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A61859
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Lessons moral and Christian, for youth and old age in two sermons preach'd at Guildhall Chappel, London : chiefly intended for the use of this city / by John Stryp ...
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Strype, John, 1643-1737.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing S6022; ESTC R33818
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27,625
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134
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vigorous so they are more violently carried out towards external Objects that promise them Pleasure in the Enjoyment And they cannot bear any Restraint They must have their Desires however inconvenient or unlawful they be Their Lusts and their Appetites and Passions must be satisfied And they will break through all Bars and Impediments whatsoever for the Gratification thereof The Pleasures and Vanities of the World impetuously assault them and they cannot withstand And they want an Ear to listen to Reason and good Counsel whensoever these would stop them in their Careers Their Humours must be gratified whatever come of it And it is not Counsel and Consideration nothing but Force can keep them in And therefore it is so necessary for such to be under Tutors and Governours And this is the proper Weakness and Frailty of Young Men Great Addictedness to Pleasure and Violent Pursuits of it Now the contrary to this is Modesty or Sobriety Which therefore Titus is bid here to take care to exhort them to To be Sober-minded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It signifies to use a Bridle to be Modest and to keep in our Lusts and our Passions within their due Bounds and Limits That we gratify them not at any time or in any thing whatever Cravings they make if God forbid it if Reason disallow it if it draw Sin or Inconveniency after it if God should be thereby disobeyed or Religion dishonoured or if it bring a Guilt upon Conscience And thus you have seen what it is to be Sober-minded and what Reason the Apostle had to advise Titus to exhort Young Men so to be My Business now shall be only I. To do that which the Apostle here exhorts Titus and in him all Gospel Ministers to do namely To instruct Young Men to be Sober-minded II. That my Exhortation may take the better Effect I shall propound to them divers Motives and Considerations And III. I shall Conclude all with some short Address to them I. To Exhort Young Men to be Sober-minded And they have certainly great need of it because there are so few that are so The younger sort is sadly corrupted and vitiated ever from their tender Age. They have imbibed loose Principles that may best comport with loose Inclinations and suit to their Lusts. And as they grow up in Years they grow up as fast in Folly and Rashness They do not love Advice and Detest sober Counsel and hate to be checked in their Pursuits and Appetites and are apt to despise and scoff at their Elders and to think themselves far wiser than they That they may the more securely and uncontrollably follow their Vanities And so they commonly stain their Souls with grievous Blots of Sin and Wickedness It is a sad Consideration indeed to observe how viciously disposed the Youth of our Age for the most part is And it is a rare thing to see a Man young in Years Sober and Modest in his Manners Ingenuous in his Behaviour choosing good Courses and treading in the Steps of Virtue This I say is somewhat rare to see scarce one in a Thousand And this I speak not only of the Youth of the common sort but of the Superiour Ranks and Degrees among us the Children of Worshipful and Honourable Families Who if they live must have a great Influence upon many their Dependents their Servants Tenants and Inferiours that will follow their Example So that whole Towns whole Counties the whole Kingdom is in danger to be corrupted and spoiled by their Means And therefore surely there is high Reason most earnestly to deal with Youth by all the Ways and Means possible to Season their early Years with Sobriety to excite them to be Wise and to lay Restraint upon themselves and to prevail upon them not to run out into those Excesses of Riot and Wantonness that others do To all Young Men therefore I say as St. Paul did to young Timothy Flee also youthful Lusts. But follow Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure Heart 2 Tim. II. 22 Flee these Lusts as ye would flee from a Serpent For they have as much deadly Venom But that my Exhortation may take the better Effect II. I shall in the next place propound divers Motives and Considerations for this Purpose 1. Let young Men consider Seriously what Obligations lye upon them from God Oh! let them remember how peculiarly good and gracious he hath been to them And will not they express their Sense of Gratitude to this their good God by being Sober and keeping his Commandments It was his Goodness that brought them into the World and provided them kind and indulgent Parents that cherished them and most tenderly brought them up in their helpless Infancy Their helpless Infancy I say For a Humane Creature of all others when it is first born is most unable to help it self and must inevitably perish from the very Womb without the mere Mercy of God encline others to interpose their tender Care of it to feed and cloath and keep it warm and defend it from Injury This is God's Goodness thus to incline the Hearts of others to us in this poor forlorn State wherein we are cast when we first come into the World And it is God's Goodness still to us that under all the Troubles and Sorrows we create our Parents and Friends and our many unhansome and disobliging Carriages towards them while we are thus young their Tenderness and Patience towards us still perseveres and holds out And as we grow up in Days and Months and Years they take care of our Youth to Educate and Instruct us and to Supply us with whatsoever we need Streightning themselves for our Accommodation and procure to have us informed in such Knowledge Arts and Sciences as may enable us to provide for our Selves and to live comfortably when they are dead and gone and can take no more Care of us These Instincts of Love Tenderness and Kindness are all owing to God that inspired our Friends and Relations with these Indulgences towards us Moreover 't is his Goodness to thee O Young Man that he hath made thee a Rational Creature given thee Reason and Understanding and advanced thee above the Rank of inferiour Creatures That teacheth thee more than the Beasts of the Earth and maketh thee Wiser than the Fouls of Heaven Job xxxv 11 It is Elihu's Contemplation Again It is his Goodness to thee O young Man that when thou hast not remembred thy Creator but hast so often and so sadly forgotten him he hath spared thee and not punished thee with some grievous Judgment in the Act and Commission of thy Sin Thou hast broken his holy and awful Commandments it may be from the first Commandment to the last notwlthstanding thou hast known them and been taught them by thy Parents and by thy Instructers Nay and in the mean while thou hast been so far from Repentance that thou hast hardly been sensible what
