XIV. An advice to some more specially to help others to this rest, pressed largely on ministers

XIV. An advice to some more specially to help others to this rest, pressed largely on ministers

also tell you of the honourableness of this work; but I will pass by that, lest I excite your pride instead of your zeal.

And thus I have showed you what should move and persuade you to this duty. Let me now conclude with a word of entreaty. First, To all the godly in general. Secondly, To some above others in particular, to set upon the conscionable performance of this most excellent work.

CHAP. XIV

An Advice to some more specially to help others to this Rest, pressed largely on Ministers and Parents

SECT. I. Up, then, every man that hath a tongue, and is a servant of Christ, and do something of this your Master's work. Why hath he given you a tongue but to speak in his service? And how can you serve him more eminently, than in the saving of souls? He that will pronounce you blessed at the last day, and sentence you to the kingdom prepared for you, because you fed him, and clothed him, and visited him, &c., in his members, will surely pronounce you blessed for so great a work as is the bringing over of souls to his kingdom, and helping to drive the match betwixt them and him. He that saith, "The poor you have always with you," hath left the ungodly always with you, that you might still have matter to exercise your charity upon. Oh, if you have the hearts of Christians, or of men in you, let them yearn towards your poor, ignorant, ungodly neighbours. Alas! there is but a step betwixt them and death and hell; many hundred diseases are waiting ready to seize on them, and if they die unregenerate, they are lost for ever. Have you hearts of rock, that cannot pity men in such a case as this? If you believe not the word of God, and the danger of sinners, why are you Christians yourselves? If you do believe it, why do you not bestir you to the helping of others? Do you not care who is damned, so you be saved?

If so, you have as much cause to pity yourselves; for it is a frame of spirit utterly inconsistent with grace. Should you not rather say, as

the lepers of Samaria, Is it not a day of glad tidings, and do we sit still, and hold our peace? (1 Kings 7:9.) Hath God had so much mercy on you, and will you have no mercy on your poor neighbours? You need not go far to find objects for your pity. Look but into your streets, or into the next house to you, and you will probably find some. Have you never an ignorant and unregenerate neighbour that sets his heart below, and neglecteth eternity? Oh, what blessed place do you live in, where there is none such. If there be not some of them in thine own family, it is well; and yet art thou silent? Dost thou live close by them, or meet them in the streets, or labour with them, or travel with them, or sit still and talk with them, and say nothing to them of their souls, or the life to come? If their houses were on fire, thou wouldst run and help them; and wilt thou not help them when their souls are almost at the fire of hell? If thou knewest but a remedy for their diseases, thou wouldst tell it them, or else thou wouldst judge thyself guilty of their death. Cardan speaks of one that had a receipt that would suddenly and certainly dissolve the stone in the bladder; and he concludes of him, that he makes no doubt but that man is in hell, because he never revealed it to any before he died. What shall we say, then, of them that know of the remedy for curing souls, and do not reveal it; nor persuade men to make use of it? Is it not hypocrisy to pray daily for their conversion and salvation, and never once endeavour to procure it? And is it not hypocrisy to pray, "that God's name may be hallowed," and never to endeavour to bring men to hallow it, nor hinder them from profaning it? And can you pray "Let thy kingdom come," and yet never labour for the coming or increase of that kingdom? Is it no grief to your hearts to see the kingdom of Satan so to flourish, and to see him lead captive such a multitude of souls? You take on you that you are soldiers in Christ's army, and will you do nothing against his prevailing enemies? You pray also daily, "that his will may be done;" and should you not daily, then, persuade men to do it, and dissuade them from sinning against it? You pray, "that God would forgive them their sins, and that he would not lead them into temptation, but deliver them from evil;" and yet will you not help them against temptations, nor help to deliver them from the greatest evil. Nor help them to repent

and believe, that they maybe forgiven. Alas! that your prayers and your practice should so much disagree! Look about you, therefore,

Christians, with an eye of compassion on the ignorant ungodly sinners about you; be not like the priest or Levite who saw the man wounded, and passed by. God did not so pass by you, when it was your own case. Are not the souls of your neighbours fallen into the hands of Satan? Doth not their misery cry out to you, Help! help! As you have any compassion towards men in the greatest misery, help!

