it as if it were but needless melancholy troublesom talk But tell me do you think in Conscience that it is sound reason that they give you and such as should satisfie a sober man that careth what becomes of his soul for ever If it be I make a motion to you Bring any of them to me or any such man and in your hearing let the case be soberly debated I will hear all that they can say against a holy sober life for the World and for their fleshly pleasure And you shall hear what I can say on the contrary and then do but use the reason of a man and judge as you see cause As Elias said to the Israelites Why halt you between two Opinions If the Lord be God follow him If Baal be God follow him If Money Preferment Drink and Lust be best take it But if God Heaven Christ Faith Hope and Holiness be best at your peril refuse them not and halt no longer I suppose you sometime think of the case or else you are dead in sin I pray you tell me or tell your selves which cause seemeth best upon the deepest thoughts and consideration But if you will take the laughter or scorns of ignorant Sots instead of reason and instead of sober consideration you are well worthy of the damnation which you so wilfully choose Qu. 16. But if you think highly of their Wit or Learning who sin as you and who encourage and deceive you I pray you answer these two questions 1. Which side is Christ and his Prophets and Apostles on Which side doth the Scripture speak for Which way went all the Saints whose names are now honoured Were they for the fleshly or the spiritual life Were they for the love of pleasures more than God Doth Christ from Heaven teach you an earthly or a heavenly choice and life Did he come to cherish sin or to destroy it and save us from it You can make no doubt of this if ever you read or heard the Bible And 2. Which do you think were the wiser and better men and worthy to be believed and followed Whether Christ and all his Apostles and Saints that ever were in the world to this day or the Drunkards and Whoremongers and Worldlings who deride the Doctrine sent from Heaven If there be a Heaven is Drunkenness or Sobriety liker to be the way to it But if indeed you will take the mocks of a swinish Sot to be wiser than God than Christ than Prophets and Apostles and all that ever went to Heaven and their jears to be more credible than all God's Word what can a man say to convince such Wretches with any hope Qu. 17. I further ask you Have you not some secret purposes hereafter to repent If not alas how far are you from it and how forlorn is your case But if you have Conscience is a Witness against you that you choose and live in that case and course which you know is worst Were it not worst you need not purpose to repent of it And will you wilfully choose known evil when the very nature of mans Will is to love good Qu. 18. And if you believe that the faithful are in a happier case than you tell me What hindereth yet but you may be like them and yet be happy as well as they Hath God put any exception against you in his word Is not Mercy and Salvation proclaimed and offered to you as freely as to them Did any thing make you so bad as you are but your own choice and doing And can any thing yet hinder you from pardon and Salvation if you your selves were but truly willing What if your Parents were bad and bred you up amiss God hath told you in Ezek. 18. and 33. that if you will but do your own part yet and take warning and avoid your Parents sin and give up your selves unfeignedly to him he will save you whatever your Parents were What if Princes or Lords or learned men should be your tempters by words or example None of them can force you to one sin God is greater and wiser than they and more to be believed and obeyed and your Salvation is not in any of their power What if your old companions tempt you They can but tempt you they cannot constrain you to any evil All the Devils in Hell or men on earth cannot damn you no nor make you sinners if you do it not your selves Refuse not Christ and he will not refuse you And when he is willing if you be but willing truly willing to be saved from sin and misery and to have Christ Grace and Glory in the use of the means which God hath appointed you neither Earth nor Hell can hinder your Salvation Who but your selves keep you from forsaking the Company House or Baits which have deceived you Who but your selves keep you from lamenting your sin and flying to Christ and begging Mercy and giving your selves to God If you think that serious Christians are the happiest refuse not to be such your selves It will be your own doing your own wilful obstinacy if you perish But of this I have already said more in my Call to the Vnconverted Qu. 19. Dare you deliberately resolve or bargain to take your fleshly pleasures for your part instead of all your hopes of Heaven I hope none of you are yet so mad I think it is but few if any of the Witches that make so express a bargain with the Devil If they did O how they would tremble when they see their glass almost run out and death at hand If you dare not make such a bargain in plain words O do not do the same in the choice of your hearts and the practice of your lives and deceive your selves by thinking that you do it not when you do It is God and not you that maketh the conditions of Salvation and Damnation If you choose that life which God hath told us is the condition of Damnation and finally refuse that life which God hath made the condition of Salvation it will in effect be all one as to chuse Damnation and refuse Salvation He that chooseth deadly poison or refuseth his necessary food chooseth Death and refuseth Life in effect God hath said If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if by the Spirit you mortifie the deeds of the Body you shall live Rom. 8. Christ tells you that unless you are born again and converted you cannot enter into his Kingdom Ioh. 3 3 5. Matth. 18.3 and that Without Holiness none shall see God Refuse these and choose the world and sinful pleasures and you refuse Salvation and shall have no better than you choose What you judge best choose resolvedly and do not cheat your selves Qu. 20. Have you no natural love to your Parents or your Country O what inhumane cruelty is it to break the hearts of those from whom you had your Being and who were tender of you when you could
