that great and common one so incident both to Writer and Reader A practical neglect after all of any good counsel how usefully soeâ—er given how affectionately soever for present received To the Children and Servants of my dear Neighbours at c. My Christian love with desires of your real welfare in this life and that which is to come Ingenuous Youths UPon whom the eyes of all are justly set observing your present carriage and further waiting what your following years will prove Even a Child though but a child is known by his doings whether his work be pure and whether it be right So early doth nature put forth its inclinations and discover it self May your youth be as the Spring for loveliness your riper years as the Summer for real fruitfulness CHAPTER I. The Introduction or previous Entrance into the ensuing Discourse YOu are now entring a troublesom sinful world and are therein to be pitied You are now upon your great preparations for Eâ—ernity and therein had need be seriously counselled and advised Me thinks I see you just setting forth in your great journey your long journey whence you shall not return a journey which will prove either Heaven or Hell to every one of you in the end How much depends upon this moment it may be you scarce believe you little consider for the present though afterwards your selves shall plainly see this Life hath been but a restless Voyage the World a tempestuous Sea your Bodies the frail Vessels wherein you sail and Time the Charon the Boatman to wast you over these Waters and set you upon another shore delivering you up there as the Souldiers in the Acts presented Paul before your Judge the Supream Judge of all Flesh in order to your final and solemn Trial. It is on this great Errand of God and of your Souls that these present Lines are sent unto you You will I hope both willingly and seriously peruse them A wise Son heareth Instruction but the scorner causeth shame It is a kindness to shew the wandring Child the way to his Fathers house and truly I have greatly desired amongst many other cares justly incumbent upon me as I am able to further you heaven-ward and to prepare your hearts while you are yet young as a generation for the Lord. Your natures are too easily disposed to receive evil impressions Satan sees it and wâ—tches be times to forestall your tender minds therewithall It must be our care early to recommend and your duty readily to comply with better things that as the yielding â—ax you may now receive those impressions of God and goodness upon your spirits which may become some step toward your happy sealing up to the day of redemption Accept then I pray you of this plain Paper it is the best Token I have to send And Oh! that through the blessing of the Lord it may prove a good Token for you to receive It is sadly evident that many too many losing their tender their first years in conclusion lose their souls also And it is as undoubtedly certain that gracious Counsel however hardly thought of by most might be â—o the young man the best Guide of his Youth to preserve him from the paths of the Destroyer Consider what is laid before you and the Lord give you understanding in all things Our own true welfare we may freely grant is and justly ought to be the desire of all the right way to it iâ— known or understood of very few Iâ— was the sad observation of the wiseâ— of men The labour of the foolish wearieth him as well it may because he knoweth not how to go to the City Mercy is not miss'd because it is not sought but because men will not be perswaded to seek it where alone it may be found Most men spend their choice and precious daies in a vain shaddow and go down in the end thereof to everlasting sorrows You have the world now before you your own mercy or misery yet to choose and be you sure as you now choose so shall you speed hereafter Oh! be your own true friends and choose ye that which is good while it may be obtained and that good part shall never be taken from you You are now Flowers in their bloom Your Friends delight your Countries hope It lieth very much in your Sphere to be either a crown of rejoycing to them or to bring down their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave You are those first Fruits those green ears of corn which should be offered to the Lord. For his sake for your own sakes for your Parents â—nd Counâ—â—iâ—s sikes embrace your own mercies your own true good before your Sun be set and your hopes cut off for ever Others have been sometimes young as you now are and cannot be altogether strangers to the young mans heart the young mans thoughts and waies It is very likely your vain minds will be easily now taken with vain things But observe if they be not still secretly afraid meditating terrour and crying out I shall one day be called to a strict account for all this In this suspence it may be you may stick long not able to joy much in the waies of sin nor yet fully willing to leave them and seek the Lord. Sometimes faintly praying and yet inwardly shrinking back and still loth to receive indeed the grace that you seem to 1 pray for As the Father freely confessed the prayers of his youth had also been I said indeed with my lips Lord I give and yet in my heart I was too willing to give longer day and could have said Lord pray not yet I was even afraid lest thou shouldst hear me too soon and too soon heal and subdue my corruption for me Thus is the mind for a time like the wavering scales rising and falling going and coming ere it can settle with the true poize and weight If Satan in this conflict prevails your slavish fears will wretchedly degenerate and grow worse turning into an inward hatred of God and his good waies a disdainful loathing of Gods people a continual backwardness to your own duty Which God of his mercy prevent But if through grace you be enabled to overcome you will find your fears clearing up unto more kindliness and a willingness on your part to retain them still you will find gracious desires springing up by them Oh! that God would pardon my sin Lord give me Christ or else I dye From thence by tender steps which I have not time now to express will God lead you and will not forsake you or despise the dâ—y of your small things And oh that you may be thus led by the hand of the Lord till you both see and receive the blessed reward of the righteous the salvation of your souls Think not that your present condition your present pleasures will last long No no as Adonijahs feast these banquets will soon be
