link of their power which is to kill the body why dye you must and dye you may while you are young and can you dye upon a better account than for Christ and for Religion certainly none in the world dye with more peace and comfort with greater joy and triumph over death than they that dye Martyrs for Christ dye for the sake of Religion and a good conscience So that all the wrong the enemies of God and his truth can do you is with John Baptist and St. Steven to give you a quick passage to Glory and send you with the more speed to Heaven to Christ Jesus which is far better I beseech you therefore resolve upon it to follow Phil. 1. 23. Christ and secure the salvation of your immortal souls whatever it cost you Hearken to none of these objections of Satan against Religion For if once he can prejudice you against what is good he will soon by another assault draw you to the practice of what is evil CHAP. IV. Several Temptations of Satan whereby he seeks to draw young persons to his own service the service of sin § 1. SAtan having bid fair to barr you off from what is good his next attempt is to allure you to evil Being prejudiced against Gods Service he prompts you next to his own In which method as he is very subtil so oft-times very successefull As he that would gain another mans servant to himself decries the service he is in as laborious slavish and unprofitable and withall commends his own as full of and attended with all good properties so doth Satan to gain souls not only reproach and discommend the Service of Christ but cries up and applauds his own Five objections he hath made against Religion and the practice of it and he hath as many temptations drawing to the way and practice of sin the first whereof is this § 2. 1. The delight and pleasure of it nothing so delightfull and pleasant as sin none enjoy so much pleasure and content as his servants Will you take it saith Satan upon the word of David who was forced to acknowledge this and to leave it upon record in Divine Writ that my servants are prosperous there are no bands in their Psal 73. 1. to 7. death but their strength is firm They are not in trouble as other men neither are they plagued like other men Their eyes stand out with fatness they have more than heart could wish Where do you find such a commendation of Religion or the service of God as David here gives of my service saith the Tempter And huge cunning he is in the management of this temptation that it may take effect For he labours what he can to conceal from your eyes those more excellent pure spiritual delights and pleasure which Religion procures to the Soul both here and hereafter And withall hides from you the sting and bitterness of sin covers the hook guilds the pill that the sorrow the vexation and torment which sin will procure to you in the conclusion may not be descerned nor so much as once seriously thought of He would not for a world could he prevent it you should read and believe that of Job Thou Job 13. 26. Eccl. 9 11. writest bitter things against me and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth Or that caveat of Solomon Rejoyce O young man in thy youth walk in the wayes of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment Lest you should know and consider how dear you must pay at last for sin and so be discouraged from his service And still to give his temptation the greater force he represents the delights of his service the pleasures of sin as present that they may be had daily and without difficulty and so secret too as no mortal eye shall take notice of you Such sins and sinful delights may you enjoy and indulge your selves in and no body e're the wiser You may be frequent and bold in them none can know it or call you to an account for it All which is marvellous taking hugely tempting What present pleasure and private too sweet delights and secret too who would refuse them And that he may be sure not to fail of his end he hath yet a farther stratagem that is to plough with your own Heifer to joyn with the lusts of your own hearts with which he holds a secret correspondence to propose such objects and wayes of sin as are desirable and suitable to your natural temper and inclination He knows 't is the pleasure of sin you are betwitched with As Eve of old was captivated with the pleasantness of the forbidden fruit so her children Gen. 3. 6. and posterity are naturally taken with the same bait This therefore is the first commendation of his service and first temptation to sin the delight and pleasure of it 2. Now to resist and overcome this temptation be prevailed with to take into your serious thoughts and remembrance what follows That the pleasures of sin how full and fair soever Satan represents them are really low mean empty thin and unsatisfying Solomon gives you the summe and full of them in few words and that upon experience Childhood and Youth Eccles 11. 10. are vanity that is the delights and pleasures of that age
your continual attendance If you consider seriously in how many Relations a Christian stands and how many duties each of these Relations require you will acknowledge you have time little enough for the discharge of them For how many duties are required of you as you are creatures to God how many more as Subjects to a Prince how many more as Brethren as Servants as Masters how many more as men as Christians in Relation to your selves your own souls in the whole converse of your lives Take a review of these by serious reflection as every one is multiplyed into many and then tell me Whether you can begin to be Holy and Religious too soon whether when your time is gone you will not wish you had begun sooner or that you were to begin again that you might do your work better doubling your diligence for God and your own souls whether when your life is spent you wil not give the same counsel to others that I give to you and say O remember your Creatour in the days of your youth and make Religion and the serious practice of holiness and