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
or Alehouse as a Bird to the snare of the Fowler and sweetly and greedily swallowing the poisonous Cup which God forbiddeth And that false Repentance which Conscience and Experience force them to sometimes is forgotten the next day when the temptation is renewed Yea the Throat-madness and the merry and Belly-Devils are within them a continual temptation which the miserable slaves cannot resist 3. And these beastly fleshly sins do usually make them weary of their callings and of any honest labour The Devil hath by this time got possession of their thoughts by the byass of Delight and sinful Lust and they are thinking of Meat or Drink or Play or merry Company when they should be diligently at work And so Idleness becomes the nursery of Temptation and of all their other vice as well as a constant sin of Omission and loss of hasty precious time And custom increaseth the habits and maketh them good for nothing and like dead men to all that life is given them for and only alive to prepare by sin for endless misery 4. And usually Pride also takes its part to make the sin of Sodom in them compleat Ezek. 16.49 Pride Fulness and Idleness They that must be in their jovial Company must not seem despicable among them but must be in the mode and fashion what ever it cost When they make themselves odious in the sight of God and the pitty of all wise men and a terror to themselves yet they must be some body to their sottish Companions especially of the Female Sex Lest the Image of the Devil and his victory over them should not be perfect if Pride were left out how unreasonable soever 5. And by this time they have usually here amongst the rich and idle a further step towards Hell to go and yet a deep Gulf to fall into Fleshly Lust next entangleth them in immodest Converse with Women and thence into filthy Fornication The Devil will seldom lose a Soul for want of a temptation Either he will provide them one abroad among their lewd Companions or at home some Daughter or servant of the House where they can oft get opportunity first for uncivil sights and touches and then for actual Fornication And if they have done it once they are usually like the Bird that 's fast in the Lime-twigs Conscience may struggle but Lust holds them fast and the Devil saith If once may be pardoned why not twice and if twice why not thrice and so they go on as an Ox to the Slaughter and a fool to the correction of the Stocks and know not that it is for their lives Prov. 7.21 22 23. Till they mourn at last perhaps when Flesh and Body are consumed and say How have I hated Instruction and my heart despised reproof and have not obeyed the voice of my Teachers nor inclined my Ears to them that instructed me I was almost in all evil c. Pro. 5.12 13 14. And it 's well for the wretches if this Repentance be true and in time that though the Flesh be destroyed the Spirit may be saved For Solomon saith Prov. 2.18 19. Her house enclineth to death and her paths to the dead None that go unto her return again neither take they hold of the paths of Life God I doubt not recovereth some but the case is dangerous For though Age and Sickness cure Lust usually before that the Conscience is seared and debauched and they being past feeling work Vncleanness with greediness and forsaking God are so forsaken by him that all other Sin Sensuality and Enmity against a holy life prevaileth against them and the unclean Devil lets in many more Most debauched Drunkards Gluttons and Fornicators are so enslaved to Satan that they think say and do what he would have them and become the Enemies and Persecutors of those that are against their sin and the blinded Sodomites go on to grope for the door of Lot as one that reproveth them till the Flames of Justice stop the rage 6. And when all these sins have enslaved sensual Youths they must have Money to maintain them and if they have it not of their own and be not the Sons of great men that will maintain them in the service of the Flesh they must steal to get it which usually is either by thievish borrowing when they cannot pay or by robbing their Parents or Masters If all the Masters in London knew what Thieves their Apprentices vices are for their own sakes they would take greater care to watch over them and keep them from ill company Drunkenness and Plays and would teach them to seek pleasure in good Books good Company and serving God I had not known it my self if the Confessions and Restitution of many penitent Converts had not made me know it I thank God that he recovereth any yea so many but I must tell foolish Youth that Repentance itself especially when it must have Restitution is so bitter that they would prevent that need of it if they had but the use of reason and foresight O what heart-tearing Confessions and sad Letters have I had from many young Apprentices in this City Much adoe to escape utter despair they had when Conscience was awakened to remember all their sin and danger And when they knew that they must restore if possible all that ever they deceived or robbed their Masters or any others of O what difficulties hath it put them to both as to the shame of Confession and the actual Restitution Some have not Money and to go and confess the sin and debt and promise to pay it if ever they are able seemeth hard but must be done Some have rough Masters that will disgrace them when they confess it Some have Parents that paid dear to set them Apprentices and would go near to cast them off if they knew their case Some marry after and it will grieve their Wives to know what they have been and how much they must restore Wisdom might have prevented this but if the Thorn be got into the Conscience it must come out and if the poison be swallowed it must come up what gripes soever the Vomit cost There is no playing with Hell fire nor jeasting with the Justice of the most Holy God One penitent review of fleshly Lust and sinful pleasure and falshood and deceit though wholsom if true and rimely will turn it all into Gall and Wormwood For the end of sinful mirth is sorrow 7. And too many there be that escape the gross and disgraceful part of the foresaid sensuality and unrighteousness that yet do but choose another Idol and set themselves wholly to rise in the World and Riches Preferment and Honour have almost all their hearts and care That have no delight in God and holiness nor doth the state of their Souls or the thought of their everlasting state affect them in any measure according to its unspeakable weight nor so much as these shadows which they pursue And when great