a worthy man how to live that knows not how to digest and put up such trials as these Contend who will let me serve the Lord in the Converting of any lost soul from the errour of its evil waies to the Kingdom of our God Fulfil ye I pray you my joy both mine and yours So shall this present Letter in future times become a comfortable Memorial to me a comfortable Memorial to you CHAP. IX Caveats against several more obvious dangers whereat so many Young Persons stumble and fall for ever I Have still some serious Caveats of great concernment unto you which I must needs desire you to take careful notice of without which my writing and your reading would both be in vain My Pen I perceive hastily out-runs the measure of a Letter but I will say as sometimes the Apostle did To me thus to write is not grievous but for you it may be profitable As ever therefore you desire to be your own true Friends First Take Heed of yielding to the least known sin By lesser sins at first doth the Devil draw to the greatest wickedness at last Is thy Servant a dog saies he and it may be he spake as he then thought that I should do this thing But in process of time we find for all that he did it Evil hath too much of a cursed fruitfulness going along with it This Serpent if sustered will soon encrease to a great brood The Poet could even challenge the World upon this score Tell me the man if you can any where find such a one that was ever content with one single sin Our promises may be as usually they are in such cases it shall be but once but these promises will soon lie broken at our feet and the sin iterated it may be an hundred times over So hard is it to recover out of Satans snares or to make any retreat when once engaged in evil He that hateth sin as sin hath Iosephs ingenuous answer in readiness against every temptation How shall I commit this great wickedness and sin against God Conscience once embased the heart once prostituted to vicious courses is not easily recovered to the true fear of the Lord. Afflâ—ctions may seem as Gall for bitterness but sin is alwaies as Poison for real danger and deadliness Oh! pledge not the Devil in this Cup oh take not the least drop of it at his hands There is no sin so small but it is able to weigh down the soul for ever into Hell Secondly Take heed likewise oh take great heed of falling into bad Company Better by far â—aies the Proverb of the Ancients to be altogether alone than troubled with what is much worse bad Company With such you expose your tender natures your most hopeful dispositions to be easily corrupted with such the filth of your company how odious soever secretly cleaveth unto you and will insensibly become yours He that goeth in and sitteth with them seems as it were offering to take and desirous to get acquaintance with Hell before his time Say you as Jacob Oh my soul come not thou into their secret unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united These are seeming Friends but real Foes To whom we might too justly say as he Is this your kindness to your Friend to become my sâ—ares and enticements unto evil Or with the Philosopher Oh Friends amongst hundreds of such companions scarce one real vertuous Friend to be found Thousands have died and perished for ever of the infection they have catcht from sinful company Leaving this sad Epitaph upon their Grave stone for the warning of others after them Bad Company in life is too ready a way to worse Company in death The honest Traveller will scarce willingly ride much in the Thieves Company if he can avoid it And we may all say of the profane Companion he steals at least our good name and time if not all vertuous inclinations also from us Men that see not your hearts inwardly will not stick to esteem and judge both of you and them according to the company you keep outwardly It became even proverbial with the Jews If you can first tell me what kind of Company he keeps I can then safely tell you such he also is himself Despise none you may anâ— should shew your selves meek and truly courteous toward all but still choose the ingenuous only the vertuous and the harmless for your companions The Dove flocks not with Ravens Be you as David Companions of alâ— them that fear the Lord. Or as Solomoâ— after him Walking in the way of good men keeping the paths of the righteous And it shall turn to you for a testimony and blessing It shall become as the Oratour well observed A sweâ—â— specimen of a good nature inclining 〈◊〉 self very apparently toward Wisdom and Vertue Do you indeed love your heavenly Father You cannot then consoâ—â— with those who tear and blaspheme that worthy name of his by profane oaths Is Iesus Christ truly precious to you You cannot then possibly delight your selves in them who â—reaâ— under foot the Son of God and account the bloud of the Covenant an unholy thing Oh I deliver your own souls Pray them to leave their sâ—iâ—ing or tell them plainly you must for the future leave their Company Thirdly Take heed in the next place of the sins of youth Satan fishes with one bait for the Old man with another for the Young but death is still in both Present vanities will soon grow stale and unpleasing Satan will be forced to change these for other that the mind may be carried on and delayed with foolish hopes of better contentment in them The delightful pleasures of Youth will give way to the anxious cares of riper years Thus Sin runs its round but still retains its interest suiting it self with much variety to our several Ages and tempers as we pass through them But in the mean time we may truly enough observe as Youth hath its peculiar diseases its violent burning Feavers to which it is naturally subject So hath it its peculiar corruptions levity wantonness and hâ—adiness whereto it is spiritually a much exposed These are the Young mans dangers which need as the Father well observed the streightâ— rein and bridle Oh keep your selves as Daviâ— from your iniquity and lye not dowâ— in the dust with your bones full of thâ— sins of your Youth There are many sins it is no thankâ— to us we commit them not we are scarce so much as tempted to them To refuse a dear a pleasing sin whâ—â— it is fairly offered this oh thâ— shews the uprightness and nobleneâ— of the heart He that can find in his heart tâ— deny his own longing nature he thâ— in the fear of the Lord restrains hiâ— own disposition that he might noâ— offend he that in a spirit of Christian resolution
