their own Endeavours 16. Those that use not their Children as meer patients only to hear what their Parents say but ingage them to constant Endeavours of their own for their own good especially in the reading of Scripture and the most suitable Books and meditating on them and daily personal Prayer to God 17. Lastly Those that pray most heartily and believingly for Gods Grace and his Blessing on their endeavours Such mens Children are usually blessed § 4. But it is no wonder where such means are neglected much more when Parents are ungodly fleshly worldly persons and perhaps Enemies to a holy life if the Children of such are ignorant deluded ungodly and drown'd in fleshly Lusts. And alas it is the multitude of such and their sad conditions which is the occasion of my writing this Epistle § 5. 1. We see to our grief that many Children are of a stupid and unteachable disposition and almost uncapable of Instruction who yet can as quickly learn to talk of common matters as other persons and can as easily learn a Trade or how to do any ordinary business And though some inconsiderate persons overlook the causality of the more immediate Parents sins in such judgments on their Children as if it were only Adam's Sin that hurt them I have elsewhere proved that this is their great and dangerous mistake As David's Child dyed for the Fathers sin the Children of Gluttons Drunkards Fornicators oft contract such bodily distempers as greatly tend to stupifie or further vitiate the mind And their Souls may have sad additions to the common humane pravity 2. Accordingly many Children have more violent passions and carnal desires than others which run them into wicked ways impetuously as if they were almost bruits that had no reason or power to resist And all words and corrections are to them of little force but they are as blocks that when you have said and done what you can go away as if they had not heard you 3. And some have cross and crooked natures addicted to that which is naught and the more by how much the more you do contradict them Froward and obstinate as if it were a desirable Victory to them to overcome their Parents and escape all that would make them wise and good Dogged sour proud self-willed and utterly disobedient 4. And too many have so great an Enmity and aversness to all that is holy spiritual and heavenly that they are weary to hear you talk of it and you persuade them to learn to read to pray to meditate or consider as you persuade a sick man to the meat which he doth loath or a man to dwell with those that he hateth They have no appetite to such things no pleasure in them when you have said all of God and Christ and Glory they believe it not or they savour it not They are things above their reach and love yea things against their carnal minds You tire them worse than if you talk'd in a strange Language to them such enmity is in the heart of corrupted man to God and Heaven till the Grace of the great Reconciler overcome it by a new Life and Light and Love 5. And when custom is added to all these vicious dispositions alas what slaves and drudges of Satan doth it make them For instance 1. Some are so corrupted with the Love of sport that gaming or Stage-plays or one such foolery or another becometh so pleasant to them that they can understand or believe nothing that is said against it by God or man their diseased Phantasie hath so conquered reason that they cannot restrain themselves but in their callings and in religious Exercises they are weary and long to be at their sports and must be gone neither God nor Holiness nor the Joys of Heaven are half so sweet to their thoughts as these are For they have that mark of misery 2 Tim. 3 4. They are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God The same I say of sinful mirth and the company which doth cherish it Little do they believe Solomon Eccles. 7.2 3 4. It is better to go to the House of Mourning than to go to the House of Feasting For that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart Sorrow is better than Laughter For by the sadness of the Countenance the Heart is made better The Heart of the wise is in the House of Mourning but the Heart of fools is in the House of Mirth It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the Song of fools For as the crackling of Thorns under a Pot so is the Laughter of Fools It 's true that Mirth is very desirable to nature And God is not against it but much more for it than sinners will believe But it is a rational Mirth which beseemeth a rational Creature and such as he can justifie and as will make him better and tends to felicity and everlasting mirth and not the causeless mirth of mad men that set their house on fire and then laugh and sing over it nor like the mirth of a drunken man whose shame exposeth him to pitty or derision nor any such mirth as leadeth a man from God to sin and keepeth him from the way of man-like and everlasting joy and prepareth for the greatest sorrows 2. There are some so enslaved to their Appetites that their Reason hath no power to rule them but like bruits they must needs have what the Belly and Throat desire And if they be the Children of the Rich who have always full and pleasant food constant flesh-pleasing and true Gluttony is taken for no sin and like Swine they do but live to eat whereas they should but eat to live and chearfully serve God But it 's never so dangerous as when it turneth to the love of drink Then the pleasing of the Throat the pleasing of the Brain by mirth going together do so much corrupt the