needful work for the Lord's sake apply to it with diligence and chearfulness what your hand findeth to do herein do with all your might And since your planting and watering will turn to no account unless God give the increase begin and second all these holy endeavours with prayer Beg of God that he would open their understandings and hearts that he would work together with you and by you and that he would be pleased to out-do you that he would work that in them and for them which you cannot III. Considâ—r seriously whose your Children and Servants are they are yours yea and they are God's as well as yours God's more than yours First They are yours Your Children are yours by Nature begotten or born of you parts of your selves from you under God they had their Being Your Servants are yours by Compact or Covenant And here let us call again to mind what was said before they are both your Charge and therefore they ought to be your Care you are to look to them you will look to your Money and Goods and not lose them if you can help it The Countrey-man will look to his Corn and Cattel that he may not lose them and is there not reason for as great care here and greater too Our Saviour said It is the will of him that sent me that of all whom he hath given me I should lose none and I am sure it is so here It is the will of him that sent you into the World that of all whom he hath given you you should lose none There may be indeed as there was in Christ's Family so in yours a Son a Daughter of Perdition who lose themselves who will ruin and destroy themselves and their Blood will be upon their own heads But have you a care that you do not lose them through your wilful carelesness and neglect For as I have said they are your Charge and believe me the Charge of a Family is a great Charge of mighty weight and importance as all the World all ranks and degrees of Men will find it when that day shall come in which the Eternal God will reckon with them You know that if any one come by an untimely Death whether it be in the City or in the Countrey the Coroners Inquest must be called and sit upon the Body who ought to make a strict and impartial Enquiry about it that the Murderer might be discovered and brought to condign Punishment because there is not only the Loss of a Relation or a Servant but also the King hath lost a Subject Bring this to the present case before us here is such an one a Soul lost in this Family and there is another lost in that Family and so in a great many more the Lord only knows how great the number of them is How many thousand of Souls do every day drop into Hell If people would give themselves leave seriously to consider it it would make their hearts to ake and dissolve into Tears and peradventure it is nay I do not in the least question but it is the case of some of your Families You have lost a Child and you a Daughter and you a Servant in that sense in which the compassionate Father said concerning his Prodigal This my Son was lost he was dead He was dead in trespasses and sins the poor mournful Father had lost him and the Devil taken him up for a Stray but these of yours are lost beyond the possibility of a recovery their Souls are lost for ever they are dead and dead in sin their Bodies are laid in the Grave in a Bed of Dust and their Souls are gone down to Hell and there laid upon a Bed of Flames which Divine Justice hath prepared for them and the Breath of the Lord like as a stream of Brimstone doth feed But now here God hath lost a Creature one that was the work of his own hands and you may be sure that He will make Inquisition for Blood How did this Soul and that Soul come thus to miscarry was it their own doing was it through their own folly and madness because they would not hearken to the Voice of their Teachers or was it through the neglect of those to whose care and tuition they were committed The guilt of every ones Blood shall be laid some where and God will lay it where it ought to lie and there is as you may gather from what hath been said reason why God should thus proceed because Secondly They I mean your Children and Servants are God's as well as yours nay they are more God's than yours He indeed gave them to you as Iacob told his Brother These are the Children which God hath graciously given to thy Servant But when he gave them to you he did not alienate them from himself nor part with his own Right but reserves that whole and entire to himself He so gives them to us that still they are his Yea they are more his than ours And so it is with all our other Enjoyments Take one Scripture or two for the proof of this first as to our Enjoyments some Men think their Estates are their own and their Money their own so that they may do with them whatsoever they please but it is no such matter we are but Stewards God is the Lord of all For this see Hos. 2.8 9. I gave her Corn and Wine and multiplied her Silver and Gold They were his and he gave them to her But observe now he retain'd a propriety in them and therefore upon her misemploying and abusing them he threatned to take them away I will return and take away my Corn in the time thereof and my Wine in the season thereof and recover my Wooll and my Flax. They were hers by vertue of God's donation but they were his also and now she should know as much for he will turn her out and take the Possession of all again This consideration should make all wary that they do not sin with their Enjoyments nor maintain their Lusts at God's cost nor with God's allowances make provision for the Flesh and it should also teach rich Men to do good with what they have and quicken them to acts of Piety and Charity Your Estates are yours but they are God's too and therefore as you ought to use them for your own good and comfort so you must lay them out for God's honour and for God's poor for the Sovereign right in your Estates is in God and it is the same as to your Children God lays his claim to them Ezek. 16.20 21. Thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters whom thou hast born unto me and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured Is this of thy Whoredoms a small matter that thou hast slain my Children and delivered them to cause them to pass thorough the fire for them Mark it the Lord grants they were her Children but he doth also call them his Children he