ye ambitious of his Honour but I must say Be ye imitatâ—rs of his Industry Accounting with yourselves as the Father piously of old that labour is the honourable Schoole of Vertue wherein your proficiency would soon appear to all Such an one Solomon at a great distance foresees what advancement he would soon come to Seest thou a man diligent in his business he shall stand before Kings he shall not stand before mean persons These things are and most justly may be the Young Mans Lecture they walk with him they talk with him Wherever he goes he is still pondering of them He considers his outward man and observes godly diligence inherits a blessing while negligence goes cloathed in rags He considers his inward man and fears if time be carelesly lost here Eternity of happiness will very hardly be found hereafter He that labours not painfully in hiâ— Calling both Spiritual and Civil here on Earth his heart is not right in the sight of God his own Conscience will tell him he hath no lot nor parâ— in that rest which remains for the people of God in Heâ—ven CHAP. VII Affirmative Characters what the vertuous Young Man is and ought to be YOu have now received some Negative Characters and description of the Young Person that is worthy of commendation and love indeed That we might plainly understand what he is not what he ought not to be And oh that you likewise may cordially hate the work of them that thus turn aside and for your parts unfainedly meditate a better course of life We will now look to the right hand Affirmatively and consider what the vertuous Young Person is and ought to be in whole heart are the waies of God We might almost make our boâ—st here and say in some measure as in the Psalms Grace is poured into his lips and he is much fairer than the common Race of the Children of men He is one whose mind is richly inlayed like the Kings Daughter all glorious within curiously wrought by the hand of the Spirit There may you find the Prophets Vision Ierusalem pourtraied upon a tyle Much of the very glory of Heaven it self drawn upon his tender soul His heart is as a living Temple for the Holy Ghost His thoughts and affections as perfumed Odours aspiring and ascending continually as pillars of Incense heaven-ward He cometh forth out of the purple morning of his youth as the Bridegroom out of his Chamber as the Sun out of the dawning East and rejoyceth to run the Godly Race More particularly 1. He is one that chooseth the fear of the Lord with his whole heart For he knoweth it is to God he stands or it is to God he falls Others are vain others are profane but so dares not he because of the fear of the Lord. He believes the Scripture and accounts it no burden no sadning but a Jewel well worth his carefullest preserving and laying up The fear of the Lord is his treasure Wherever this is wanting he reckons that place an habitation of Dragons undesirable unsafe for any man to live in And Abraham said Surely the fear of God is not in this place and they will stay me He hath heard all true wisdome wherever it is may be found out and known by this This is its first and great principle The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom This is to him as the due ballast to the Ship which makes the Vessel indeed loome somewhat deeper but keeps it from tossing too lightly upon the uncertain waters It composeth his whole Conversation to great sobriety and stedfastness There is a sleighty sort of profession too frequently up and down the world in these last daies without much mixture of this weighty grace in it But he easily concludes that mans Religion will soon prove as salt that hath lost its savour and quickly go out into some stinch Oh! what shipwrack of faith and all good conscience must needs follow there where the heart stands in no awe of God The Father long ago gave over that man as an hopeless Patient He will soon be out of his way in point of conversation that sets light by the true fear of God in point of affection It is a sad note but it is a true one That man that will not fear God willingly shall be made though little to his comfort to do it by force What most would seem to refuse none shall be able to exclude That dread of God which they flee from shall pursue them and overtake them between the straits God will be we never so loath be feared of all But woe be to that man who having refused filial feâ—re as a grace is constrained to lie under the scourgings of a judicial trembling as his torment for ever and ever The Lord preserve you from it But now it is still a note as comfortable on the other hand to every true Child of God that accepts his gracious fear chearfully the Lord will himself become their shelter and City of refuge that their hearts may quietly return to their rest and need no more be amazed at any terrour outwardly God would not have his dear people fear the fears of others Only let us sanctifie the Lord of Hosts iâ— our hearts and he shall be for a Sanctuary unto us The case is truly weighty on both sides The serious Young Person takes it up goes with it into the Sanctuary and there weighs it before the Lord and at length comes forth cordially contented that the just fear of God should be to him as to the Patriarks of old the great Badge and Cognizance of his Religion 2. He is one to whom the Lord Iesus Christ is exceeding precious He loves his Father he loves his Mother but still saies Jesus Christ alone he and none but he can be my Saviour He could herein even break forth into an holy triumph and begin with the Father to sing the Songs of the Lamb The Saviour is born oh glorifie the Lord. He hath appeared on Earth be ye henceforth lift up ye everlasting Gates The Bridegroom is shortly returning again oh light your Lamps and go out to meet him Sing to the Lord in the joy of this salvation Oh! let all the earth praise the Lord. The Iron though senseless willingly moves toward the Loadstone and is loth to part any more from it Christ is his Load-stone and his heart is even constrained and drawn out with great affection after him If the presence of the Sun be that which alone makes day to the dark world The enjoyment of Christ is more to him the light of life that makes a day of grace the chief of his comforts his heaven his all He could say wiâ—h pious Suenes in the midst of the greatest discouragements I will follow my Saviour in liberty and bondage in prosperity and adversity in life and death Whilest the smallest thread of life