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
very near Sure Reason would be Reason if you would but use it sure Light would come in if you would not shut the Windows and draw the Curtains on you and rather choose to sleep in darkness Is there nothing within you that grudgeth at your folly and threateneth you for being wilfully besides your selves If you would but spend one half hour in a day or a week in sober thinking whither you are going and what you have done and what you are and what you must shortly see and be how could you chuse but be deeply offended with your selves for living like men quite void of Understanding against your God against your selves against all the ends and obligations of life and this for nothing But it may be the distinctness of your consideration may make it the more effectual And if I put my Motives by way of Questions will you consider them till you have well answered them all § 2. Qu. 1. Are you not fully convinced that there is a God of Infinite Power Knowledge and Goodness who is the perfect Governour of all the World God forbid that any of you should be so bad so mad as seriously to doubt of this which the Devils believe while they would draw you to Unbelief To doubt of a perfect governing God is to wink and doubt whether there be a Sun to stop your ears against the notorious testimony of Heaven and Earth and every Creature You may next doubt whether there be any thing if you doubt of God For Atomes and Shadows are hardlier perceived with certainty than the Earth the Heavens and Sun Qu. 2. And if you believe that there is a Governing God do you not believe that he hath Governing Laws or notifications of his Will and that we owe this God more full more absolute exact Obedience than can be due to any Prince on Earth And greater love than to our dearest friend he being infinitely good and Love it self Can you owe more to your Flesh or to any than to your God that made you men by whom you have Life and Health and time and all the good that ever you received And can you give him too much Love and Obedience Or can you think that you need to fear being losers by him and that your faithful Duty should be in vain Qu. 3. Is it God that needeth you or you that need him Can you give him any thing that he wants or do you want what he hath to give Can you live an hour without him Or be kept without him from pain misery or death Is it not for your own need and your own good that he requireth your service Do you know what his service is It is thankfully to receive his greatest Gifts To take his Medicines to save your Souls To feast on his prepared comforts He calls you to far better and needfuller Obedience for your selves than when you command your Child to take his meat or wear his cloaths or when he is sick to take a necessary remedy And is such Obedience to be refused Qu. 4. Hath not Nature taught you to love your selves Surely you cannot be willing to be damned Nor be indifferent whether you go to Heaven or Hell And can you believe that God would set you on that which would do you hurt and that the Devil is your Friend and would save you from him Can you believe that to please your Throat and Lust till death snatch away your Souls to judgment is more for your own good than to live here in holiness and the love of God and hereafter to live for ever in Glory Do you think you have lived as if you truly loved your selves or as self destroyers All the Devils in Hell or Enemies on Earth could never have done so much against you as by your sensuality ungodliness and sloth you have done against your selves O poor sinner as ever thou wouldst have mercy from God in thy extremity be intreated to shew some mercy on thy self Qu. 5. Hath not Nature deeply taught all the World to make a great difference between Virtue and Vice between Moral good and evil If the good and bad do not greatly differ what makes all mankind even the sons of pride to be so impatient of being called or accounted bad and love to be accounted wise and good How tenderly do most men bear a reproof or to hear that they do amiss To be called a wicked man a lyar a perjured man a knave how ill is it taken by all mankind This certainly proveth that the Conscience of the great difference between the good and bad is a common natural notice And will not God make a greater difference who better knoweth it than man Qu. 6. If God had only commanded you Duty even a holy righteous and sober life and forbidden you the contrary and had only bid you seek everlasting happiness and made you no promise of it should you not in reason seek it chearfully in hope Our folly leadeth us to do much in vain but God setteth no man on any vain employment If he do but bid you resist Temptation mortifie Lust learn his Word pray to him and praise him you may be sure it is not to your loss A reward you may be sure of if you knew not what it will be Yea if he set you upon the hardest work or to pass the greatest danger or serve him at the dearest rate or lose your Estate for him and life itself what reason can fear being losers by obeying God Yea the dearest service hath the greatest reward But when he hath moreover ascertained your reward by a Promise a Covenant sworn and sealed by his Miracles by Christs Blood by his Sacraments by his Spirit if yet you will be ungodly because you cannot trust him you have no excuse Qu. 7 Do you know the difference between a man and a Bruit Bruits have no capacity to think of a God and a Saviour and a Life to come and to know Gods Law and study Obedience and fear Hell and sin nor reason to rule their Appetites and Lusts nor any hope or joy in foreseen Glory But man is made capable of all this And can you think God maketh such noble faculties in vain Or should we live like Bruits that have none such Qu. 8. Do you not certainly know that you must die All the World cannot hinder it You must die And is it not near as well as sure How swift is time O how quickly shall we all be at our race and Warfares end And where then is the pleasure of Pride and Appetite and Lust Neither the dismal Carkass nor the dust or bones retain or taste it And alas the unconverted Soul must pay for it for ever And can you think that so short a bruitish pleasure that hath so sure and sad an end is worthy the grieving of your Friends the offending God the hazard of your Souls the loss of Heaven and the suffering of Gods justice in