place in Heaven and the day is coming after which it shall be found no more upon Earth but be for ever confin'd and shut up in Hell Sin is evil in its Consequents and Effects Indeed who did ever gather Grapes of Thorns How can any good Fruit grow upon this Root of bitterness Let me briefly name some of those Mischiefs which Sin hath done and still goeth on to do in the World 1. Sin hath defac'd the Beauty of Man sullied and stain'd his Glory thrown him down from his Excellency turn'd the Nazarite into an Ethiopian so that he who at first was but a little lower than the Angels is now become like unto the Beasts that perish yea worse than they 2. Sin hath spoiled Man's Communion with God which was inconceivably more and better than the Delights of Eden or his Dominion over the Creatures As his Holiness did consist in his conformity to God so did his Happiness in Communion with him but as soon as he had committed Sin that stood as a middle Wall of Partition between them 3. Sin hath broken Man's Peace that Peace which once he had with God and sown Enmity So that God is angry with him and he a Traitor a Rebel against God That Peace which was once in himself The faculties of his Soul were once harmonious Reason sitting in the Throne Judgment ruling and governing the Will and Affections knowing keeping their place and following the Dictates of the Understanding but now there is discord and jarring the Understanding mistakes the Will and Affections mutiny so that frequently there are disorders and confusion in the Soul And oh how dismal are the Contests oftentimes between a Man and his Conscience he crosseth his Conscience and that will not bear it he wounds his Conscience and then that rageth and storms and laies about it as a fury and wheresoever he goes it follows him with its clamours so that he becomes a terrour to himself 4. Sin hath brought in all the Troubles of Life How many are they and how great Who can understand his Errours who can sum up his Sorrows Most come into the World crying and go complaining thorough it In sorrow do Women bring forth Children some are grieved because they have none and some more because those they have are so bad How are the endeavours of many vain and unsuccessful their hopes blasted and their expectations disappointed how are some wasted and consumed with sickness others ground and tortur'd with pain Now a Fire comes and devours your pleasant things burying your Habitations in their own Ashes and then a War which knows no compassion but turns fruitful Lands first into Fields of Blood and then into Wildernesses 5. Sin hath introduced Death and Arm'd against us that King of Terrours Had not Man made Sin his Work he had never receiv'd Death for his Wages had not Sin been Man had either continued in a perfect and Paradisical State upon Earth or else been translated into the Region of Light and Life and Love above but now if ever he would come thither he must walk thorough the dark Shades and be dissolv'd in order to his being glorified We now mourn over a dead Friend a dead Relation let us remember that Sin kill'd them Rom. 5.12 By one Man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned 6. Sin hath digg'd Hell This is that Tophet which is mentioned in Isa. 30.33 that is made deep and large the Pile whereof is Fire and much Wood the Breath of the Lord like a Stream of Brimstone doth kindle it The Hell in the Conscience which some Men do feel now and that Hell into which all wicked wretches shall be tumbled at the last are both of them the fruit of Sin Now my Friends will you be careful in this matter will you consider what Natures all brought into the World with them how Sin dwells in you and yours Oh! shew unto them the evil that is in it and the mischiefs that come by it for by doing so you take a course to damp the Tinder that it may not catch Fire when the Spark is struck and to arm them against Temptations when they come out in their greatest violence this will tend to the preserving them from the path of the Destroyer though it be such a beaten Road and so full of Travellers This was the Antidote that secur'd Ioseph from the Poison that was offer'd him in the Cup of Fornication He was shreudly assaulted and that more than once the on-set was renewed day by day and he was in his youthful Blood and on that account a great deal more in danger of being prevail'd upon and wrought to a compliance but it was labour in vain he looked upon the vile sinfulness of the thing and that was more powerful to affright him from it than the Charms of his Mistress were to allure him to it and therefore with a Pathos or Zeal of Soul he cryed out Gen. 39.9 How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God He saw such a filthiness in that Sin as that he loathed to touch either it or her that had tempted him to it but fled from them both Fourthly Be much in acquainting them with our Lord Iesus Christ and the way of ruin'd