righteousness your study betimes Let me be your Monitor who know by experience what a task you have in hand which calls for all your strength time and diligence if you would approve your selves faithfull to God My time is gone I am dying and going to give my account I wish I had begun sooner and wrought harder after I begun Therefore mind the words of a dying man for such have the best and deepest Impressions of things to come as well as of things past upon their minds cast off the world and the vanities of it seek the Kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof in the first place This will bring you the soundest peace and greatest comfort in old age and upon a dying bed This no doubt will be your advice to others then be perswaded to take and follow the same now 'T will be your honour your crown your glory here and it will bring you to a glorious crown and endless hapiness hereafter CHAP. III. Shewing the many Prejudices Satan raiseth in the minds of men against the Way of Religion SAtan who is the grand Enemy to Gods glory and mans salvation useth his utmost Power and policy to raise a prejudice in the minds of young men against the wayes of Christ and the practice and pursuit of what is good And this he doth by making false and unjust representations of the wayes of God and Religion § 1. And first he reproaches the way of Religion wherein all the disciples of Christ walk towards heaven and happiness as uncertain and doubtfull Do you not see saith the Accuser how the professors of Religion and professed disciples of Christ are divided in their Judgments how many different perswasions they are of and how one party decries the other One cries this is the way another that a third differs from both the former And every one applauds his own way as best and safest and exclaims against all others as erroneous and dangerous And how shall you young Novices of immature parts short experiences little reading and weak judgments know which is right or which to choose Alas you are not able to determine therefore you had as good stay where you are till all parties are agreed and all parties unite and joyn in one and then you may venture Thus he inveigles you to stand off from God upon pretence there is no certain way of serving of him agreed upon and if you take the wrong you no whit mend the matter and had as good go on in the way you are in though it be the way of sin which is the infallible road to death and hell And I would to God the Devil had not so much advantage here as he hath that he had not so just ground for this prejudice against Religion and the way of holiness as he hath by the many endless divisions groundless factions and different perswasions that are amongst professing Christians and professed followers of Christ For I am perswaded nothing doth more startle young ones and more stagger old ones causeing the one to depart from and the other to keep out of the way of Religion and from following Christ in the way of his Commandments than the shamefull and unchristian divisions that are amongst us And if God do not which for his Mercies his Churches his Gospel's sake I earnestly begg and hope he will do unite us our divisions in Religion will terminate in the destruction of our Religion For a Family a Church a Kingdom divided cannot stand saith he whose word shall stand when the Heavens and the Earth fail And these Killing Maladies to Religion and sound practice of piety every follower of Christ or sincere Christian ought to bewail and in his place to endeavour the healing of But yet this is a vincible prejudice and to this stratagem and wile of the Devil answer may be given 1. That there is a necessity that there should be Heresies the Apostle tells you so and gives you the reason for it viz. That they which are approved might be made manifest There are two wayes 1 Cor. 11. 19. whereby God tries his people and makes manifest their sincerity One is by Persecution when Persecution ariseth many Hypocrites drop off and Formalists flinch away from the Truth and forsake their Religion and the bold profession of it leaving the sincere to bear all the brunt and burden The other is by Error and heresie And here many that have held out some time fall away drinking in the poyson of damnable Errors to the destruction of their souls While the sincere hold fast the Truth and stand to their profession thereby discovering what they are sound Christians whom no Persecutions can alter or Errors corrupt So that divisions are useful not to beat you off from but to try whether you are firm and well grounded in Religion And if for these you desert Christ and the wayes of holiness this is so far from vindicating or excusing you that it declares and condemns you for dissemblers and Hypocrites that have in you no sincerity or stability at all Beware therefore you do not suffer the Devil thus to delude you and mark you for his own 2. Besides if you resolve never to be Religious till all professing Christians are of one mind in Religion you must never be so never set a step in the way to Heaven while you live nor look to enter into the Kingdom of God when you dye because this is never like to be in this world If when there were but two brethren in the world there was a difference and that about Religion or Sacrificing to God if in the first Christian Churches in the Apostles dayes there were Divisions when the number of Professors was small now there are many Millions how can you expect a perfect Union He that takes up a resolution neither to eat nor