As you have the hearts of men, and not of tigers in you, help! Alas! how forward are hypocrites in their sacrifice, and how backward to show mercy! How much in praying, and duties of worship, and how little in plain reproof and exhortation, and other duties of compassion! And yet God hath told them, "that he will have mercy, and not sacrifice;" that is, mercy before sacrifice. And how forward are these hypocrites to censure ministers for neglecting their duties!

Yea, to expect more duty from one minister, than ten can perform!

And yet they make no conscience of neglecting their own. Nay, how forward are they to separate from those about them! And how censorious against those that admit them to the Lord's supper, or that join with them! And yet will they not be brought to deal with them in Christ's way for their recovery: as if other men were to work, and they only to sit by and judge. Because they know it is a work of trouble, and will many times set men against them, therefore no persuasion will bring them to it. They are like men that see their neighbour sick of the plague, or drowning in the water, or taken captive by the enemy, and they dare not venture to relieve him themselves: but none so forward to put on others. So are these men the greatest expecters of duty, and the least performers.

Sect. II. But as this duty lieth upon all in general, so upon some more especially, according as God hath called or qualified them thereto. To them, therefore, more particularly I will address my exhortation, whether they be such as have more opportunity and advantages for this work, or such as have better abilities to perform it, or such as have both. And these are of several sorts.

1. All you that God hath given more learning and knowledge to, and endued with better parts for utterance than your neighbours, God expecteth this duty especially at your hand. The strong are made to help the weak, and those that see must direct the blind. God looketh for this faithful improvement of your parts and gifts, which if you neglect, it were better for you that you never had received them: for they will but further your condemnation, and be as useless to your own salvation, as they were to others.

Sect. III. 2. All those that have special familiarity with some ungodly men, and that have interest in them, God looks for this duty at their hands. Christ himself did eat and drink with publicans and sinners, but it was only to be their physician, and not their companion. Who knows but God gave you interest in them to this end, that you might be the means of their recovery? They that will not regard the words of another, will regard a brother, or sister, or husband, or wife, or near friend; besides, that the bond of friendship doth engage you to more kindness and compassion than ordinary.

Sect. IV. 3. Physicians that are much about dying men, should, in a special manner, make conscience of this duty: they have a treble advantage. First, They are at hand. Secondly, They are with men in sickness and dangers, when the ear is more open, and the heart less stubborn than in time of health. He that made a scorn of godliness before, will then be of another mind, and hear counsel then, if ever he will hear it. Thirdly, Besides, they look upon their physician as a man in whose hand is their life; or at least may do much to save them, and therefore they will the more regardfully hear his advice.

Oh, therefore, you that are of this honourable profession, do not think this a work beside your calling; as if it belonged to none but ministers, except you think it beside your calling to be compassionate, or to be Christians. Oh, help, therefore, to fit your patients for heaven, and whether you see they are for life or death, teach them both how to live and to die, and give them some physic for their souls, as you do for their bodies. Blessed be God that very many of the chief physicians of this age, have, by their eminent piety,

vindicated their profession from the common imputation of atheism and profaneness.

Sect. V. 4. Another sort that have excellent advantages for this duty, is, men that have wealth and authority, and are of great place and command in the world, especially that have many that live in dependence on them. Oh, what a world of good might gentlemen, and knights, and lords, do, that have a great many tenants, and that are the leaders of the country, if they had but hearts to improve their interest and advantage!f Little do you that are such, think of the duty that lies upon you in this. Have you not all your honour and riches from God? And is it not evident, then, that you must employ them for the best advantage of his service? Do you not know who hath said,

"that to whom men commit much, from them they will expect the more?"

You have the greatest opportunities to do good, of most men in the world. Your tenants dare not contradict you, lest you dispossess them or their children of their habitations. They fear you more than they do God himself; your frown will do more with them, than the threatenings of the Scripture; they will sooner obey you, than God. If you speak to them for God and their souls, you may be regarded, when even a minister that they fear not, shall be despised. If they do but see you favour the way of godliness, they will lightly counterfeit it, at least, to please you, especially if they live within the reach of your observation. Oh, therefore, as you value the honour of God, your own comfort, and the salvation of souls, improve your interest to the utmost for God. Go visit your tenants and neighbours' houses, and see whether they worship God in their families, and take all opportunities to press them to their duties. Do not despise them because they are poor or simple. Remember, God is no respecter of persons; your flesh is of no better metal than theirs; nor will the worms spare your faces or hearts any more than theirs; nor will your bones or dust bear the badge of your gentility; you must be all equals when you stand in judgment; and, therefore, help the soul of a poor man, as well if he were a gentleman. And let men see that you excel

others as much in piety, heavenliness, compassion, and diligence in God's work, as you do in riches and honour in the world.

