CHAPTER I: Upon the Husbandman's Care for his Cattle
CHAPTER I
Upon the Husbandman's Care for his Cattle More care for horse and oxen many take Than for their souls, or dearest children's sake.
OBSERVATION
MANY husbandmen are excessively careful about their cattle, rising themselves early, or causing their servants to rise betimes to provender and dress them. Much time is spent in some countries, in trimming and adorning their horses with curious trappings and plumes of feathers; and if at any time their beasts be sick, what care is taken to recover and heal them: you will be sure they shall want nothing that is necessary for them; yea, many will chuse rather to want themselves, than suffer their horses so to do; and take a great deal of comfort to see them thrive and prosper under their hands.
APPLICATION
WHAT one said of bloody Herod, who slew so many children at Bethlehem, That it were better to be his swine than his son, may truly enough be applied to some parents and masters, who take less care for the saving the souls of their children and servants, than they do for the bodies of those beasts which daily feed at their stalls and cribs. Many there be who do in reference to their souls, as Jacob did with respect to the preservation of their bodies, when he put all the herds of cattle before, and his wives and little ones behind, as he went to meet his brother Esau. It is a weighty saying of a grave* author; 'It is vile ingratitude to rejoice when cattle multiply, and
repine when children increase; it is heathenish distrustfulness to fear that he who provides for your beasts, will not provide for your children; and it is no less than unnatural cruelty, to be careful of the bodies of beasts, and careless of the souls of children.' Let us but a little compare your care and diligence in both respects, and see, in a few particulars, whether you do indeed value your own, or your children and servants, souls, as you do the life and health of a beast.
1. Your care for your very horses is expressed early, whilst they are but colts, and not come to do you any service; you are willing to be at pains and cost, to have them broken and brought to their way. This is more than ever many of them did for their children; they can see them wild and profane, naturally taking a stroke or way of wickedness, but yet never were at any pains or cost to break them: these must be fondled and cockered up in the natural way of their own corruption and wickedness, and not a rod of reproof used to break them off it.
It is observed of the Persians,* that they put out their children to school, as soon as they can speak, and will not see them in seven years after, lest their indulgence should do them hurt.
2. You keep your constant set times, morning and evening to feed, water, and dress your cattle, and will by no means neglect it once: but how many times have you neglected morning and evening duties in your families? Yea, how many be there, whose very tables, in respect of any worship God hath there, do very little differ from the very cribs and mangers at which their horses feed? As soon as you are up in a morning, you are with your beasts before you have been with your God. How little do such differ from beasts? And happy were it, if they were no more accountable to God than their beasts are.
The end of your care, cost, and pains about your cattle is, that they may be strong for labour, and the more serviceable to you: thus you comply with the end of their beings. But how rare a thing is it to find these men as careful to fit their posterity to be useful and serviceable to God in their generations, which is the end of their beings? If you can make them rich, and provide good matches for them, you reckon that you have fully discharged the duty of parents: if they will learn to hold the plow, that you are willing to teach them: but, when did you spend an hour to teach them the way of salvation?
Now to convince such careless parents of the heinousness of their sin, let these queries be solemnly considered.
Questions Qu. 1. Whether this be a sufficient discharge of that great duty which God hath laid upon Christian parents, in reference to their families?
That God hath charged them with the souls of their families, is undeniable, Deut. 6:6, 7. Eph. 6:4. If God hath not clothed you with his authority, to command them in the way of the Lord, he would never have charged them so strictly to yield you obedience as he hath done, Eph. 6:1. Col. 3:20. Well, a great trust is reposed in you, look to your duty; for, without dispute, you shall answer for it.
Quest. 2. Whether it be likely, if the time of youth (which is the moulding age) be neglected, they will be wrought upon to any good afterwards? Husbandmen, let me put a sensible case to you; do you not see in your very horses, that whilst they are young, you can bring them to any way; but if once they have got a false stroke, and by long custom it be grown natural to them, then there is no breaking them off it: you see it in your very orchards; you may bring a tender twig to grow in what form you please; but when it is grown to a sturdy limb, there is no bending it afterwards to any other form than what it
naturally took. Thus it is with children, Prov. 22:6. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
Qu. 3. Whether if you neglect to instruct them in the way of the Lord, Satan, and their own natural corruptions, will not instruct them in the way to hell? Consider this, ye careless parents: if you will not teach your children, the devil will teach them: if you shew them not how to pray, he will shew them how to curse and swear, and take the name of the Lord in vain; if you grudge time and pains about their souls, the devil doth not, Oh! it is a sad consideration, that so many children should be put to school to the devil.