are willing as others also â—re to be of it and so they conclude without further troubling themselves that all will be well I write not this to upbraid any but may and must freely say thus much to all The truest Religion falsely taken up will be but as the Arke to the Philistims it may encrease our torments but will never save our souls If we shall climb up to Religion some other way and not by the true door if we shall crowd into profession without a wedding garment the time is coming we shall be found out and our own conscience which have thus lied to the Holy Ghost shall even fail within us and leave us speechless at the Bar of God as those that have not the least excuse for themselves There is a time Dear Youths your own consciences cannot but tell you so wherein Religion must be first embraced on Earth if ever you desire glory or happiness in Heaven Now he that begins amiss is like to make but very bad work ever after Things once mislearned are exceeding hardly unlearnt And truly where one takes up the profession of the Name of God sincerely and upon Gospel terms it may be feared there are too many who receive it unworthily and to their own condemnation Some lose their souls while they seek with the blinded Iews to establish their own righteousness Other hearing Religion much commended and seeing somewhat of amiableness and beauty in it they hastily catch up some flashy heady ceremonial or remote opinion as best pleaseth them and think they have enough and so never regard to know what sound conversion and true communion with God meaneth all their daies Others again and herein I am more particularly speaking to your caso the Lord grant you may truly lay it to heart others I say as Children and Servants to satisfie the desires and counsel of their religious Parents and Friends yield and do those things outwardly which they bear no true affection unto inwardly Oh wretched hypocrisie at the same time seemingly to stand in some fear of Man but none of God Well whosoever can deceive men no man can mock the Lord. His eyes are eyes of fire and all men shall know that he searcheth the heart and trieth the reins Where Spiritual things are Carnally undertaken the evils that too necessarily ensue thereupon are exceeding many The fruit of the whole undertaking is inevitably lost The Duty that seems offered is not at all discharged The Comforts the dear comforts of Godliness are all lockt up as mercies peculiarly reserved for sincere and better hearts The Profession that is thus made will quickly decay and die in disgrace The heart can never hold out long in that which is but personated and so little delighted in Only the evil and guilt of the miscarriage that will still remain and must be elsewhere answered for So little shall any maâ— gain that goes to build upon the sands The further he goes the more he wanders and will sadly find at last He that begins not duly with Christ as the Author can scarce expect to find him in the end the Finisher or â—â—owner of his faith Yet notwithstanding all this what just cause of sorrow may it be to all sober hearts to consider What harâ— and unkind usage what disingenuous and careless handling that sacred thinâ— Religion in most Ages meets withal from the hands of a froward carnaâ— World Well take you this Item with you all your daies whatever you do in the matters of Religion do it heartily reverently Gospelly and humbly as in the sight of God the all-seeing the jealous God Where God sees he cannot be cordially believed or feared take outward shews who will they are of little value in the account of God These saies the Father are but worthless leaves we must still demand and call for real Fruits If the Lord asks or accepts any thing it must justly be the best we have Give me thine heart my Son Now the Lord himself direct you and give you a right entrance into his right waies with that kindliness of Repentance that truth of Faith that soundness of Conversation that you may not run in vain losing the things you seem to have wrought but may in the end happily obtain the crown of life Happy is that man that can truly say the Foundation stone is thus laid the Top stone shall also in Gods good time be as certainly vouchsafed with those gladsome shoutings to the God of such great and unexpected mercies Grace Grace Seventhly Take heed yet once more in the last place if God hath enkindled any heavenly affections in you now that you lose not your first love afterward The kindness of your youth it is dear it is lovely in the sight of God Christ looked upon the young man in the Gospel and loved him God sees and takes it well that it is in your hearts while you are young to enquire after him These first ripe grapes I might reverently say as in the Prophet they are the fruits that his righteous soul desireth Oh! let not your present convictions your present willingness your present delight in the good Word of God in the sweet Sabbaths of God in the dear people of God Oh! let not all this verdant hopefulness of your youth vanish as a morning cloud or like the early dew I give you this particular warning because miscarriages are so sadly frequent in all Ages of this nature And because I further know Satan will come to winnow you With this temptation if you live you may assure your selves he will assault you with it I have been too forward too zealous too careful for Religion while I was young I will even spare my self now Thus are the first daies of many Professors sadly clouded with lukewarmness formality wordly policy and earthly mindedness ere they die But I hope you will not dare so to do True motion is alwaies most intense the nearer it comes unto its Center And if you be truly aiming for Heaven you will dayly renew your strength and be loth to slacken your pace when it groweth nearest night Relapses in nature Physitians tell us are very sore Relapses in Profession are still far sorer How oh how shall such be ever renewed again unto repentance Dear Youths your thoughts are yet green your years hitherto but little experienced You have scarce yet known how bitter and evil a thing it is to forsake the fountain of living waters and God grant you never may But are you willing to believe what God shall testifie in this matter Then may you soon understand the Backslider though but in heart shall quickly have gall and wormwood enough in his Cup He shall be filled saies the Lord with his own waies Or are you further desirous to hear what Experience hath also to testifie in this weighty case Then may the horrour of Iudas the despairing groans of Spira become your warning They
