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A39501
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An Earnest call to family-catechising and reformation by a reverend divine.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing E95; ESTC R31403
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30,606
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74
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that are now Children and Servants may become Parents of Children and have Servants under you being built up in Families of your own Now the better you are at present in your private Station the better you may be when advanced to a more publick Capacity For to Obey well is the way to Govern well So that setting of you right for the present may be a Means of regulating your Families for the future and those who shall receive holy Instructions from you may afterward convey the same to their Families And who knows but as there shall ever be a holy Seed raised up to praise and serve the Lord so there may be a Succession of Religion in those that descend from you till the coming of Christ to Judgment It is observable That though God calls home to himself some who were far off and he will yet more eminently do so when all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before him Psal 22. 27. Yet Religion hath been much propagated through the Loins of the Faithful And it hath been observed That when Grace gets into a Family ordinarily it doth not soon take its leave of it But though there may be some sad Interruptions yet it appears many times again in Grand-Children or Great-Grand-Children and if not in the direct Line yet Collaterally as the Rivers of Water run thorough the Valleys though not in a direct Course but with many Windings and Turnings and various Branchings so that we are many times ready to be at a loss in following them Of this the Scripture doth and our own Observation may furnish us with Instances Now may I not begin my Address to you as St. Austin one of his Sermons Ad vos Juvenes mibi sermo flos aetatis periculum mentis Aug. de Temp. O Young Ones my Speech is to you who are in the flower of your Age but peril and danger of Mind Or with very little Variation as St. John that bosome Disciple of our Lord I have written unto you fathers that you may know him that is from the beginning I now write unto you little children that you may know the father I write unto you young men that you may be strong and overcome the wicked one and that the word of God may abide in you 1 Joh. 2. 12 13 14. Therefore Come ye children hearken unto me I will teach you the fear of the Lord Psal 34. 11. I shall give you the sum of my Advice in the following Particulars 1. Consider seriously what kind of Creatures God hath made you and learn to set a due value upon your own beings The very Frame of thy Body which is wonderfully and fearfully made and curiously wrought Psal 139. 14 15. speaks something extraordinary But then thy Soul is Heaven-born a Spiritual and Immortal Being capable of the Knowledge and Enjoyment of God himself and by what Bonds and Tyes this Material Body and Immaterial Soul are united and linked together thou do'st not know So that thine own Being is above thy Conception St. Austin Aug. Confes wonders that Men admire other things and leave themselves unadmired Consider thou art not a lifeless Rock or Stone a senseless Plant or Tree an irrational brute Beast but a Creature endowed with a rational and immortal Soul capable of knowing and enjoying God here and hereafter Yea thy mortal Body shall at the last day be raised to an Immortal State Remember thou art a Creature made for Eternity 2. Seriously lay to heart your State of Sin and Misery How you are tainted with Adam's first Transgression The Scriptures of Truth acquaint us That in him all sinned and therefore death came upon all men Rom. 5. 12. And in Adam all died 1 Cor. 15. 22. Consider further how your whole Nature Soul and Body every Faculty of the one and Member of the other is vitiated and defiled with the Leprosie of Sin Thou hast within and upon thee a compleat Body of Sin and Death Rom. 7. 24. with all its Members Even the youngest Children have old Adam in them Infants themselves are not innocent Thou hast that Corruption within thee which is sufficient to betray thee to the greatest Sins and expose thee to the greatest Sufferings Yea thou art guilty of manifold actual Sins of Omission and Commission and these cloathed with various Aggravations O! Consider how thy excellent Being is debased by Sin and how thou hast plunged thy self into unspeakable yea unconceivable Misery 3 See that thou be regenerate and born again without which thou shalt never enter into the Kingdom of God Thou art by Nature a child of Wrath and Heir of Hell Thy Nature must be changed by renewing Joh. 3. 3. 5. Grace before thou canst be a Child of God and Heir of Heaven And this know and remember that the New Birth is of the whole Man as the Natural is if it be a living Birth Remember your solemn Dedication to God in Baptism obligeth you to secure your Regeneration improve it therefore accordingly If taken out of the World by Death before thou art taken out of the World by Grace it had been good for thee thou hadst never been born for thou art undone to Eternity Woe to thee if thou diest before thou art alive to God for on such the second Death shall have Dominion and they shall be kill'd with Death 4. Have and maintain an inward Value and Esteem of your Parents Masters and Governours Yea tho' they be not so great or rich or wise or obliging as some others Esteem them as those set over you in the Lord and as obeying the Lord in so doing I have heard of a Wife who said she could be Obedient to her Husband but he was such a one as did not deserve it It was reply'd But the Command of God is worthy to be obey'd and shew your Obedience unto that So in this Case The Yoke will gall if it be not lined with Love but Love will cover a multitude of Faults Beside the Sin of Undutifulness we profit little by those whom we do not much affect 5. Study the Duties of your particular Places 1 Thes 4. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Relations and conscientiously practise them Many study other Duties and neglect their own They spy a Mote in anothers eye and cannot see a beam in their own Do you especially study and perform your own Duties Let your words looks gestures actions be such towards Parents and Superiours as they ought to be Let their Cautions restrain you from all Vanities their Counsels set you upon the Practice of what is Duty Yea tho Parents and Masters do not perform their Duty to thee yet thou must perform thine both to God and them You must be subject with all fear not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward 1 Pet. 2. 18. their Sin can be no