appetite and fantasie that their thoughts run after it and reason hath no power to shut their Mouths nor keep them from the House of Sin Some sin against an accusing Conscience and under their convictions and Terrors do drink on which yet they could forbear if they knew there were Poison in the Cup. Some are more miserable and have sinned themselves into fearedness of Conscience and past feeling and perhaps into infidelity and a blinded mind persuading them that there is no great harm or danger in the Sin and that it is but some precise people that make so great a matter of it And some that have purposes to forsake the sin when appetite stirs forget it all and when Company enticeth and when they see the Cup they have no power to forbear O what a pittiful sight it is to see men in the flower of Youth and Strength when they should most rejoyce in God and Holiness to be still thirsty after a forbidden pleasure and hasting to the Tavern
to the Lust of any other He that is false to his God and Saviour after his Baptismal Vows is unlike to be true to his Country or his King if he have but the bait of a strong temptation And he that will sell his Soul his God and Heaven for a Whore or for to please his Appetite it 's like will not stick to betray Church or State or his dearest Friend for provision to satisfie these Lusts. Can you expect that he should love any man better than himself A wicked fleshly worldly man is a soil for Satan to sow the seeds in of any sort of actual sin and is fuel dryed or tinder for the sparks of Hell to kindle in Will he suffer much for God or his Country who will sell Heaven for nothing An evil Tree bringeth forth evil Fruit. If he hath the heart of an Achan a Gehazi an Achitophel no wonder if he hath their Actions and their Reward If he be a Thief and bear the Bag no wonder if Iudas sell his Master § 12. And these wretches if they live are like to be a Plague to their own posterity Woe to the Woman that hath such an Husband And how are the Children like to be bred that have such a Father Doth not God threaten punishment to the third and fourth Generation of them that hate him and to visit the iniquity of the Fathers on the Children Were not the Children of the old World drowned and those of Sodom and Gomorrah burned and Achans stoned Dathans Abirams swallowed up and Gehazi's struck with Leprosie c. for their Fathers sins And the Amalekites Children all destroyed and the posterity of the Infidel Jews forsaken the Curse coming on them and on their Children And as their Children are like to speed the worse for such Parents sins so are such Parents like to be requited by their Children As you shamed and grieved the hearts of your Parents so may your Children do by you And by that time it 's like if Grace convert you not though you have no hatred to your own sins worldly Interest may make you dislike your Childrens Their Lust and Appetite doth not tempt and deceive you as your own did Perhaps when they shame your Family debauch themselves with drink and Whores and consume the Estates which you sold your Souls for you may perceive that sin is an evil and destructive thing especially when they proceed to despise and abuse your persons also and to desire your Death and be a weary of you sooner or later you shall know better what sin is CHAP. VI. The joyful State and Blessing of good Children to themselves and others § 1. FRom what is said Chap. 2. and 5. it 's easie to gather how joyful a case to themselves and what a Blessing to Parents and others it is when Children betime are sober wise and godly and obedient The difference doth most appear at age and when they come to bring forth to themselves and others the fruits of their dispositions And the end and life to come will shew the greatest difference But yet even here and that betime the difference is very great § 2. I. As to themselves How blessed a state is it to be quickly delivered from the danger of damnation and Gods displeasure that they need not lie down and rise in fear lest they be in Hell whenever Death removeth them from the Body Can one too soon be out of so dreadful a state Can one that is in a house on fire or falln into the Sea make too much haste to be delivered If a man deep in debt be restless till it be paid and glad when it is discharged If a man in danger of sickness or a condemning Sentence of the Judge be glad when the fear of Death is over How glad should you be to be safe from the great danger of Damnation And till you are sanctified by Grace you are far from safety § 3. And if a mans Sickness Pain or Distraction be a Calamity the cure of which brings ease and joy How much more ease and joy may it bring to be cured from all the grievous Maladies of reigning sin Sanctification will cure your minds of spiritual blindness and madness that is of damnable Ignorance Unbelief and Error It will cure your affections of idolatrous distracting carnal Love of the itch of fleshly Desires or Lusts of the feaver of revengeful passions and malignant hatred to goodness and good men and of self vexing envy and malice against others of the greedy worm of Covetousness and the drunken desire of ambitious and imperious minds It will cure your Wills of their fleshly servitude and biass and of that mortal Backwardness to God and holy things and that sluggish dulness and lothness to choose and do what you are convinced must be done It will make good things easie and pleasant to you so that you will no more think you have need to beg mirth from the Devil or steal it from sin as if God Grace and Glory