Hell for ever O foolish sinners I beseech you think in time how mad a bargain you are making O what an Exchange For a filthy Lust or fleshly Pleasure to sell a God a Saviour a Comforter a Soul a Heaven and all your hopes Qu. 9 If the Devil or deceivers should make you doubt whether there be any Judgment and Life to come should not the meer possibility and probability of such a day and life be far more regarded by you than all fleshly pleasure which is certainly short and base Did you ever hear a man so mad as to say I am sure there is no Heaven or Hell for Souls But you are sure that your flesh must not in a dark grave you are sure that death will quickly put an end to all that this world can afford you House and Land and all that now deceive poor worldlings will be nothing to you No more than if you had never seen them save the terrible reckoning that the Soul must make Sport and Mirth and Meat and Drink and filthy Lusts are ready all to leave you to the final Sentence of your Judge And is not even an uncertain hope of Heaven more worth than certain transitory Vanity Is not an uncertain Hell to be more feared and avoided than the forsaking of these certain trifles and deceits Much more when God hath so certainly revealed to us the life to come Qu. 10. Is it a wise and reasonable expectation that the righteous God should give that man everlasting Glory who will not leave his Whores his Drunkenness or the basest vanity for all his Love and for all his Mercies for the sake of Christ nor for the hopes of all this Glory Heaven is the greatest reward of holiness and of the diligent and patient seekers of it Heaven is the greatest gift of the great Love of God And can you believe that he will give it to the slaves of the Devil and to contemning wilful Rebels May not you next think that the Devils may be saved If you say that God is merciful it 's most true and this will be the unconverted mans damnation that he would for a base Lust offend so merciful a God and sell everlasting mercy for nothing and abuse so much mercy all his life Abused and refused mercy will be the fewel to feed the flames of Hell and torment the Conscience of the impenitent for ever Doth not God know his own mercy better than you do Can he not be merciful and yet be holy and just Is the King unmerciful if he make use of Jails and Gallows for Malefactors It 's mercy to the Land to destroy such as would destroy others The bosom of eternal Love is not a place for any but the holy The heavenly Paradise is not like Mahomet's a place of Lust and sensual Delights You blaspheme the most just and holy God if you make him seem indifferent to the holy and the unholy to his faithful Servants and to the despisers of his Grace Qu. 11. If there were any possibility that unsanctified Souls should be sanctified and saved in another World is it not a madness to cast everlasting life upon so great uncertainty or improbability when we have life and time and helps to make our Salvation sure God hath called you to give all diligence to make it sure 2 Pet. 1.10 He hath made infallible promises of it to sanctified Believers He calleth you to examine and judge your selves 2 Cor. 13.5 And do you know the difference between certainty and uncertainty in so great a case O none can now sufficiently conceive what a difference there is between a Soul that is going out of the Body with joyful assurance that Christ will presently receive him and a Soul that in the guilt of sin must say I am going to an endless life and know not but it may be an endless misery I am here now and know not but I may be presently with Devils that here deceived me Just fear of passing presently to Hell fire is a dreadful case to be avoided above all earthly sufferings Luk. 12.4 and 14.33 Much more when Gods threatnings to the impenitent are most sure Qu. 12. Do you think in your hearts that you have more pleasure and sound content and peace with your Whores and in your Sports and Drink or Riches than true Believers have in God in Christ in a holy life and the hopes of everlasting Glory Judge but by the cause Is not the Love of that God that is the Lord of Life and Death and all and the pleasure of pleasing him and the sense of pardon and mercy through Christ and the firm expectation of endless joy by a promise of God sealed by his Son his Sacraments and his Spirit I say is not all this matter more worthy to rejoyce a Soul than Money and Meat and Drink and Lust Have not you those secret gripes of Conscience when you think how short the sport will be and that for all these things you must come to judgment which much abateth the pleasure of your sin Had you spent that time in seeking first the Kingdom of God and its Righteousness and in honest obedient labouring in your callings you need not have lookt back on it with the gripes of an accusing Conscience If you see a true Believer sorrowful it is not for serving and obeying God or being holy and hating sin but for serving God no better and hating sin no more Qu. 13. Have you not oft secret wishes in your hearts that you were in the case of those persons that you judge to be of the most holy and heavenly hearts and conversations Do you not think they are in a far safer and better case than you Unless you are forsaken to blindness of mind it is certainly so And doth not this shew that you chuse and follow that which is worse when your Consciences tell you it is worse and refuse that which your Consciences tell you is best But it is not such sluggish wishes that will serve To lye still and live idle and wish your selves as rich as the industrious is not the way to make you so Qu. 14. At least if you have no such wishes now do you not think that you shall wish it at Death or Judgment Do not your Consciences now tell you that you shall shortly wish O that I had hated sinful pleasure O that I had spent my short life in obeying and trusting God Will you not say with Balaam Let me die the death of the Righteous and let my last end be like his O that I were in the case of those that mortified the Flesh and lived to God and laid not up their Treasure on Earth but in Heaven And why choose you not now that which you know you shall deeply wish that you had chosen Qu. 15. I take it for granted that your merry and sensual and worldly Tempters and Companions deride all this and persuade you to despise