wretchedly departed from the Profession they had sometimes made in their former yeares and poor men never joyed good hour after I cannot but even beseech you in the Language of the Ancients Oh! spare for Gods sake spare your sweet Youth take some pity upon it and give not that lovely flesh of yours for food to everlasting burnings Gods Children should be as those Hebrew Servants staying with him for the love they bear unto him He hath the words of Eternal life and whether else can they find in their hearts to go If any man draw back this is the sad message must be sent after him the Lord shall have no pleasure in him Men shall also scorn him and say this is salt which hath lost its savour tread it henceforth under foot Ah poor man it had been better for him a sad Better God knows but it had been better for him saied the Apostle never to have know the way of righteousness than after he hath known it to turn from the holy Commandment delivered unto him Be you then as Iosiah gracious in your Youth but be ye also even to Gray-hairs as aged Israel waiting for the salvation of God when you come to dye CHAP. X. The Objections that usually ensnare and detain young people answered I Have now counselled you but shall I say I have also perswaded you It is likely you have your discouragements I know you cannot be without some recoylings of nature Trifles and vanities will hang it may be about your mind as being loth to be now shaken off An holy man found it so which made him complain as we also too truly may My former customes though worse were plainly too strong and trod down things far better because they had been as yet but little used The most righteous waies of God they are indeed blessed they are safe they are honourable but still they are scarce pleasing to flesh and blood Our wretched hearts are too like distempered stomacks that are easily distasted and find no relish in the most wholsome food I am sensible also how busie Satan stands at your right hand ready to resist you continually incensing and prejudicing your thoughts all that ever he can against your own mercies He that makes it his wicked trade to pervert the right waies of God will be forward enough to tell you as once he did Eve You may eat of the forbidden fruit and yet not die You may forbear this serious care and yet speed well at last But oh believe him not his Crocodile flatteries have undone thousands at his feet He that was a liar and a murderer from the beginning will scarce be either true or kind to you He may seem now a smooth and pleasing Tempter but he will soon become as open and forward an Accuser Those very sins he now enticeth to when time shall serve in the presence of God of Angels and of Men will he be ready with all their aggravations to charge you with As you love your souls resist him and account it an essential Principle in true Religion to give a constant Nay to all his temptations Let Men and Devils say what they will sin is sin still An evil saies the very Heathen that must not be pleaded for that cannot be excused An unexcusable breach of a righteous Law the utmost endangering of a precious and immortal soul a wretched and ungrateful flying in the face of a most tender and loving Father This is that Rabshekah that blasphemes the God of Heaven that Achan that troubles the whole Creation this oh this is that Accursed thing that brings evil upon our selves that Needle that too surely draws a thread of divine vengeance after it Let Men and Devils say what they will there must be sowing to the Spirit here if we expect to reap a blessed harvest hereafter Nature tells us so Experience tells us so all the World knows it is so No running the Race now saies the Father and there can be no Crown in the end No fighting the good fight in the Valley and there can be no triumph of victory or honour upon the Everlasting Hills There must be striving to the utmost if we desire to enter in at the straight Gate The Kingdom of Heaven should even suffer violence and the violent are to take it by an holy force Up then in the name of God and be a doing let nothing hinder you Consider call your thoughts to a solemn and impartial debate lay your case in the ballances of the Sanctuary See oh see how Eternity lies at stake your Candle is shortly going out tomorrow it may be will not serve for that which may be done to day You have had your time of Childhood wherein according to the infant feebleness of your minds You spake as Children you understood as Children you thought as Children but now it is time it is high time to out-grow those daies of Vanity What the Lord in much mercy winckt at then would very ill become you now As you become men it will be expected and it will be your honour to put away Childish things These Years and this Age call upon you to converse with more serious things the things that belong to your souls everlasting peace First Say not any of you within your selves in way of objection I am too young for those things He that is old enough to sin cannot think himself too young to repent Doth God say To day while it is called to day and darest thou speak of to Morrow Thou wouldst not adventure to answer thy Natural Parents with such delaies how can God take them well at thine hands Let the pious expostulation of the Father with his soul be rather the language of thine heart also within thee How long oh my Soul how long must this be all thy note to Morrow to Morrow And why not now Why not this very hour a period to all thy former filthiness For how indeed canst thou content thy selfe to venture so much as a day longer in thy present condition without the pardon of sin without the favour of God without any solid provisions for another world The hazard is verily great that thou arâ— running Oh! consider seriously what thou dost If thy soul and the saving of it be unto thee as certainly it is more than all the world besides take thy best time for thy best work Arise as Abraham while it is yet early in the morning of thy life and go about it Fear not it shall be no injury to thy following life that thou hast acquainted thy self with God that thou hast imbraced his good waies while thou art young The Sun in the Spring when it ariseth soonest all men observe the daies are then far the sweetest far the chearliest Secondly Say not Such a strict religious care I see but few of my equalls that undertake it It hath been indeed the sad