had none for you But it will be so easie to you to love and find pleasure in the Bible and good Books in good Company and good Discourse in spiritual Meditations and thoughts in holy Sermons Prayers and Church Communion and Sacraments even in Christ in God and the fore-thoughts of Heaven that you will be sorry and ashamed to think that ever you forsook such joys for fleshly pleasure and defiled your Souls with filthy and forbidden things And is not the itch of Lust better cured than scratch'd Is not the feaverish and dropsie thirst after Drink and Wealth and Honour better cured than pleased to the sinners death And is not a lazy backwardness to Duty better cured by spiritual health than pleased with idleness and sleep § 4. And certainly you cannot too soon attain the delights of Faith and Hope and Love of holy Knowledge and Communion with God and Saints You cannot too soon have the great blessing of Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and live night and day in peace of Conscience in assurance that all your sins are pardoned and that you are the adopted Sons of God and Heirs of Heaven sealed by his Spirit accepted in your Prayers welcome to God through Christ and when you die shall be with him Can you make too great haste from the folly and filth of sin and the danger of Hell into so safe and good a state as this § 5. And it will be a great comfort to you thus to find at age and use of reason that your baptismal Blessings ceased not with your Infancy by your own rejection but that you are now by your own consent in the Bond of God's Covenant and have a right to all the blessings of it which the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood will confirm as you had your Entrance by your Parents consent and accepted Dedication For the Covenant of Grace is our certain Charter for Grace
and Glory § 6. And is it not a joy to you to be your Parents joy To find them love you not only as their Children but as Gods Love maketh it sweet to us to please and be beloved by those whom we love If it be not your grief to grieve your Parents and your pleasure to please them you love them not but are void of natural affection § 7. And O what a mercy will you find it when you come to age and business in the World 1. That you come with a clear Conscience not clogged terrified and shamed with the sins of your Youth 2. And that you come not utterly unfurnished with the knowledge Righteousness and Virtue which you must make use of in every condition all your lives when others are like Lads that will go to the Universities before they can so much as read or write To live in a Family of your own and to trade and converse in the World and specially to go to Church to hear to pray to communicate in private to pray to meditate in a word to live or die like a Christian like a man without the furniture of Wisdom Faith and serious Godliness is more impossible and unwise than to go to Sea without Provision or to War without Arms or to become a Priest without Book or understanding § 8. II. And you that are young men can scarce conceive what a joy a wise and godly Child is to his wise and godly Parents Read but Pro. 10.1 13.1 17.2 25. 19.13 26. 27.11 23.15 19 24 c. The Prayers and Instructions of your Parents are comfortable to them when they see the happy fruit and answer They fear not Gods Judgments upon their houses as they would do if you were Cains or Chams or Absaloms They labour comfortably and comfortably leave you their Estates at death when they see that they do not get and leave it for those that will serve the Devil with it and consume it on their Lusts but will use it for God for the Gospel and their Salvation If you fall sick and die before them they can rejoyce that you are gone to Christ and need not mourn as David for Absalom that you go to Hell If you overlive them they leave the world the easier when they leave as it were part of themselves here behind them who will carry on the work of God which they lived for and be blessings to the world when they are gone § 9. III. And O what a mercy is it to Church and State to have our posterity prove better than we have been and do God more Service than we have done and take warning by our faults to avoid the like Solomon tells us of one poor wise man that saved a City And God would have spared Sodom had there been but ten righteous Persons in it Wherever yet I lived a few persons have proved the great blessings of the place to be Teachers Guides and Exemplary to others as the little Leaven that leaveneth the Lump and as the Stomach Liver and other nutritive parts are to the Body Blessed is that Church that City that Country that Kingdom that hath a wise and just and holy People The nearest good and evil are the greatest Our Estates are not so near us as Wives and Children nor they so near us as our Bodies nor they so much to us as our Souls It 's more to a Person House or Country what they are than what they have or what others do for them or against them It is these that are Gods Children as well as ours that are the Blessing so often mentioned in the Scripture who will as the Rechabites obey their Fathers wholsom Counsels rather than their Lusts and carnal Companions and God before all Who walk not in the Counsel of the Vngodly nor stand in the way of Sinners nor sit in the seat of the scornful But their Delight is in the Law of the Lord and in that Law they meditate day and night Psal. 1. Lo such Children are an heritage of the Lord such fruit of the Womb is his Reward They are as Arrows in the hand of a mighty