Man's recovery by him and by him alone He being the only Mediator between God and Man and the only Redeemer of God's Elect. Let them know that by Nature and by reason of Sin their case is extreamly deplorable When once our first Parents had transgrest it was dark round about them nothing offer'd it self to their Eye that had a promising aspect God that had been before their chiefest comfort was then their greatest terrour his Voice that had been so sweet and pleasant to them was then in their Ears like Thunder As soon as Adam heard it he was afraid and hid himself but as deplorable as sinful lapsed Man's case is now blessed be free and rich Grace it is not desperate unless he himself by obstinate impenitency and unbelief do make it so There is hope in Israel concerning this thing because all-sufficient help is laid upon One that is mighty 1. Though God was greatly affronted by the work of his own hands whom he had so obliged and by that affront had been so highly provoked yet being a God of bowels whose compassions do not fail in wrath he remembred mercy and though he had no yearnings over the sinning Angels but immediately banished them from his presence threw down from their first estate and with indignation tumbled them into Hell where he hath clapt upon them everlasting Chains in which he reserves them to the Judgment of the great day yet he had it in his hearty to pity and shew kindness to fallen Man it was the fixed resolve and purpose of his Grace to mend the marr'd Girdle and to repair the broken Potsherds of the Earth and of
be the Desire of all Nations And then Thirdly let your Children be what they will as to the outward man fair or black compleat or defective beautiful or deformed what are they as to their Souls the very best part about them is stark naught indeed it is the very worst that which David called his Glory and should be theirs is their Shame alas there is cause enough why it should be so Be they as lovely as you think them they are not Paradises but Desarts and Wildernesses over-run with Briars Thorns and Weeds not Cedars but Brambles by nature they are Crab-stocks and is it not pity but they should be grafted upon with holy Instructions and religious Principles that so instead of wild grapes the grapes of Sodom and the clusters of Gomorrha they may become Trees of Righteousness the planting of the Lord that by them he might be glorified which will also turn to their own singular Advantage for having their Fruit unto Holiness the end will be everlasting Life for such Trees when their bearing-time is come to its appointed Period will be sound not Fewel for the Burning but Timber for the Building or if you please Death shall take them and Grace transplant them into the Paradise of God You that are Parents and have beautiful Children look upon them with a great deal of Pleasure you look and like you look and doat you see your selves in them and several curious strokes and pretty tricks and all these please you highly But I remember when Samuel was greatly taken with Eliah 2 Sam. 16.7 the Lord said unto him Look not on his countenance or on the heighth of his stature because I have refused him So say I do not look upon this or that natural or acquired Excellency in your Children so as to rest satisfied with that but see if you can discover any thing of Christ in them any thing of a new and divine Nature as for their natural state you will see in them more of the brute than of the man if you do but look upon them through a Scripture-glass that will help you to the best prospect To this purpose let us make use of that which we find in Iob 11.12 Vain man would be wise though man be born like the wild asses colt In which words there are three things worthy of our observing what Man is what he would be and what he was born First what man is vain proud man conceited man but still vain man In the Hebrew it is empty man Indeed sometimes he makes a great noise but there is little worth He hath nothing in him nothing of value much froth much wind but no substance he hath too much of that which he should not have Sin Satan Folly Madness Madness is in the heart of man whilst he lives but there is nothing of that which he should have nothing of that beautiful Image which was at first stamp'd upon him nothing of that primitive Glory with which he did at the first shine nothing of that real Excellency and Beauty which our gracious and blessed Redeemer came to advance him to he hath nothing of the saving Knowledge of God but his foolish Heart is darkned and he become vain in his Imaginations nothing of the divine Spirit but sensual not having the Spirit sunk into the Flesh immers'd drown'd in Flesh nothing of sanctifying Grace nothing is made new but all old and rotten wholly alienated from the Life of God dead in Trespasses and Sins there is in him no Love to God no Faith in Jesus Christ but altogether throughout filthy and abominable Again Secondly there we see what Man would be wise Vain Man would be wise but perhaps you will say this is well it is very good it is a sign he is not altogether empty Here is a Will that stands right Desires directed to a proper and deserving object But mark what is the meaning of the Words take it in these two things He would be wise i e he affects a shew and appearance of Wisdom and if he can attain that he concludes he hath enough He doth not care so much for being wise as for being counted wise he is wise in his own conceit and in his own eyes and he would be so in the opinion of all that know him It is evident he does not care for Wisdom it self because he doth neither pray nor take pains for it he doth not dig for it as for Silver nor doth he seek and search for it as for hid Treasures But whatever he now would be or be thought to be what was he at first what when he came into the World Zophar tells us Thirdly He is born as a wild asses colt What a strange Climax or Gradation is here He is born a Colt that is at best a Brute be it never so handsom or well made yet is no other than a Beast and hath not the Understanding of a Man but that is not all he is born an Asses colt a dull heavy and foolish Creature good fit for nothing nor is that all he is born a wild Asses colt the dullest and most untractable Creature so of all Fools Man is the worst and most sottish Thus the Scripture speaks Isai. 1. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his masters crib but Israel doth not know my people doth not consider And again Ier. 7. The Stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed season and the Turtle and the Crane and the Swallow observe the times of their coming but my people know not the Iudgment of the Lord. Now then I will leave it to you O Parents to Judge whether you have not need betimes to break these Colts if you would have them come to good have you not need to take a great deal of pains with these Asses and the taming of these wild Asses Is there not reason why you should do what you can to bring them to bear the yoke in their Youth and to draw in it I mean not only your yoke but Christs too which is easie and none of his Commandments grievous and so to turn these Beasts into Men yea into Saints certainly you should because they are yours and if you love them you will natural affection accompanied with religious Principles will put you upon all diligent use of means to so blessed a purpose viz. Bringing them out constantly to the publick Ordinances and at home taking care to pray for them and with them and to instruct command exhort and catechize them together with the setting before them holy and good examples II. Add this Consideration to the former How much you have contributed to their corruption and defilement they are indeed degenerate Plants but the Plants of a strange Vine and that is you Ier. 2.21 Now here I will consider you both as Parents and how much your Children are the worse for you and as Masters and so how much your Families do suffer by you First you are Parents God
your being upon whom you have your dependance and unto whom you must be accountable for your time and talents and all that you have done in the Body make God your choice this is your chusing time oh chuse well chuse God for your sweetest Companion walk with him as Noah did and Enoch and all the Saints in their several Generations When you awake be still with him be continually with him let your fellowship be with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Eye God as the most perfect pattern and study imitation be ye followers of him as dear Children holy as he is holy and live to God as your noblest end do all to his glory if you make his glory your end he will make use of your Salvation as a means thereto so that both means and end shall be secur'd count his fear your treasure Hezekiah valued it more than his Royal Exchequer or his Peoples Purses be you in it all the day fear him now as a Father that you may not at last tremble before him as a Judge nor be glad to have Rocks and Mountains fall upon you and hide you from his face and wrath Oh! let Jesus Christ be precious to you as he is to all them that believe sell all for that Pearl of Price part with your sins and your own Righteousness all confidence in the Flesh yea and whatsoever you have in the World rather than go without him take him in all his Offices learn of him as your Prophet trust in him as your Priest and submit to him as your King follow him in all his ways and be expressive of him in your own shew forth the vertues the humility meekness patience holiness heavenly mindedness of him who hath called you unto his Kingdom and Glory Ask of God that Holy Spirit which is a Spirit of Love and Power and a sound mind that he may convince you of Sin and Righteousness and Judgment lead you into all truth help your infirmities strengthen you with all might in the inner-Man quicken and inlarge you revive and comfort you sealing you up to the day of Redemption and beware of resisting quenching or grieving him Acquaint your selves well with the Scriptures read them every day study them meditate in them pray for the opening of your eyes that you may see the wondrous things of the Law and the precious things of the Gospel make them your delight and your Counsellors receiveing no Doctrine as true but what they own nor any practice as good which they do not allow eye them as the rule of Faith and Manners hide them in your heads and hearts that you may not sin against God know the truth love and live in it Get Consciences rightly inform'd and consult them and be ready to hear them do not cross them but make it your daily exercise to keep them void of offence both toward God and toward Man remembring that Conscience is Gods Deputy which curiously observes and carefully records thoughts words and actions is more than a thousand Witnesses will be a sweet Comforter or dreadful Tormentor In short set God always before you live by faith upon him in obedience to him and communion with him frequently and seriously think of Death Judgment Heaven and Hell So carry that you may not be a curse to the World nor a grief to your Friends while you live nor a terrour to your selves when you come to die My hearts desire and Prayer for you is that God would doth bless you and make you blessings FINIS