a young Rebel thou hast been to thy great and good God And yet he hath forbore to strike thee as he justly might This and a great deal more might be added to shew what mighty Obligations young Men lye under to their Maker And should not this stir them up to love and fear him and to restrain themselves from doing any thing to offend and anger him but rather to lead their future Lives in that Sobriety Care and Watchfulness that would be so acceptable to him 2. Young Men have a Prospect of a longer Tract of Time to live than the more Elderly And therefore Sobriety is necessary for them that they may order and dispose themselves that the Series and Course of their Lives may be comfortable and happy to them Which it cannot be if Men begin with Vice and Licentiousness Man's Life is a Race Now if a Man were to run a Race and should set out with all the Violence and Irregularity that ever he could he were like to Tire before he were got half way And so should render all the rest of his Way very wearisome and irksome to him But if he began with more Deliberation and set out with more Sobriety he would with more Ease and Comfort hold out all along the rest of the Way he was to go And just so it is with our Lives Most Men set out this Race of humane Life with a violent Propension to Evil and a continual Gratification of the Lusts and Desires of the Flesh Spend their Health and their Credit and their Estates oftentimes too in Debauchery and Disorder And so the Thred of their Lives is either cut off in the midst or if it be not all the rest is spent in Vexation and Trouble in Sickness Sorrow in Poverty and a Thousand Miseries that our first and early Follies have drawn upon us And therefore O young Man as thou wouldst pass that Life that God hath allotted thee in this World how long or how short soever it be with Peace and Comfort the best way is to begin it well and to avoid those Follies and Errors that are so apt to defile that Age. For 3. Consider further how the Sins of our Youth will create much Uneasiness and Sorrow afterward when we grow further into years And this will appear in these two respects First God sometimes punisheth a Man many years after for the Iniquities of his Youth There be many Afflictions and Calamities that befall us from the Hand of God which make our Lives not seldom very grievous unto us And in our Search into the Causes of them one Rank of them must be the Sins of our Youth To this it was that Iob attributed his present Extremities Iob xiii 26 Thou makest me to possess the Iniquities of my Youth Iob was a good Man He set God's Fear before his Eyes and particularly he was a Man of great Charity and large Compassion to all poor necessitous People And that made him speak so largely in his own Justification But yet he was it seems in his early Age carried away as well as others with youthful Lusts and Pleasures and did not remember his Creatour as he should have done in those days And this he concludes was a Reason why God laid his Hand so heavy upon him Thou makest me to possess the Iniquities of my Youth And that is the Observation that Zophar one of Iob's Friends makes of those that begin early in Sin That their Bones are full of the Sins of their Youth Job xx 11 It seems to mean those Diseases that the Sins of Men's Youth oftentimes leave behind them in their Bodies It sticks to their very Bones and is appointed by God to be a severe Remembrancer as long as they live of the vile and wretched Courses that they took when they were young Why did David pray to God not to remember the Sins of his Youth Remember not Lord the Sins of my Youth Psal. xxv 7 Remember them not now O Lord in mine elder Age to punish me for them David had left the Vanities of his Youth and was become a Man after God's own Heart and yet David met with very great Afflictions and Sufferings and God seemed â—n them to have remembred the Sins and Follies of his Youth For God tho he Pardoneth Sins and imputeth not unto us our former Iniquities where he sees a penitent and reformed Heart and Life yet it is seldom but he takes some temporary Punishments upon Man for them first or last As he pardoned the Sin of the Golden Calf yet when he Visited he would visit upon the Israelites that Sin And therefore a good Man as long as he lives in his Prayers and Devotions among the rest of his Sins prays for the Pardon of his Youthful Sins and that God would be merciful to him and not punish him for them which he very often doth to the rendring the Christian's Life bitter unto him it may be as long as he lives Secondly The Sins of your Youth will create much Uneasiness and Sorrow to you in respect of the Reflexions that your Consciences will make against you many years after The Remembrance of your former Sins will be like a heavy Burden upon your Conscience Conscience will put you in mind it may be twenty or thirty or forty years after of the Wickedness of your Youth of your Lyes and Shifts to conceal your Extravagances of your Disobedience and Obstinacy to your indulgent Parents of your Scoffing at their good Counsels of your Stealing from them to spend upon your Lusts of the Griefs and Afflictions you have caused to their gray Heads and of all the rest of your Uncleanness of your Debaucheries and Excesses And if you have any Grace in you and have not utterly sinned away Conscience these things will now and then fly in your Face and be like so many Worms to bite and sting your very Hearts I dare appeal for the Truth of this unto your Selves as many as God hath given Grace unto afterward to grow wiser and better how your youthful Lusts and Sins do rise up sometimes and reproach and upbraid you and the thoughts that you have been so bad and committed so much Sin in secret do still by Fits molest and trouble you I have known a Person that hath condoled to me some particular Follies and Errors of his Youth thirty or forty years after with excessive Bitterness and Anguish of Mind And tho as he told me he had most heartily repented of those Rashnesses and Sins yet the Conscience thereof made his whole Life uncomfortable to him and so interrupted his Devotions and Services of God that he could not look up to him with any Comfort but was so Self-condemned that he was afraid that God would throw all his Service like Dung back into his Face because they proceeded from so unworthy a Wretch as he had been And therefore let that be another Motive to young People to take