man Happy is the man that hath his Quiver full of them They shall not be ashamed but they shall speak with the Enemies in the gate Psal. 127.3 4 5. Were it not for wise and godly Children to succeed us Religion and Peace and all publick good would be but as we frail mortals are like the Grass or Flowers of a few days or years continuance and the difference between a Church and no Church between a Kingdom of Christians and of Infidels would be but like the difference between our waking and our sleeping time so short as would make it the less considerable CHAP. VII Vndeniable Reasons for Repentance and speedy amendment of those that have lived a fleshly and ungodly Life By way of Exhortation § 1. ANd now the Commands of God the Love of my Country and the Church the Love of Piety true Prosperity and Peace and the Love of Mankind even of your own Souls and Bodies do all command me to become once more an earnest suiter to the Youth of this Land especially of London who have hitherto miscarried and lived a fleshly sinful life Thousands such as you are dead in sin and past our warning and past all hope and help for ever Thousands that laught at Judgment and Damnation are now feeling that which they would not believe By the great mercy of God it is not yet the case of you who read these words but how soon it may be if you are yet unsanctified you little know O that you knew what a mercy it is to be yet alive and after so many sins and dangers to have one to warn you and offer you Salvation and to be yet in possibility and in a state of hope In the name of Christ I most earnestly intreat you a little while trie to use your reason and use it seriously in retired sober Consideration till you have first well perused the whole course of your lives and remembred what you have done and how Till you have thought what you have got or lost by sinning and why you did it and whether it was justifiable reason which led you to it and such as you will stand to in your sober thoughts yea such as you will stand to before God at last Consider seriously what comes next and whither you are going and whether your life have fitted you for your journeys end and how your ways will be reviewed ere long and how they will appear to you and tast at death Judgment and in the world to come Hold on and think soberly a little while what is in your Hearts and what is their condition what you most love and what you hate and whether God or sinful pleasure be dearer and more delightful to you and how you stand affected and related to the World that you are
not help your selves Doubtless one reason why God hath put so strong a love in Parents to their Children and made your Birth and Breeding so costly to your Mothers and made the Milk which is formed in her own Body to be the first nourishment of your lives is to oblige you to answerable Love and Obedience And if after all this you prove worse than Bruits and become the grief of their Souls that thus bred and loved and nourished you do you think God will not at last make this far sadder to you than ever it was to them If cruelty to an enemy much more to a stranger to a neighbour to a friend be so hateful to the God of Love that it goeth not unrevenged O what will unnatural cruelty to Parents bring upon you Yea even in this Life as honouring Father and Mother hath a special promise of prosperity and long life so dishonouring and grieving Parents is usually punished with some notable calamity as a forerunner of the great revenge hereafter And you cannot but perceive that such as live in Sensuality and Lust and Wickedness are the great troublers of Church and State God himself hath said it There is no peace to the wicked Isa. 48.52 and 57 21. For the wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt There is no peace saith my God to the wicked v. 22. Isa. 59.8 The way of peace they know not there is no judgment in their goings They have made them crooked paths whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace They give no peace to others and God will deny peace to themselves Yea the nature of their own sin denieth it them as broken Bones and griping sickness deny ease to the Body And can you think you shall become the shame of the Church and the troublers of the Land and that God will not trouble you for it If you will be enemies of God and your Country you will prove the sorest Enemies to your selves And who is the gainer by all this No one in the World unless you will call it the Devil's gain to have his malicious cruel Will fulfilled And sure the pleasing the Devil and a fleshly Lust Fancy or Appetite can never compensate all your losses nor comfort you under the sufferings which you wilfully bring upon your selves Young Men the reason I thus deal with you by way of question is that I may if possible engage your own thoughts in answering them For I find most are aptest to learn of themselves And indeed without your selves and your own serious thoughts we cannot help you to true understanding He that readeth the wisest Lecture to Boys or Men that take no heed to what is said yea or that will not make it their own study to understand and remember doth but cast away his labour It 's hard saving any man from himself but there is no saving any man without himself and his own consent and labour If you will but now take these twenty questions in secret into your serious thoughts and consider of them till you can give them such an answer as reason should allow and as you will stand to before God when the mouth of all iniquity shall be stopt I should