you Factious they are it may be loâ—h you should be Superstitious but still they would have you Pious See then Sweet Youths I how little of real discouragement lies before you Your nearest Friends are ready to say unto you as once Cyrus to the trembling and willing Iews Go up and the Lord your God be with you Be ye then I pray you toward God Children of great willingness toward your Parents blameless and without rebuke drawing the love of all unto you in the Families wherin you dwell CHAP. XI The Conclusion of the whole by way of Exhortation ANd now what hinders but that all this might be willingly imbraced faithfully practised the life of grace cordially espoused and your Souls for ever saved Your Friends they desire it Your own everlasting welfare is bound up in it And God himself from Heaven calls unto you for it What answer can you now tender but as Christ in the Psalms Loe I come to do thy will oh God! Concluding with the Father He were justly worthy to be cut off by death that should refuse on such sweet terms to close with a gracious life Oh! require not the Lord and your own Souls so unkindly Give not your years to vanity nor your precious time to that which will not comfort in the end Sins in Youth will most certainly become sorrows in Age. It is usually said Youth laies in and Age lives upon it The one sows the other reaps Oh! sow that now which may be worth the reaping afterwards How loth would you be to have your own life now become your death hereafter To have the foolish sins of your Youth to stand between you and your everlasting real happiness Your present vain pleasures made your arraignment your condemnation your utter undoing in the day of Judgement This would prove like the Roman Souldiers Grapes short pleasures sorry pleasures joyless pleasures dearly bought and dearly paid for Thus might you feather the Arrow that wounds you from your own wing and in the end sit down with that sad number who all the year long sigh over this doleful note For a few short pleasures have we purchased to our selves innumerable and everlasting torments Well however I pray know you cannot be so slighty so careless now but you shall be as solemn and perplexed then Sin cannot please so much in the commission but it will torment far more when it comes to be suffered for and the Sinner to be brought forth to execution Go Christless before the Lord and there shall be no Parent there able or willing to countenance you no excuse there to be made for you no hope no comfort left in your own consciences to relieve you Oh! treasure not up to your selves wrath against that day that dreadful day of wrath How tremendous and heart-piercing are the Examples which God hath set as so many flaming swords before you that you might take timely warning and not rush upon your own destruction Ishmael scoffs at Religion and is cast out of his Fathers house and the house of God for ever Absalom proves rebellious against his Parents and shortens his own life untimely by it The Children mock the Prophet and die under the fierce anger of the Lord while they are doing of it I tell you Sirs God will be avenged of Children as well as Elder people of poor of rich of any if they shall dare to sin against him Let not the Devil deceive you oh slatter not your selves These things hath God written for the particular admonition of young people and will expect that you should bear them in mind Oh! lay such memorials upon your hearts and receive instruction from them But if after all any of you should be secretly unwilling and all this counsel from the Lord should be a burden and weariness unto you you must then once more go with me to the door of the Tabernacle that I may there reason further with you before the Lord. And truly I must now even heartily chide with you Oh Sirs do but consider what you do How unreareasonable how unrighteous it is How unanswerable how unsafe it is like to prove Will you have Bibles and will you not believe them Will you be called Christians and will you live like Heathens Have you immortal souls shining with such bright raies of the sacred Image of God upon them and will you needs wilfully damn them Hath God given you religious Parents tender of you as of the apple of their own eye and will you not be counselled by them Are you resolved to be a shame to your Friends in Life and a terrour to your selves in Death Can it possibly enter into your minds to think that ever any good will come of sinful courses Or that ever you should have cause to repent your selves of any thing heartily done in obedience to the Commands of God for the good of your Souls Hath God solemnly sworn The soul that sinneth be he who he will that soul shall die and can you suppose he will break his word for you Can you so much as imagine that the most holy God who is a God of pure eyes and hateth iniquity can you any way encourage your selves to hope that he will open Heaven Gates at the last day to the impenitent to the ungodly who scorn their duty who slight their mercy Do you expect a new day of Grace when this is gone that you make such waste of your present time Do you think everlasting burnings are so easily undergone that you make such slow haste to flee from the wrath that is to come Is it not enough that you were born in iniquity but you will stubbournly die in your sins also Nay then Ichabod Ichabod your glory and our hopes are both departed Sons of Belial against all the sweet counsels of God to the contrary will you needs wretchedly make your selves Children as the word too sadly imports that have broken the yoke becoming henceforth altogether unprofitable both to your selves and others never likely to emerge or rise more to any glory Then may Satan justly enough take up his taunt and triumph as the Father represents it He a Servant of thine No Lord It is my work that he all the day does it is my sinful motions he chiefly delights in There can be no plea made for him He is whatever he may vainly think of himself not thine but mine Yea then your Parents though loth such words should ever come from them will be enforced to cry out How have we brought forth to the grave and our breasts given suck to the Destroyer Then may Davids mourning be heard again in their Tents Oh Absalom my Son my Son how art thou fallen and dying as the sinful dieth in the crimson guilt the bloudy gore of all thy sins At these sad rates are the righteous counsels of the Lord rejected and set at nought But ere we thus part I
