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A66355
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The vanity of childhood & youth wherein the depraved nature of young people is represented and means for their reformation proposed : being some sermons preached in Hand-Alley at the request of several young men, to which is added a catechism for youth / by Daniel Williams.
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Williams, Daniel, 1643?-1716.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing W2657; ESTC R31018
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71,103
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147
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I as young as I am have to do all this hard work in which is the point I am on Young Man if Death overtake thee thou canst not put it off till thou set about the work thou hast neglected all the cryes in the Word will avail nothing Bethink thee then if Ahijah had not been good betimes he must have been eternally undone so it may be thy Case O Child of ten years old if thou dost not get Grace before thou art a Year older or it may be a Month or Week older thou must dye graceless Doth not the Word tell thee of some who dye in youth and their life is among the unclean Job 6. 14. Shall that be thy Case canst thou bear it be perswaded now to fix thy thoughts on such things as these Shall I Lye or Swear now who may be dead within a Month Dare I prophane this Sabbath who may be dead within a Week yea my next sin may be the last act of my Life How can I live without Christ a day longer when I may dye to Night shall I delay to know and love and fear my God who must do it soon or never I am sure if I do not fear God before I dye Hell will be my place and I am not sure of a Week to attain this Fear of God Did the youngest of you know your frailty you would tremble at delays you would not dare to sin you would blush at your slothfulness in any good Work Oh then hear this Sermon as one that may never hear another Pray the next time as one that may never Pray again When thou art next tempted ask thy self Would I yield to this if I were to dye to morrow Will you believe this and walk as them that believe it even Youth is too uncertain for any wise one to venture to sin or neglect his Salvation as if sure of time to repent and repair his neglects 2. Vanity is taken in a moral sense viz. as it regards the minds and manners thus Eph. 4. 17. the Spirit of God warns us against walking in the Vanity of the Mind Vanity is oft put for all sins 2 Kings 17. 15. several sins are expresly called Vanity and this Name is applyed partly with respect to the Nature of some sins but chiefly from the tendency and consequence of every sinful course Every way of sin is vain and sin deserves the Name of Vanity from this consideration that it is committed to no valuable purpose yea it ends in what is destructive and far worse than meerly unprofitable In this sense I shall improve the Text and it includes these things 1. Young people are prone to many sins that are notoriously vain 2. Young People are apt to live to very low and unprofitable purposes which is Vanity 3. Young People are apt to live to evil and destructive purposes which is the heighth of Vanity Before I enter on these things let me ask you young Folk Is not this a true Charge and is it not as awful a description of your State as true Obj. But how comes this to be laid so universally that all young People are thus vain Ans. 1. Because the generality of young People are vain For one that is sober how many are wild for one that is pious there be many prophane A religious Child is become a wonder Godliness in youthful years is very rare The body of your ordinary young People is sottish the generality of witty Youths are atheistical and irreligious When the Disease is so common the charge is proper as against the whole Ans. 2. All young Persons are inclin'd to be vain Vanity is the Temptation of that Age your Constitution and want of Experience do especially expose you to this mischief though Grace may deliver some of you from the power of Vanity yet it hath not cleansed you from all disposition to Vanity it hangs about you and liveth though restrained Your stumbles will be at this stone and your Faults will be under this head of youthful Vanity Young People you see why the Charge is so common Will you then apply what I shall say to your selves When I describe the Disease say This is my Disease When I propose the Remedy speak to thy Soul This is proper for my Case this is necessary to my Condition Thou Child say I am a Child and therefore apt to be vain Thou young Man say I am a young Man and therefore I am apt to be vain I must deny my Age or own this Charge Nay further reason awfully with your selves Most young People are under the power of Vanity The wicked Youths are a hundred to one that 's pious Oh my Soul what is my Condition is not there more danger that I am one of those hundred wicked ones than that I am that One pious young one I shall now return to consider the three particulars under which I included the Moral Vanity of young People 1. Young People are prone to many sins that are notoriously Vain There be some particular sins that in their Nature argue more Vanity than other sins they inferr a very vain mind in the Persons committing them Young ones have many of these sins and Lusts strongly prompting thereto I shall reduce your sins to eight particulars and give you some Directions under each to help you against that particular sin But remember each of these are sins every sin defileth thy Soul and bindeth thee to undergo the Punishment threatned if it be not repented of and mortified Nor canst thou hope that these sins will be put away unless thou follow the Methods which God hath directed for that end He will not Convert thee as a Bruit that regards nothing thô he must consider thy weakness as a Sinner and therefore exert his Power by the Means thou attendest 1. Young People are subject to Folly The Spirit brands our tender years with this Crime Prov. 22. 15. Folly is bound up in the Heart of a Child Is this limited to Children No A young Man void of understanding is too often seen Prov. 7. 7. This fault is not a want of that Wisdom which is unexpected from your Age But it is such Folly as in your Years might have been healed and it 's made up of blindness and mistakes against that light which God hath afforded you God hath given you reason to govern your selves by you are under the Means of Wisdom whereby you may know your true end and the proper means to that end Nevertheless most young Persons are Fools Dost not thou place thy Interest in things which are vain and destructive Dost not thou think Jollity thy only Heaven and the pleasing thy Lusts the only real Paradice What is enjoying God or glorifying God to thee these are things thou art unacquainted with and unconcerned for Obj. Perhaps thou wilt say I desire to be saved and I do something towards it how then do I mistake my end or means Ans. 1.