not doubt but you will reap the benefit O what should a man do that pittieth blind and wilful sinners to make them willing of their own recovery Here all stops And must it stop at this Are you not willing And will you not so much as consider of the reasons that should make you willing when Heaven or Hell must be the consequence O what a thing is a blind mind and a dead and hardened heart What a befooling thing is fleshly Lust O what need had mankind of a Saviour And what need have all of a Sanctifier and of his holy word and of all the holy means of Grace Poor sinners O let not your Teachers and your Parents Counsel and Tears be brought in as witnesses against you to your condemnation O add not this to all their griefs that their Counsel and their Sorrows must sink you deeper into Hell Alas it were sadness enough to them to see that it is all in vain Let not this Counsel of mine to you be rejected to the increase of your guilt and misery If it do you no good it will leave you worse Were I present with you I should not think it too much would that prevail to kneel to you to beg that you would but well consider your own case and ways and think before of what will follow And that you will study a wise and satisfactory answer to the questions put to you till you are resolved Your case is not desperate Mercy is yet offered you The day of Grace is not yet past God is not unwilling to receive you Christ is not unwilling to be your Saviour if you consent No difficulty in the world maketh us afraid of your damnation but your own foolish choice and wicked Wills Our care is not to make God merciful nor to make Christs merits and sacrifice sufficient nor to get God to promise you pardon if you repent and come to him by Christ All this is done already but that which is undone is to make you considerate and truly willing and to live as those that indeed are willing to let go the poisonous pleasures of sin and to take God and Heaven for your hope and port on and to be saved and ruled by Christ and sanctified by his Spirit and to receive his daily help and mercies to this end in the use of his appointed means and without this you are undone for ever And is there any hurt in all this If there were is it worse than the filth of sin and the Plagues that follow here and for ever Worthy is he to bear at last Depart from me thou worker of iniquity and to be thrust away from the hopes of Heaven that after all that can be said and done chuseth sin as more desirable than this God this Saviour this Sanctifier and this Glory CHAP. VIII General Directions to the willing THough the blindness and obstinacy of fleshly Sinners too oft frustrate great endeavours yet we may well hope that the Prayers and tears of Parents and the calls of God may prevail with many and I may hope that some that have read what is before written will say We are willing to hear and learn that we may be saved tell us what it is that we must do And on that hope I shall give such miscarrying Youth some General Advice and some Counsel about their particular cases and all as briefly as I may O that the Lord would make you that read this truly willing to practise these ten Directions following How happy yet may you be I. Set your Vnderstandings seriously and diligently to the work which they are made for and consider well what is your Interest and your Duty till you come to a
it But they think they owe more belief and reverence to a Learned Reverend Preacher in the Pulpit even when he preacheth against preaching and against those that practise what he teacheth them at other times O how much of his work hath Satan done in the World by corrupting Sacred Offices and by getting HIS SERVANTS INTO RVLE and MINISTRY TO DO HIS WORK AS FOR CHRIST and his Church and by his authority and in his name Our natural enmity with the Serpent disswadeth him from speaking or sending to us in his own name Should one say in the Pulpit Thus saith the Devil hate Christs servants silence his Ministers call serious Godliness Hypocrisie which is the contrary to Hypocrisie I should not much fear his success with any but if he be a lying Spirit in the mouth of Ahabs Prophets and can get a Prophet to smite Michaiah for pretending to more of the Spirit than he had or if he can get men in the Sacred Office to say Thus saith the Lord when they speak for sin or against the Lord this is the Devils prosperous way § 13. II. I have told you what Plagues bad Clergy men will be and still have been to themselves to the souls of men and to the publick State of Churches and Kingdoms and were it not lest my Writing should be too large I should tell you what Blessings on the contrary Able and Faithful Ministers are Briefly 1. Christ maketh them the cheif instruments for the propagating of his Truth and Kingdom in the World for the gathering of Churches and preserving and defending contradicted Truth They are the Lights of the World and the Salt of the Earth All Christians are bound to teach or help each others in charity but Christs Ministers are set in his Church as Parents in Families to do it by Office And therefore must be qualified above others for it and be wholly dedicated to it and attend continually on it as a Physitian differeth from every Neighbour who may help you in your sores or sickness as they can so do the Pastors of the Church differ from private helpers of your Souls The Scripture is preserved and delivered down by the private means of all the Faithful but eminently by the publick Office of the Pastors It may be expounded and applyed privately by