Qu. 4. What comfort are you like to have from them when they are old, if you bring them not up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord when they are young? Many parents have lived to reap in their old age the fruit of their own folly and carelessness, in the loose and vain education of their children. By Lycurgus's law, no parent was to be relieved by his children in age, if he gave them not good education in their youth; and it is a law at this day among the Switzers, That if any child be condemned to die for a capital offence, the parents of that child are to be his executioners: these laws were made to provoke parents to look better to their charge. Believe this as an undoubted truth, That that child which becomes through thy default, an instrument to dishonour God, shall prove, sooner or later, a son or daughter of sorrow to thee.
1. God hath found out my sin this day. This hath been my practice ever since I had a family committed to my charge; I have spent more time and pains about the bodies of my beasts, than the souls of my children: beast that I am for so doing! Little have I considered the precious ness of my own, or their immortal souls. How careful have I
been to provide fodder to preserve my cattle in the winter, whilst I leave my own and their souls to perish to eternity, and make no provision for them? Surely my children will one day curse the time that ever they were born unto such a cruel father, or of such a merciless mother. Should I bring home the plague in to my family, and live to see all my poor children lie dead by the walls; if I had not the heart of a tyger, such a sight would melt my heart: and yet the death of their souls, by the sin which I propagated to them, as I have done for a beast that perisheth!
2. But, unhappy wretch that I am! God cast a better lot for me; I am the off-spring of religious and tender parents, who have always deeply concerned themselves in the everlasting state of my soul: many prayers and tears have they poured out to God for me, both in my hearing, as well as in secret; many holy and wholesome counsels have they from time to time dropt upon me; many precious examples have they set in their own practice before me; many a time when I have sinned against the Lord, have they stood over me, with a rod in their hands, and tears in their eyes, using all means to reclaim me; but like an ungracious wretch, I have slighted all their counsel, grieved their hearts, and imbittered their lives to them by my sinful courses. Ah, my soul! thou art a degenerate plant; better will it be with the off-spring of infidels than with thee, if repentance prevent not: now I live in one family with them, but shortly I shall be separated from them, as far as hell is from heaven; they now tenderly pity my misery, but then they shall approve and applaud the righteous sentence of Christ upon me: so little privilege shall I then have from my relation to them, that they shall be produced as witnesses against me, and all their rejected counsels, reproofs and examples, charged home upon me, as the aggravations of my wickedness; and better it will be, when it shall come to that, that I
had been brought forth by a beast, than sprung from the loins of such parents.
THE POEM YOUR cattle in fat pastures thrive and grow, There's nothing wanting that should make them so.
The pamper'd horse commends his master's care, Who neither pains nor cost doth grudge or spare.
But art not thou mean while the vilest fool, That pamper'st beasts, and starves thy precious soul?
'Twere well if thou couldst die as well as live Like beasts, and had no more account to give.
O that these lines your folly might detect!
Who both your own and children's souls neglect To care for beasts. O man! prepare to hear
The doleful'st language that e'er piere'd thine ear:
When you your children once in hell shall meet, And with such language their damn'd parents greet
"O cursed father! wretched mother! why Was I your off-spring? Would to God that I
Had sprung from tygers, who more tender be Unto their young than you have been to me.
How did you spend your thoughs, time, care, and cost About my body, whilst my soul was lost?
Did you not know I had a soul, that must Live, when this body was dissolv'd to dust?
You could not chuse but understand if I, Without an interest in Christ did die, It needs must come to this. O how could you
Prove so remorseless, and no pity shew?
O cruel parents! I may curse the day That I was born of such as did betray Their child to endless torments. Now must I With, and through you, in flames for ever lie."
Let this make every parent tremble, lest He lose his child, whilst caring for his beast:
Or lest his own poor soul do starve and pine, Whilst he takes thought for horses, sheep and kine.