pray know It is no less than Life or Death that now stands before you waiting for your Yea or Nay It is so small or inferiour matter of little moment of light consequence that you are now to give your answer in It is Heaven it is Eternal life I need say no more it is your own happiness for ever and ever how can you turn your backs upon it Yea further know there have been those among the poor Heathens that never durst think thus lightly of sin as you do They alwaies held it the greatest evil and the sorrows of it the heaviest sorrows in the whole world There have been tender hearted Ninevites that have come to God at one call and gladly closed with their own mercy And there yet are at this day how backward soever you may be thousands filially returning as the Prodigal with tears of joy to their Fathers house longing for him and welcome to him going where there is what they and you likewise want Bread of life and change of Rayment that you might be cloathed Oh why should you stand out against such sweet mercy and harden your selves so unnaturally to your own destruction You might yet further know though it will be sad enough to know it there is never a Companion of yours with whom you have now sinned but shall be ready to witness against you Never a leaf in all your Bible but shall be enough to condemn you Ministers Parents Friends and Foes shall all come forth against you And oh how cutting will it be to be made a spectacle of scorn to God to Angels and to Men How wounding to thy astonished heart to become an everlasting By word upbraided of all pitied of none It is the condition will they say that he hath long ago deserved and let him bear it This as an holy man rightly observed will make thy load and burden heavy indeed Yea God himself who here hath wooed and so often so long even waited to be gracious shall then set every sin in order before you and make your guilty Consciences with everlasting blushings to own them Then saies the Father shall it be said in the audience of Heaven and Earth Behold the man and all that ever he did let it be had in everlasting remembrance whether it be good or whether it be evil Then shall your selves also look back upon that dear Salvation that you have negligently lost that wretched misery that you have wilfully brought upon your selves and sinke down with heart-breaking sighs and horrour at the Bar of Christ. Then may you be ready to take your last leave of all comfort and say Farewell my day of Grace which is now gone and never more to shine upon such a wretch as I am Come in all ye my hainous sins and the bitter remembrance of you The Lord hath sent you to stand as adversaries of terrour round about me Sting as so many fiery Serpents in this bosome of mine and spare not Oh! that you might have leave to make an utter end and rid me out of all my pain Oh how will the tears trickle down to see the Lord so gracious so loving to others and yet so justly severe and full of indignation towards you To see those that prayed while you slept that so willingly kept the Lords Sabbaths while you as constantly profaned them to see those that â—â—isely redeemed that time which you so lavishly wasted to see those very persons so well known to you it may be your near acquaintance in the Kingdom of God and your selves shut out Then though never till then will the heart that hath held out as long as ever it could begin to falter and fail Then shall the lips break forth with that righteous acknowledgment I am undone undone for ever and my destruction is of my self Oh my dear Friends my bowels even yearn for you Hast thou but one blessing oh my Father bless our Young People even them also that they may turn to thee and live But I cannot thus leave you My Errand I confess is now even done but your duty henceforth to be taken up and still carefully carried on I may justly say of this whole Letter as once the Roman Oratour well said to his Son It will be of more or less service to you as you make it truly practicable in the sequel of your life Counsel stored by us in Books and neglected in life it is like the coâ— vetous mans bags of Gold which lie wholly dead and no good use made of them Suffer me then once more for greater sureness sake to rehearse my Message again unto you It is you Dear Youths to whom I am as the Father affectionately said in this Paper to apply my self It is you who have yet seen but the third hour of the day with whom the Message whether it lives or whether it dies must now be finally left You are desired in the higest Name that can be used in the Name of the great and most glorious God who made the Heavens and the Earth and gave you that breath you breathe between your Nostrils You are desired in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ who freely shed his precious bloud in a readiness to redeem and cleanse you from all your sins You are desired in this great and dreadful Name and by all the respect you bear unto it to remember your Creator in the daies of your Youth You are desired to strive to enter in at the straight Gate You â—â—e desired to accept the richest the greâ—â—est gift that God himself ever bâ—stows upon any his own dear Son You are desired to be kind to your own Souls and to lay up a good foundation agâ—inst times to come You are desired to come and live with God for ever Dear Youths what do you purpose to do in this great matter These are not Requests to be slighted these are not Requests to be denied Such a capacity for mercy how would the damned prize it oh let not the living set light by iâ— This short moment how meanly soever you may think of it once wretchedly lost and an Age will not recover Eternity it self as long as it is will never restore the like advantages to your souls again And now are you oh are you at length willing to go about this blessed work and become happy for ever if there may be yet any hope in Israel concerning your case Behold the arms of Mercy are open ready to imbrace you whatever is past how unkind how hainous soever God is ready to forgive willing to forget it He calls Heaven and Earth to record if you miscarry let the blame lie where it ought it shall not be his As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that he turn from his wicked way and live Turn ye oh now unweariedly doth the Lord renew his call turn ye from