any able Christian but the Pastors do it eminently by Office and to them especially though to all Christians commonly are committed the Oracles of God The Priests lips must preserve knowledge and men should enquire of the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 Never yet was the Gospel well propagated nor continued in any Country in the World but by the means of the Ministers of Christ And O! what difference hath there been in their successes as they differed in ability piety and diligence And how great an honour is it to be such blessed instruments of building up the house of God and propagating the Gospel and the Kingdom of Christ and the Christian Faith and Godliness in the World 2. And thus God useth them as his special instruments for the Convincing Converting Edifying Comforting and Saving of Souls Others may be blest herein But the special blessing goeth along with those that are specially obliged to the work which is Parents in Families and Pastors in the Church O how many thousand Souls in Heaven will for ever rejoyce in the effects of the Labours of Faithful Ministers and bless God for them And what an honour what a comfort is it to have a hand in such a work He that Converteth a sinner from the Errour of his way doth save a Soul from death and cover a multitude of sins Jam. last 3. And in this they are Co-workers with Jesus Christ the great Saviour of Souls and with the Holy Spirit the Regenerator and Sanctifier Yea Christ doth very much of the work of his Salvation by them when he ascended on high he gave gifts to men for the edifying of his body till they come to a perfect man Eph. 4.6 to 16. and when the Chief Shephard shall appear they shall receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 5.4 and shall hear well done good and faithful Servant Hence are the Streams of Consolation that make glad the City of God and daily refresh many thousand precious Souls For how shall men believe without a Preacher and how shall they Preach unless they be sent qualified obliged and authorized by Christ Rom. 10. 4. In a word Churches States and Christian Kingdoms are chiefly blest and preserved by the Labour of the faithful part of the Ministry For 1 If we have the rare blessing of a wise and holy and loving Magistracy it is usually by the success of the labours of the Ministry 2 And there is no better means to bring the Subjects to the Conscionable performance of their Duty to Superiours 3 And by the blessing of their Labour the sins of a Nation are prevented or healed which would else bring down Gods heavy Judgments 4 They teach people to live in Love and Peace with one another and to abhor Contention Cruelty Oppression Injury and Revenge and all to do their several duties to promote the common Good 5 When the ignorant and slothful and scandalous sort of bad Ministers betray Souls and would bring the Ministry and Religion into contempt it is a wise and holy Ministry that counter-worketh them by labouring while others are idle and doing that wisely which others do foolishly and shewing in their lives the power of that truth which others disgrace and the reality of that Holiness Love Justice Peace and Concord which others would banish out of the World by making it seem but a name or Image 6 VVhen proud men tear the Church by the Engines of their domineering VVits and VVills these humble Pastors as the servants of all will labour to heal it by Christian meekness and condescension VVhen malignant Priests seek to strengthen themselves by the multitude of the ungodly and to bring serious piety into contempt which doth molest them these faithful Pastors open the just disgrace of sin and the great necessity and honour of holiness endeavouring that vile persons may be contemned and those may be honoured that fear the Lord Psal. 15.4 and distinguishing the precious from the vile the righteous from the wicked and him that sweareth from him that feareth an Oath and him that serveth God from him that serveth him not God saith They are as his mouth Jer. 15.19 Mal. 3.17 18. Eccl. 9.2 To be short as An Ignorant Worldly Carnal Proud Vnholy sort of Prelates and Priests are and have been the great Plague of the Churches these 1300 years at least so the Skilful Holy Humble Faithful Laborious Patient Ministers of Christ have been and still are the great blessings of the World for saving Souls promoting Knowledge Faith Holiness Love and Peace opposing Errour Pride Oppression VVorldliness Sensuality
and Contention diverting Gods Judgments by Faith and Prayer forsaking all for Christ and patiently suffering for well doing and by Doctrine and Example teaching men to difference the Creator from the Creature Holiness from Sin Heaven from Earth Soul from the Body the Spirit from the Flesh and helping men to prepare by a mortified heavenly heart and life for a comfortable death and endless happiness Of such vast importance is it to the world whether the Clergy be good or bad skilful or unskilful holy or worldly and he is not a true Christian that is insensible of the difference or thinks it small And now do I need to say any more to shew young men designed for the Ministry of what importance it is that they be well prepared and qualified for it God can and sometime doth turn VVolves into faithful Shepherds and convert those that being unconverted undertake the work that should convert others and give wisdom and grace to ignorant and graceless Preachers of wisdom and grace But this is not ordinarily to be expected But as youth is trained up and disposed they commonly prove