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
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
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
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
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
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
age they come to true understanding of the Covenant which they made and must renew and till they give credible signs of real Godlyness by a Godly Life and of what mischievous effects it is to confirm them and admit them to the Lords Supper on their bare saying the words of the Catechism the Creeds Lords Prayer and Decalogue without tryed Vnderstanding and serious Piety And what a wrong it is to the Christian Church and Religion to confound and corrupt our Communion for want of Parish Discipline and distinctions And how little good all Canons or Laws for Reformation or Religious duty will do if the Ministry be ignorant worldly and ungodly and the Churches be not taught and guided by able godly humble self-denying and loving Pastors I beseech you read him diligently he was no violent man and his books here mentioned were purposely written for K. Edward and the Bishops and Church of England and accepted kindly by them His burnt bones were honourably vindicated by the publick praise and his memory by many in Cambridge solemnly commended to posterity I beseech you let his Counsel in these Books be revived and true Reformation be tryed by their Light I hope they will hear that great and moderate Reformer that will not hear me or such as I. And if you will adde the Reading of old Salvian and of Nic. Clemangis it may do you good and excite you to do good to others and promote the ends of this Advise to Youth March 25. 1681. FINIS A CATALOGUE of Mr. Baxter's Books to satisfie some Foreigners And are to be Sold by B. Simmons at the Three Golden Cocks at the West End of St. Pauls I. Doctrinal 1. A Phorisms of the Covenants and Justification suspended for some imperfections 12 mo 2. The Reasons of the Christian Religion 4 to 3. The Unreasonableness of Infidelity How the Spirit is Christs Witness Of the sin against the Holy Ghost 8 vo 4. More Reasons for the Christian Religion confuting the Ld. Herbert de Veritate 12 mo 5. A Confession of his Faith against Antinomians 4 to 6. The Vindication of Gods goodness against some melancholy Exceptions 12 mo 7. How far Holiness is the design of Christianity 4 to 8. A Latine Methodus Theologiae Christianae which with the Body of Practical Divinity maketh an entire System It consists of 73 Tables or Methodical Schemes pretending to a juster Methodizing of Christian Verities according to the Matter and Scripture than is yet extant furnishing men with necessary distinctions on every Subject shewing that Trinity in Unity is imprinted on the whole Creation and that Trichotomising is the just distribution in Naturals and Morals The 1st Part of the Kingdom of Nature The 2d of the Kingdom of Grace before Christs Incarnation The 3d of the Kingdom of Grace and the Spirit since the Incarnation The 4th of the Kingdom of Glory All in the Political Method in the Efficience Constition and Administration viz. Legislation Judgment and Execution The first Part mostly Philosophical with a full Scheme of Philosophy or Ontology The Doctrine de Anima most largely handled with above 200 select Disputations Prolixe ones of the Trinity Predetermination the Faculties of the Soul Original Sin And a multitude of Controversies briefly decided in Fol. II. Practicals for all sorts 9. A Christian Directory or Body of practical Divinity 1. Christian Ethicks 2. Oeconomicks 3. Ecclesiasticks 4. Politicks Resolving multitudes of Cases on each Subject Fol. 10. The Saints everlasting Rest. 4 to 11. A Treatise of Self-Denial 4 to 12. The crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ. 4 to 13. The mischiefs of Self-Ignorance 8 vo 14. A Sermon of Repentance preached to the Commons the day before they voted the King's Return 4 to 15. Right Rejoycing A Thanksgiving Sermon at St. Pauls foretelling the danger of their turning all into greater Calamity 4 to 16. The vain Religion of the formal Hypocrite And the Fools prosperity 12 mo 17. A Sermon of Faith before the King 4 to 18. The poor mans Family Book for them that cannot buy many A familiar Dialogue shewing the Unconverted how to become true Christians and the Converted how to live and die as such With a Catechism Prayers and Psalms 8 vo III. Practicals for the Vnconverted 19. A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live 12 mo 20. Directions and Persuasions to a sound Conversion 8 vo 21. Now or Never 12 mo 22. A Treatise of Conversion 4 to 23. A Saint or a Bruit 4 to 24. A Sermon of making Light of Christ. 8 vo 25. A Treatise of Judgment 8 vo 26. True Christianity Christs absolute Dominion and Mans Subjection Assize Sermons 12 mo 27. Catholick Unity How to be all of one Religion Ungodliness the great Divider 12 mo IV. Practicals for the Faithful 28. The right Method for settled Peace of Conscience and Spiritual Comfort 8 vo 29. The weak Christian strong Christian and Hypocrite characterized 8 vo 30. The Divine Life 1. A Treatise of the Knowledge of God and use of his Attributes 2. Of Walking with God 3. Conversing with God in solitude 4 to 31. The Life of Faith in every State 4 to 32. Mrs. Bakers Funeral Sermon Death the last Enemy 8 vo 33. Mr. Hen. Stubs Funeral Sermon 12 mo 34. Mrs. Coxes Funeral Sermon 4 to 35. Alderman Ashursts Funeral Sermon 4 to 36. Mr. Io. Corbets Funeral Sermon 4 to 37. Mrs. Baxters Life and her Mothers Funeral Sermon The last work of a Believer 4 to 38. Poetical Fragments Partly Thanksgiving partly the groans of the afflicted 8 vo V. Controversies against Popery 39. The safe Religion Three Disputations 8 vo 40. One Sheet of Reasons against Popery 8 vo 41. A Key for Catholicks to open the juglings of the Jesuits The first part answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4 to 42. The certainty of Christianity without Popery 8 vo 43. Full and easie satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8 vo 44. Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4 to 45. The true Catholick Church A popular Sermon of its Unity 12 mo 46. The successive Visibility of the Church where it hath been in all Ages An Answer to W. Iohnson alias Terret 8 vo 47. Which is the true Church A full Answer to his Reply proving that the General Councils and the Popes Primacy were but in one Empire 4 to 48. The Grotian Religion discovered 12 mo 49. The History of Bishops and their Councils abridged and of the Popes 4 to VI. English Church Controversies 50. Gildas Salvianus The Reformed Pastor shewing the Nature of the Pastoral Office especially of personal Instruction 8 vo 51. Christian Concord The Agreement of the associated Pastors and Churches of Worcestershire 4 to 52. Their Agreement for Catechising and personal Instructing their Parishes 8 vo 53. Disputations of Right to Sacraments 4 to 54. Disputations of Church Government Liturgies and Ceremonies 4 to 55. Of