let iâ— no wanâ— its due pâ—ofessors Fifâ—hly Say not Alas I know nâ—â— what to do far wiser than I the pâ—udâ—m the ancient are at great câ—ntâ—oversie aboâ—â— Religion who can tell where to pitch It is true it is too sadly true There are many pious men that may and doubtless have much sweet communion with the Lord who yet through the straightness and frowardness of their own hearts will have but little each with other Thus men wrangle themselves into a life too joyless to themselves too dishonourable to the Lord. Cadmus Teeth of strife seem every where sown and coming up very thick We might justly renew Erasmus his sad complaint of the former Age Contention lives while love and sweetness dies Tenets of faith are usually multiplied while sincerity goes as palpably down the wind Such is our wound oh that God would drop into it the balsom of love oh that he would bind it up and become our healer But because men can or rather will agree no better refer thy self and thy thoughtful heart to God and his Word Give credence in the strength of his grace to what he is there pleased to express or promise to thee Depend upon him according to all that he hath there allowed thee And compose thy self to be intirely at his command Aiming that whenever thou comest to die thou mayest resign thy self to God with these few words unfainedly breathed forth I have in my weak measure kept the word of thy patience on earth And now oh Lord be thou pleased to remember thy Servant according to this word of thine wherein thou hast caused me and I upon thy invitation have taken boldness for to hope Religion however pulled several waies is of it self a quiet and striseless thing Holy indeed but harmless Divine but still shining forth in much plainess and simplicity And be you as near as you can of that Religion which gives Glory to God on high on earth peace and good will toward men Oh! that the Lord would hasten such sweet times of refreshment from his own presence amongst us In the mean season if you see somewhat of inferiour diversity in gracious hearts a peculiar feature as it were upon several faces who have yet somewhat of true life and beauty shining in each be not too much amazed Remember Solymans great delight at the variety of flowers in his Garden professing himself highly pleased in this Though they were various they were still sweet and comely flowers Or rather call to remembrance the Fathers pious and ingenious Allusion Iosephs Coat may be of several colours so it be without a rent If you also see uncomely contentions even unto Paroxysm's and the utmost bitterness as once between the Apostles themselves it sadly was step in and tell them they are brethren desire them to be kinder to each other The Master is at hand If you shall lastly see and hear great controversies and little agreement yet know there is a true and plain way that leadeth unto life The way fating upon though a fool needs not erre therein Go 〈◊〉 to God and he will shew thee 〈◊〉 â—â—w and living way which conducteth unto himself There are many oh that they were not so many that quarrel themselves carnally to Hell be thou cordial with God laborious in the profession of his name so shall hearty Faith and unfained obedience become thy safe and honourable convoy unto Heaven Whoever quarrel in other things no man shall blame thee no man shall charge thee with folly for these Sixthly Say not lastly I have a greater discouragement yet behind then I almost dare make known some of my Friends are not so willing to have me mind such things or meddle much with Religion It is a sore temptation where the Complaint is true What shall that poor Child do whom God hath spoken to as once to the children of Israel in the Land of Egypt and his very heart even melts within him opening it self day and night as Daniels window toward Ierusalem and yet all the countenance he hath from the Family is like that churlish speech of Pharaoh He is idle he is idle encrease his burden and let him not go to â—erve the Lord This is indeed the â—rial of all trials wherever it falls A 〈◊〉 straight which needs tears rather â—han words Oh that none would lay this stone â—f stumbling before young people â—est it unhappily revives that undesired â—â—gh used by some in the Primitive 〈◊〉 Our Parents are become unto us 〈◊〉 the Ostrich in the wilderness and almost the murderers of our souls It 〈◊〉 hard for any to be an hindrance â—here they ought rather to be a furâ—erance To be found a real offence 〈◊〉 discouragement to the least of Christs little ones Here have we cause to renew the â—mentation in the Prophet and say â—he children are once more come to the â—â—rth and there wants strength to bring 〈◊〉 Here will be need of much wisâ—ome and choiceness of spirit more â—â—an such tender years commonly atâ—â—in unâ—o to cut the tread aright so 〈◊〉 obey the Lord as to shew the utâ—ost tenderness of disobeying or disâ—â—easing Friends and yet so to fulâ—â—ll our respect to them as not to forget we still owe as the Father well states it a far greater unto God The Lord himself put the everlasting arms underneath and bear up those discouraged children whose hard lot this is till he hath brought them with joy to his own bosome But this case blessed be God is rare the case of very few and I hope none of yours Be you modest I charge you Cast not the blame upon others to excuse your selves God easily sees through such pretences and understands right well where the fault still chiefly lies You know not the heart of a Parent It is natural to them though evil and too regardless of themselves to desire the welfare of their Children Your Parents have been often instilling good things have been previously laying in ponderous memorials upon your tender minds They have with much câ—re brought you up to reading They have procured you that treasure of all treasures the Bible they have recommended it to you as your Saviours Legacy where you may find the words of eternal life your safest guide your best Friend when they are gone So that you may justly confess as St. Austine concerning his Mother Monica with how great solicitousness of heart they have often admonished you in the Lord. Whose Counsels you ought to receive as Iunius the instructions of his Father Scarce ever without tears So greatly might the weight of the Argument so greatly might the authority of the Speaker affect and move you And must it now be objected or dare you now say your Friends are unwilling with your souls good It is likely they would not have you pretend Religion to be stubborn against them It is very likely they would not have