his jollity he is to be scorned as well as pityed 2. He allarms this brutish Sensualist with a prospect of Judgment God addresseth himself to thee as one stupidly ignorant but know thou it 's what thou art little acquainted with or thoughtful about for all these things he will bring thee into judgment a sore thorn in thy gay Cloaths a great cooler to thy lusts meer gall in thy Cups and a sad disturbance to thy airy conceits God will bring thee into judgment for all these things Thô thou despise his Laws thou shalt not escape his Sentence he will not leave it to thee whether thou shalt be miserable though he referr'd it to thy choice whether thou wouldst be serious hee 'l compell thee to feel his wrath though he would not force thee to refrain thy voluptuousness Yea Oh thou that sportest thy self in thy brutish delights thou shalt account for all thou shalt suffer for each Thy punishment shall be proportioned to thy sins and to thy pleasures thou didst take in sinning and dost thou never consider how great that 's like to be 3. He then annexeth a serious Caution against two evils to which Young Persons are obnoxious v. 10. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart that is anger as the word may be rendred or all those heart lusts which will end in sorrow of heart Thou art afraid of seriousness thou seemest to prevent sorrow by thy carnal mirth but alas thou art making way for the deepest groans by thy seeming cure thou bringest on sorrow by a pretended driving it away But Young Man God seeing thou takest a wrong course condescends to warn thee against the anguish which thou preparest by thy vicious inclination 2. And put away evil from thy flesh that is fleshly pollutions to which Youth is prone or the bodily punishments which vile courses expose to If you take the first sence then as in forbidding heart lusts he stops a course of sin at the Spring-head without which all the attempts for Reformation will be too feeble so in forbidding fleshly pollutions he would restrain the acting of sin q. d. Thô Lust is conceived in the Heart yet let it not break forth in thy practice for abstinence from wicked acts will conduce to change thy temper and abate thy guilt If you take the latter sence then he argues from that misery which brutish Youth is most likely to be affected by q. d. That Body which thou so indulgest that flesh whereof thou art so tender is like to feel the woful effects of thy folly Therefore as thou lovest thy very flesh kindle not the flames which are to devour it in Hell bring not down those Judgments which may torment thy Body on this side the Grave The wise Man introduces these advices by a Motive referring to v. 9. Therefore c. as if he had said because God will bring thee to judgment avoid these sins for which thou shalt certainly be arraigned and prevent the miseries which the sentence will include and which the Judge must execute according to the sanction of that Law whereby thou shalt be judged Then then O Young Man thou shalt know by the punishment felt that thy Lawgivers threatnings were not vain though during temptations they appeared so My Text is a further Motive and as such is here inserted For Childhood and Youth are Vanity q. d. To these sins your young years are prone they have room in your temper and without great care and labour cannot be removed or put away therefore be intent and vigorous to put away evil from your flesh to remove sorrow from thy heart Having thus described the Coherence of the words I shall lay them down for a Doctrine as they be in my Text. Doct. Childhood and Youth are Vanity I shall explain this Doctrine and insist on that sence of the words which will most conduce to the advantage of Young Persons 1. Childhood and Youth may be taken for that time of Humane Life which is short of Manhood If you take it thus then the whole clause may be thus expressed Though you are very apt to boast of these years as most conducive to happiness though now your Spirits are vigorous your Bodies healthy and strong your Sences quick the Cares and Maladies of Old-Age are far from you yet all this will not make you happy This time of Youth it self is vanity it 's insufficient to make thee a Blessed Creature yea though thou didst enjoy all sensible things that can minister to its satisfaction it is but vanity a poor thing a short and empty matter which leaves its admirers deceived yea undone if they have no better provision A serious Old Man disdains those years and would not live them over again yea few live long that wish not much of that time expunged out of their life and remember it with a blush 2. Childhood and Youth note Persons of those Years or age viz. Children and Young People I shall consider these words in this sence and of such of you the Spirit of God proclaimeth vanity as your proper Epithite Quest. What is meant by Vanity as it predicates of these Young People Answ. Vanity is either natural or moral and then it 's the same as to say 1. Young People are frail and mortal All flesh is grass and the goodliness thereof as the flower of the Field Isa. 40. 6. The robust Youth hath his breath in his Nostrils by the Course of Nature he may live longer than Old men yet by the Frailty of Nature he may die before the oldest man Thou reckonest upon long Life but thou mayest dye tomorrow Oh young man thou hast the seeds of Death in thee thou canst not resist any Messenger of Death Heb. 9. 17. the Sentence lies against thee and sin the cause of Death cleaves to thy early Age Rom. 8. 10. What variety of accidents art thou subject to every moment It 's by Gods power you Children are alive till now as well as the Man of eighty Oh young Folk that think of many years before Death and you can meet how many younger than you are already rotten in their graves there may be many Children in this place whose death your Fathers yea Grandfathers may live to mourn for it 's a brittle house your very Souls inhabit Exh. I cannot omit this Exhortation Do and forbear all you ought to do and forbear in order to Eternity as Persons within a step of Death I hope the youngest here are assured that there is no working in the grave Eccl. 9. 10. What is to be done for Eternity must be done while you live the state of trial lasts no longer than Life whatever is beyond the Grave is unchangeable reward or punishment Wilt thou lay to Heart these things 1. I have much to do for Eternity 2. Work for Eternity is hard to do 3. This work as hard as it is must be done or I perish for ever 4. How short a while may