the Ass is a dull blockish Creature the wild Ass an untractable Creature and such is Man by Nature 2. Consider it will be your great Honour and true Comfort to hearken to Good Counsel and receive good Instructions and that betimes saith the Lord Since thou hast been precious in my sight thou hast been honourable Isa 43. 4. This made Jabez more honourable than his brethren 1 Chron. 4. 9 10. Wisdoms ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace Prov. 3. 17. All that ever walked in them have found them so They are Enemies and Strangers to them that suggest the contrary 3. Consider how much Evil both of Sin and Punishment thou mayest prevent by a speedy attending to wholsome Counsel and Instruction Look upon thy whole Life as a time of Temptation yea and the further thou engagest in the World the more thou shalt find the Temptations of it Even Infancy hath its Temptations but Childhood more than Infancy Youth more than Childhood There are such filthy Lusts of the Flesh as make even a Child of God cry out O wretched man that I am Rom. 7. 24. And such would be glad of Deliverance even by Death Yea it is a great Testimony of the truth of Grace when we can desirously submit to Death which even pure Nature is averse unto rather than be infested with Temptations unto those Sins which corrupt Nature is most pleased with And it is a further Testimony of the Grace of God in us when yet we sit patient and submissive though uneasie under this greatest of Burthens till God shall in his own time and way give us a fair discharge from our service But if these Temptations should prevail and you should be induced to make provision for the flesh to satisfie the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 14. what Wounds do you give to your own Souls Great also are our Temptations when we come to Man's Estate for then ordinarily we engage more deeply in the World a most dangerous Enemy It was smartly and as truly said by one The Devil of Business hurries more Souls to Hell than all the Devils in Hell besides At this age it is that Persons usually enter on the Conjugal Relation which so much influenceth the residue of our Lives yea and Posterity after us And if you should arrive at Old Age which few do yet that of all is most unteachcable As to Evil of Punishment it is consequent to that of Sin Yea God sometimes even where he forgives the Sin and exempts from Hell yet will not remit or abate the rigour of Chastisement here Saith the Psalmist Thou answered'st them O God! Thou wast a God that forgavest them though thou tookest vengeance upon their inventions Psal 99. 8. God may visit our transgressions with the rod and our iniquities with stripes though he do not utterly take his loving-kindness away Psal 89. 32 33. At least Sin will cost us a dear-bought Repentance Now how much of this Evil of Sin and Suffering may be happily prevented by early attending to good Counsel and Instruction 4. Consider the Shortness and withal Uncertainty of Time and the vast Extent if I may so speak and Concernment of Eternity Thy Time will soon be at an end how soon thou knowest not and thou must take that amazing step into an Eternity which has no end 5. Consider None ever complained they were brought to Acquaintance with God too early but many have repented it was so late Said Austin I have loved thee late Sero te amavi veritas tam antiqua tam nova Ang. O thou Truth so Ancient and yet so New By which I suppose he meant so Ancient in it self as being Eternal and yet so New that is newly discovered unto him Who was ever brought so early to God but he wish'd it were yet earlier if earlier it could be I am sure in this of the concurrent Testimony of all the Saints that are or have been or ever will be upon Earth though in this case late is better than never yet early is better than late 6. Consider As the Lord will be very gracious and indulgent toward you if you hear Instructions that you may live so he will be equally severe if you reject his Counsel and chuse Death God was highly pleased with his Sacrifice of Lambs and his Offerings of First-fruits When the Ears were yet green his Soul desires the first ripe Fruits When any do early attend the Calls of God He remembers the kindness of their youth the love of their espousals Jer. 2. 2. The Shepherd of Israel even the great Shepherd of the sheep gathers his lambs in his arms and lays them in his bosome Isa 40. 11. But if you cast his fear behind your backs and walk contrary unto him he will walk contrary unto you Lev. 26. 23 24. The Lamb of God is likewise the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and will rend and tear and none shall deliver out of his Hand Psal 50. 22. He hath his Iron Rod as well as his Golden Scepter therefore Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way Psal 2. 12. Thus I have been suggesting Motives the Lord himself move you by them CHAP. VII Objections Answered The Conclusion I Shall now apply my self to Answer those Objections that either the Governors or Governed in Families or both of them may be apt to raise against the necessary and important Duty I have been urging Yet thus much I must first premise in general That there can in this case no Objections be made but such as savour very strongly of Weakness Sloth Earthliness Impiety and Obstinacy But such as they are I shall give them a Hearing and endeavour to Answer them that this Iniquity may for ever stop its mouth Object 1. Some weak Persons may object against Catechising as a Dead Flat Formal Thing not suiting the Spirituality of the Gospel I Answer 1. Solemn Catechising or Instructing Persons in the chief Heads of Christian Doctrine is a Duty of that nature as necessarily requires a methodical Collection of those fundamental Truths that lye scattered throughout the Scriptures The Apostle mentions a Form of Doctrine delivered Rom. 6. 17. And we are presented with some of the fundamental Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Heb. 6. 1. under certain Heads methodically and regularly disposed And Timothy is commanded to hold fast the form of sound words which he had received of Paul in faith and love that is in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 1. 13. 2. Whether or how far Forms of Prayer are lawful is nothing to my present purpose to enquire But this let me say There is a manifest difference between Forms of Prayer and those imposed and Forms for Catechising either composed or chosen as adapted and fitted to that Occasion which necessarily requires such a Form 3. I plead as much as you against Formality in this or any other Christian Duty yea I exhort you to be