when they come to age Their first notions lie deepest and make way for their like and resist all that is contrary be it never so true and good and necessary Experience tells this to all the world Those that in youth are trained in Heathenism Mahometanism Popery or any distinct sect of Christians they commonly continue such especially if they live among those who are for it and so make it their Interest in reputation or wealth And if the Rulers and Times should be but Erroneous Heretical or Malignant at enmity to Truth and serious holiness alas how hard is it for ill-taught youth to resist the Stream How hard is it to unteach them the Errours which they first learnt A Vomit may easily bring up that which was but lately eaten but the yellow and the green humors that lie deep must cost heart-gripes before they will be cast up False Opinions as well as Truths are usually linkt together and the chain is neither easily cast off nor broken And they that have received Errours have received their defensatives These are like the Shell-fish that carry their house about them They have studied what to say for it but not what can be said against it or which is worse by a slight and false consideration of the arguments for Truth they have disabled them from doing them any good And if they had never so true Notions in their Memories if they come not in power on their hearts and make them not new spiritual holy men these will not master fleshly Lusts nor overcome ambitious and worldly Inclinations nor make men fit to propagate that Faith and Holiness which they never had And it is now that you must get those eminent qualifications of Knowledge and Holiness which you must after use And how will you use that which you have not And yet proud hearts how empty soever will be desirous of esteem and reputation and will hardly bear vilifying contempt or disregard When as though some few prudent hearers will encourage such young men as they think are hopeful yet most will judge of things and persons as they find them The ignorant dry and lifeless Orations of unexperienced carnal Preachers will not be magnified by such as know what Iudgment and holy Seriousness that place and sacred work require Few will much praise or feed on unsavoury or insippid Food meerly to flatter and please the Cook And then when you find that you are slighted for your slight and unskilful work your stomachs will rise against those that slight you and so by selfishness you will turn malignant and become Enemies to those that you take for Enemies to you because they are not contented with your unholy trifling And all your enmity will turn against your self and be like Satans against the members of Christs which is but his own self-tormenting § 15. II. The Case being so important I shall briefly conjoyn your Danger and your Remedy beseeching you as you have any care for your Souls your Country or the Church of God or any thing which Faith or reason should regard that you will soberly weigh the Counsel that I give you I. The first of your dangers which I shall mention lieth in a too hasty resolving for the Sacred Ministry Pious and prudent desires and purposes I would not discourage But two sorts of Parents in this prove greatly injurious to the Church First Worldly men that set their Sons to the Universities in order to their worldly Maintenance and Preferment looking at the Ministry meerly as a Profession or Trade to live by Secondly and many honest godly Parents ignorantly think it a good work to design their Children to the Ministry and call it a devoting them to God without due considering whether they are like to be fit for it or not And when they have bin some years at the University they think a Parsonage or Vicarage is their due Ordained they must be what have they else studied for It s too late now to change their purposes when they have been at seven years cost and labour to prepare for the Ministry They are too old and too proud to go Apprentices or Servants Husbandmen they cannot be They are used to an idler kind of Life To be Lawyers will cost them more time and study than they can now afford having lost so much and there are more already than can have practice Physicians are already so many that the younger sort know not how to live though they would for money venture on their Neighbours lives to their greater danger than I am willing to express So that there is no way left but for a Benefice to become Church Mountebanks and Quacks and undertake the Pastoral care of Souls before they well know what Souls are or what they are made for or whither they are going or how they must be conducted and prepared for their endless state And it seems to some the glory of a Nation to have many thousand such Lads at the Universities more than there be Cures or Churches in the Land all expecting that their Friends should procure them Benefices And they must be very ignorant and bad indeed that cannot find some Ministers so bad as to certifie that they are sober and of good lives and some Patrons so bad as to like such as they and for favour or somewhat worse to present them and some Bishops Chaplain bad enough to be favourable in examining them and then some Bishop bad enough to ordain and institute them And by that time nine Thousand such youths have got Benefices alas what a case will the Churches and the poor peoples Souls be in § 16. I. And what remedy is there for this That which I have now to propose is first to tell you who they be that should be devoted to the Ministry and next what both Parents and you should