would commonly perish that knowledge that such get must be from themselves in their own thinking and observation only Where their minds are yet unfurnished with those Truths that must let in more and daily objects will occasion errour or confusion in their minds that are unprepared to improve them and their own lusts will pervert them and one errour draw in more whereas the help of those that by long and successful Study have rightly ordered and digested their conceptions might be an exceeding help to willing Learners 2. And such by Pride do forfeit the Grace of God which he giveth to the humble and resisteth the proud and are oft given up to the self-conceitedness which they so defend till their own Counsels and ways be their confusion 3. And the Devil hath advantage to set in and even possesse such proud prepared ignorant minds and become their Teacher and lead them almost to what he will against Truth and the Church and themselves and God 4. And self-conceit and hasty confidence maketh them continual lyers even while they rage for what they say as true For being usually mistaken for want of patient tryal they say what they think and are not to be much believed in their prefidence § 8. But seeing many old men are ignorant and erroneous and some young men have sounder understandings how shall I know when I am guilty of proud self-conceit and prefidence and refusing others judgment Answ. 1. When you rashly neglect their judgement and Counsel who have had as good helps and parts as you and far longer time and experience without so much as hearing what they have to say and taking time to trye the cause according to its weight especially if they be such as nature or relation obliged you to learn of 2. When you easilier suspect such than your own understandings 3. When your confidence of your understandings is so unproportionable to your Time and Studies that you must suppose you know by a miracle or some rare capacity and wit as if you had got more in a few years than the rest of mankind doth in many 4. When you judge suddenly before you take time to think and may know that you never heard what may be said against you 5. When you talk most in a bold asserting or a Teaching way as if you were Oracles to be heard and reverenced and not in a humble enquiring way with that necessary doubting which beseemeth Learners except ye become as Little Children in teachable humility you are not fit for the School of Christ Matth. 18.3 Even he that is a Teacher must be a Learner still as conscious of his remaining ignorance and not think himself above it nor set himself to dispute against all that he understands not but continue humbly to search and trie 6. When those Reasons of your own seem good and cogent which are sufficiently confuted and you cannot see it or which men of the most approved Learning fitness to judg do judg to be but folly when other mens soundest reasons seem light to you because you judg by a proud and selfish understanding confident and tenacious of all that is your own and contemning that which is against you 7. When you can too easily without certain cogent reason dissent from the judgment not only of those whose Light and Integrity hath by self-manifestation convinced the World but also from the generality of such as are commonly known to be the wise godly and impartial yea perhaps from all the Church of Christ. 8. When the most and wisest men that know you think you not so wise as you think your selves nor your reason so good but pity your self-conceitedness and yet this brings you not to suspect and trie 9. When you are hardly and rarely brought to an humble confession of your errours but in all debates you seem still what ever the cause be to be in the right and when you have once said it you will stand to it and justifie untruths or extenuate and excuse them 10. When you too much affect the esteem of wisdom and love to have your judgments a Rule to others and are unfit for true subjection In a word when instead of being swift to hear slow to speak and slow to wrath you are swift to speak and dictate slow to hear and learn and swift to wrathful censure of Dissenters § 9. So common and hurtful is this sin in mankind that you should still be duely fearful of it Errour I fear taketh up the greater half of the thoughts of men and most are rather deceived than in the right and mans mind in flesh is in great darkness and therefore PROVD IGNORANCE is a monstrous and pernicious vice and most of the confusions and miseries of the World of Kingdoms Churches and all Societies come from it Yea though it seems most contrary to Scepticism it tendeth at last to Infidelity or Atheism For when experience hath convinced such that their most confident rage was but a mistake they turn to think that there is nothing certain and deny the greatest Truths It is by this one sin of proud self-conceitedness in false thoughts that Kingdoms Churches and the World by obstinacy seems remediless and the wisest men that would cure them can do no good but on themselves and few § 10. But it is no where more unnatural than in Children against their Parents Counsel and Scholars against their Tutors and Ignorant persons against the common consent of the most able Godly Pastors What an odious thing is it to see an ignorant Lad run against all his Fathers words and think that he is wiser and always in the right and to hear ignorant persons magisterially judge and despise their wise and faithful Teachers before they are capable to understand them or the matter of which they talk Oh! how happily might Parents and Pastors and wise men promote knowledge and goodness in the world were it not for this selfish prefidence which shuts the door against their necessary helps CHAP. XV. The Conclusion to Ministers THere is another sort of Helpers on whom the wellfare of Youth much depends even the Ministers of Christ. But I presume not here to teach them In my Reformed Pastor I have spoken somewhat freely when I had leave I cannot expect that those that silence me should hear me nor will I think that able faithfull Ministers need my Counsell But all that I will now say is humbly to intreat those who take no great pains with the young persons in their Parishes and will not be admonished by such as I but to read Martin Bucer who had so great a hand in counselling our Reformers that made the Liturgy his Book de Regno Dei his Censure of the Liturgy especially of Baptism Confirmation Ordination and Discipline and his vehement pressing the necessity of Congregational Discipline and denying the Sacrament to the unmeet and the necessity of keeping Baptized Youths among the Catechumens till at