Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	word_n	young_a	youth_n	14	3	7.8344	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26903	Compassionate counsel to all young men especially I. London apprentices, II. students of divinity, physick, and law, III. the sons of magistrates and rich men / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1229; ESTC R170462	84,953	211

Compassionate COUNSEL TO ALL Young-Men Especially I. LONDON-Apprentices II. Students of Divinity Physick and Law III. The Sons of Magistrates and Rich Men. By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed by T. S. and are to be Sold by B. Simmons and Ionath Greenwood at the Three Golden Cocks at the West End of St. Pauls and at the Crown in the Poultry 1681. The CONTENTS Chap. 1. Prefatory Ch. 2. Of what grand Importance the Case of Youth is to themselves that betimes they live to God Ch. 3. Of what publick Concernment the quality of Youth is Ch. 4. How the Case standeth with our Youth in matter of Fact Ch. 5. How sad the Case of many of them is Ch. 6. The joyful State and Blessing of good Children to themselves and others Ch. 7. Vndeniable Reasons for the speedy Repentance of those that have miscarried By way of Exhortation Ch. 8. Directions to them that are willing to amend Ch. 9. Special Counsel to the Candidates for the Ministry Ch. 10. Short Counsel to young Students in Physick Ch. 11. Short Counsel to young Men in the Inns of Court that study the Law Ch. 12. Short Counsel to the Sons of Nobles and Magistrates Ch. 13. Some Memorials to Parents Ch. 14. A short Word to Church Ministers for Youth To the YOUTH of London and the rest of England Richard Baxter's Last and Compassionate Warning and Advice CHAP. I. THere is no man that ever understood the Interest of Mankind of Families Cities Kingdoms Churches and of Jesus Christ the King and Saviour but he must needs know that the right Instruction Education and Sanctification of Youth is of unspeakable consequence to them all In the place where God most blest my labours at Kidderminster in Worcester-shire my first and greatest success was upon the Youth And which was a marvellous way of Divine Mercy when God had toucht the hearts of young Men and Girles with a love of goodness and delightful obedience to the truth the Parents and Grandfathers who had grown old in an ignorant worldly State did many of them fall into liking and love of Piety induced by the love of their Children whom they perceived to be made by it much wiser and better and more dutiful to them And God by his unexpected disposing Providence having now twenty years placed me in and near London where in variety of places and conditions sometimes under restraint by men and sometimes at more liberty I have Preached but as to Strangers in other mens Pulpits as I could and not to any special flock of mine I have been less Capable of judging of my success But by much experience have been made more sensible of the Necessity of warning and instructing youth than I was before The sad reports of fame have taught it me The sad Complaints of mournful Parents have taught it me The sad observation of the wilful impenitence of some of my acquaintances tells it me The many score if not hundred bills that have been publickly put up to me to pray for wicked and obstinate Children have told it me And by the grace of God the penitent Confessions Lamentations and restitutions of many Converts have more particularly acquainted me with their Case Which moved me on my Thursdays Lecture a while to design the first of every month to speak to youth and those that educate them And though I have already loaded the world with books finding that God seems to be about ending my life and labours I am urged in my mind by the greatness of the case to add yet this Epistle to the younger sort Which shall contain I. The great importance of the Case of youth II. How it stands with them in matter of fact III. What are the Causes of their sin and dangerous degeneracy IV. How great a blessing wise and godly youth are to themselves and others V. How great a plague and calamity the ungodly are VI. What great reason ungodly sensual youth have presently to Repent and Turn to God VII Directions to them how to do it VIII And some Directions to Parents about their Education And all must be with the Brevity of an Epistle CHAP. II. To begin betimes to live to God is of unspeakable importance to your selves FOR 1. You were betimes solemnly Dedicated to God as your God your Father your Saviour and your Sanctifier by your Baptismal Vow And as that was a great Mercy it obliged you to great Duty You were capable in Infancy of that holy Dedication and Relation and your Parents were presently obliged as to Dedicate you to God so to Educate you for God And as soon as you are capable of performance the Vow is upon your selves to do it If your Childhood is not presently obliged to Holiness according to your natural capacity no doubt your Vow and Baptism should have been also delayed Little think many that talk against Anabaptists how they condemn themselves by the Sacred Name of Christians while they by perfidious Sacriledge deny God that which they Vowed to him 2. All your time and life is given you by God for one End and Use and all is little enough and will you alienate the very beginning and be Rebels so soon 3. The youngest have not assurance of Life for a day or an hour Thousands go out of the World in youth Alas the Flesh of young men is corruptible liable to hundreds of Diseases as well as the old How quickly may a vein break and cold seize on your head and lungs and turn to an uncurable Consumption How quickly may a Fever a Pleurisie an Impostume or one of a thousand Accidents turn your Bodies to corruption And O that I knew how to make you sensible how dreadful a thing it is to die in an unholy state and in the guilt of any unpardoned sin An unsanctified Soul that hath lived here but to the flesh and the world will be but fewel for the fire of Hell and the wrathful Justice of the most holy God And though in the course of undisturb'd Nature young men may live longer than the old yet Nature hath so many disturbances and crosses that our lives are still like a Candle in a broken Lanthorn which a blast of wind may soon blow out To tell you that you are not certain in an unsanctified state to be one day or hour more out of Hell I expect will not move you so much as the weight of the Case deserveth because meer possibility of the greatest hurt doth not affect men when they think there is no probability of it You have long been well and long you hope to be so But did you think how many hundred Veins Arteries Nerves must be kept constantly in order and all the blood and humours in due temper and how the stopping of one vein or distemper of the blood may quickly end you it would rather teach you to admire the merciful providence of God that such a body should be kept alive one year 4. But were