own glory Who in his wisdom and mercy hath so interwoven his honour with our salvation that we cannot seek the promotion of the one but we necessarily promote the other to observe and do these commands to the utmost of our power is it any whit more than reasonable Hear also what the Prophet Micah saith in this case He hath Mich. 6. 8. shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Here again is the whole practice of piety and surely nothing but reason in it That men should deal justly one with another be kind loving and mercifull That they should walk humbly in the sight of God between whom and us there is an infinite disproportion for God is in Heaven we on Earth God perfectly holy and we both originally and actually impure and unclean and is not humility in us towards this God a reasonable duty Again The grace of God that bringeth salvation saith St. Paul Tit. 2. 11. 12. teacheth us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly Here is the sum of all Religion and is it not highly rational that you should forsake those ways of unrighteousness and deny those wordly lusts which deprave your natures darken your understandings and besot your reason as Whoredom Drunkenness Covetousness Intemperance and the like which make men very beasts or in some sence worse than beasts Yea which destemper and disease the body marre your health shorten your lives and ruin and destroy your immortal Souls And on the contrary that you should be sober righteous and godly which tends to the refining and heightning of your natures the health and happiness of your bodies and the eternal welfare of your souls in both worlds can any thing be offered or prescribed to man more reasonable than this To sum up all in the words of our blessed Lord Whatsoever you would that men Math. 7. 12. should do unto you that do ye unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets Here our Saviour tells you is all as to practice that God and Religion requires of you and is not this highly reasonable Would you not that others should dishonour discredit wrong defraud you or covet any thing that is yours is it not reasonable you do not these things to them Or would you have others kind merciful just and charitable to you is it not reasonable you should be so to them One of the Heathen Emperors was so taken with this saying of our Saviour that he caused it to be written in sundry places of his Palace and severely punished him that did not observe it And so admired Christ for it that he would have built a Temple to him but that he feared it would have proved the ruine of those Temples dedicated to their Gods And certainly he must put off the use of reason and disown the name of man that will not acknowledg this is reasonable to do in all things as he would be done unto And this is the sum of all Religion This saith Christ is the Law and the Prophets Hitherto then all that God and Religion requires of you is but reasonable service § 4. As to the speranda or munera the Speranda sive munera religionis reward of Religion or which Religion promiseth and procureth to her sincere followers as a peaceable conscience a quiet mind communion with God the sense of his favour and love pardon of sin and the adoption of sons here and eternal bliss hereafter a Crown a Kingdom Coheirship with the Son of God yea such rewards as eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive You must needs grant 't is highly reasonable a man should prefer these before fading pleasures and sensual delights and that he should seek the attainment and enjoyment of them by all means seeing the present and future welfare of the whole man soul and body depends upon it And seeing there is no way or means by which you can secure these to your selves but by being truly holy and Religious by following Christ in that pattern of obedience and holiness he hath set before us the doing of this must needs be our most reasonable service § 5. Henceforward then whatever Satan may suggest young men conclude all Atheism and Irreligion to be irrational which teacheth men to dream and fancy that there is no God but that all things came by chance and by chance continue that there is no future state no future reward to be expected or future punishment to be feared that man lives only for himself and when he dyes is like the beasts that perish that the thing called Religion is only an invention to keep the lower spirit of the world in awe and order Certainly an Atheist is but a beast in the proportion and dress of a man or a man bereft of that quality which distinguisheth him from a beast Reason For it is impossible for a man to manifest more want of reason than in denying God and wandering from him who is the fountain of his being and Well-spring of all his blessedness And nothing doth more evidence a mans reason than to acknowledg a Supream Truth to be believed a chief good to be embraced a great and eternal God to be adored and worshiped And therefore though Philosophers difference man from bruits by his cheif natural quality viz. Reason yet some Divines like rather to do it by his supernatural excellency viz. Religion Partly because Religion is the highest and truest reason and therefore causeth the greatest essential distinction or difference And partly because Religion is the end and excellency of the rational creature of which Bruits are wholly incapable Atheism therefore is most unreasonable And how great will your condemnation be who profess to believe this and yet refuse to serve God and to give him that Sacrifice that is due to him and which you confess is but your reasonable service what will you act against your reason and conscience will not the sense of the worth of your immortal souls nor the serious consideration of the weight of an unchangeable estate in another world nor the convictions of Gods Spirit and your own consciences that Religion is reasonable prevail with you to be religious in good earnest and to serve God with all the powers and faculties of your souls and bodies Are you convinced that the true and living God hath made you for an higher end than to gratifie your sensual appetite follow your particular callings and mind lying vanities why then do you not mind things of an higher nature and import the service of God and salvation of your own souls why do you yet lay out your money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which will never satisfie against the dictates of Reason and Convictions