him early how to live and how to die and what to seek and what to shun You should have given him the Example of a holy and heavenly mind and life You should have watch'd over him for his safety and unweariedly instructed him for his Salvation But you led him the way to despise God's Word and set light by Christ and Holiness and Heaven to hate Instruction and Reproof to spend the Lords day in idleness or worldly vanity and to seek first the World and the prosperity of the Body and glut the Flesh with sinful pleasure What wonder if a Serpent breed a Serpent and quickly teach him to hiss and sting and if Swine teach their young to feed on dung and wallow in the mire This is part of the fruit of your worldliness fleshliness ungodliness and neglect of your own Salvation and your Childs Now he is as you are a slave of sin and an heir of Hell Was this it that you vowed him for to God in Baptism Was it to serve the Flesh the World and the Devil against our God our Saviour and our sanctifier Or did the mistake of the Liturgy deceive you to think that it was not you but the God-Fathers that were bound by Charge and Vow to bring him up in the Faith and Fear of God and teach him all that a Christian should know for his Soul's Health Was it not you that God bound to all this The sin and misery of your Child now is so far your curse as you are guilty of it and will add to your misery for ever Such are the sorrows that wicked Parents and wicked Children do prepare and heap on one another Such miseries will come but woe to those by whom they come it had been good for that man that he had never been born § 10. And it is no small grief to faithful Ministers to see their labour so much lost and to see so much evil among their flocks and such sad Prognosticks of worse to come He is no true Minister of Christ as to his own acceptance and Salvation whose heart is not set on the winning and sanctifying and saving of Souls What else do we study for preach for live for long for suffer for in our Work All faithful-Teachers can say with Paul that they are willing to spend and be spent for them and now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord. 2 Cor. 12.15 1 Thes. 3.8 He told them weeping of those that were Enemies to the Cross of Christ whose God was their Belly who glory in their shame and mind earthly things instead of a Conversation in Heaven Phil. 3.18 19. When God hath blessed us with the comfortable enjoyment of many ancient holy Christians who are the beauty and honour of the Assemblies and Death calls home one of them after another to Christ and the rest are ready to depart Alas Must a seed of Serpents come after them Must those take their places to our grief and shame who are bred up to the World and Flesh in Drunkenness Fornication and Enmity to God and a holy Life O what a woful change is this And if any be like to be the stain and Plague of the Church it is such as these If we preach holy truth to them Lust cannot love it If we tell them of Gods word the fleshly mind doth not savour it nor can be subject to it Rom. 8.5 6 7. If we reprove them sharply they smart and hate us If we call them to Confession and Repentance their Pride and Carnality cannot bear it If we excommunicate them for Impenitency as Christ requireth or but deny them the Sacrament as unmeet they rage against us as our fiercest Enemies If we neglect Discipline and admit Swine to the Communion of Saints we harden and deceive them and flatter them in their sin pollute the Church and endanger our Souls by displeasing the chief Pastor What then shall we do with these self-murthering ungodly men Many of them have so much Reverence of a Sacrament or so little regard of it that they never seek it but keep away themselves Perhaps they are afraid left they eat and drink damnation to themselves by the prophanation of holy things But do they think that it is safe to be out of the Church and Communion of Saints because it 's dangerous to abuse it Are Infidels safe because false hearted Christians perish What if breaking your Vows and Covenant be damnable Is it not so to be out of the holy Covenant What if God be a consuming fire to those that draw near him in unrepented heinous sin Is it therefore wise or safe to avoid him Neither those that come not to him nor those that come in their hypocrisie and reigning sin shall be saved And yet what to do with these self-suspenders we know not Are they still Members of the Churches or are they not If they are we are bound to call them to Repentance for forsaking the Communion of Saints in Christs commanded Ordinance If they are not we should make it known that Christians and no Christians may not be confounded and they themselves may understand their case And neither of these can they endure But for dwelling in the Parish and hearing the Liturgy and Sermons must still pass for Church Members lest Discipline should exasperate and further lose them This is that Discipline which is thought worthy the honour of Episcopal Dignity and Revennues and is supposed to make the Church of England the best in the world by the same men that would rage were Discipline exercised on them and must either be admitted to the Sacrament in a life of Fornication Drunkenness Sensuality and Prophaneness without any open Confession Repentance and Reformation or else must pass for Church Members without any exercise of Discipline while they shun the Sacramental Communion of the Church Such work doth wickedness make among us § 11. Indeed these are the men that are the trouble of Families the trouble of Neighbours the trouble of good Magistrates the shame of bad ones and the great danger of the Land All the foreign Enemies whom we talk so much against and fear are not so hurtful and dangerous to us as these These that spring out of your own bowels These that are bred up with care and tenderness and cost in your houses These that should succeed godly Ancestors in Wisdom and well doing and be their glory Who plot against us but home bred sinners Who more hate the good and persecute them Who are more malignant Enemies of Godliness and scorners of a holy Life and hinderers of the Word of God and Patrons of Prophaneness and of Ministers and People that are of the same mind If England be undone as the Eastern Churches and much of the Western are undone it will be by your own carnal ungodly Posterity He that is once a slave to Satan and his fleshly Lust is ready for preferment or a reward to be a slave