I confess you are like to be singular if you take this course; but then remember, you shall be singular in glory, for few great, and mighty, and noble, are called.

Sect. VI. 5. Another sort that have special opportunity to this work of helping others to heaven, is, the ministers of the Gospel. As they have, or should have more ability than others, so it is the very work of their calling, and every one expecteth it at their hands, and will better submit to their teaching than to others. I intend not these instructions so much to teachers as to others, and therefore I shall say but little to them; and if all, or most ministers among us, were as faithful and diligent as some, I would say nothing. But, because it is otherwise, let me give these two or three words of advice to my brethren in this office.

1. Be sure that the recovering and saving of souls be the main end of your studies and preaching. (Acts 20 and 26:18.) O do not propound any low and base ends to yourselves. This is the end of your calling, let it be also the end of your endeavours. God forbid that you should spend a week's study to please the people, or to seek the advancing of your own reputation. Dare you appear in the pulpit on such a business, and speak for yourselves, when you are sent, and pretend to speak for Christ? Dare you spend that time, and wit, and parts, for yourselves? And waste the Lord's-day in seeking applause, which God hath set apart for himself. Oh, what notorious sacrilege is this!

Set out the work of God as skilfully and adornedly as you can, but still let the winning of souls be your end, and let all your studies and labours be serviceable thereto. Let not the window be so painted as to keep out the light, but always judge that the best means that most conduceth to the end. Do not think that God is best served by a neat, starched, laced oration; but that he is the able, skilful minister, that is best skilled in the art of instructing, convincing, persuading, and so winning of souls; and that is the best sermon that is best in these.

When you once grow otherwise minded, and seek not God but yourselves, God will make you the basest and most contemptible of men, as you make yourselves the most sinful and wretched. Hath not this brought down the ministry of England once already? It is true of your reputation, as Christ saith of your lives, "They that will save them, will lose them." Oh! let the vigour, also, of your persuasions show that you are sensible on how weighty a business you are sent.

Oh! preach with that seriousness and fervour as men that believe their own doctrine, and that know their hearers must either be prevailed with, or be damned. What you would do to save them from everlasting burning, that do while you have the opportunity and price in your hand; that people may discern that you are in good sadness, and mean as you speak; and that you are not stage-players, but preachers of the doctrine of salvation. Remember what Cicero saith, "that if the matter be ever so combustible, yet, if you put not fire to it, it will not burn." And what Erasmus saith, "that a hot iron will pierce, when a cold one will not." And if the wise men of the world account you mad, say as Paul, "If we are beside ourselves, it is to God." And remember that Christ was so busy in doing of good, that his friends themselves begun to lay hands on him, thinking he had been beside himself. (Mark 3) Sect. VII. 2. The second and chief word of advice that I would give you, is this: Do not think that all your work is in your studies, and in the pulpit. I confess that is great; but, alas! it is but a small part of your task. You are shepherds, and must know every sheep, and what is their disease, and mark their strayings, and help to cure them, and fetch them home.

If the paucity of ministers in great congregations (which is the great unobserved mischief in England that cries for reformation) did not make it a thing impossible in many places, I should charge the ministers of England with most notorious unfaithfulness, for neglecting so much the rest of their work, which calleth for their diligence as much as public preaching. O learn of Paul, (Acts 20:19,

20, 31,) to preach publicly, and from house to house, night and day

with tears. Let there not be a soul in your charge that shall not be particularly instructed and watched over. Go from house to house daily, and inquire how they grow in knowledge and holiness, and on what grounds they build their hopes of salvation; and whether they walk uprightly, and perform the duties of their several relations, and use the means to increase their abilities. See whether they daily worship God in their families; and set them in a way, and teach them how to do it: confer with them about the doctrines and practice of religion, and how they receive and profit by public teaching, and answer all their carnal objections; keep in familiarity with them, that you may maintain your interest in them, and improve all your interest for God. See that no seducers do creep in amongst them, or if they do, be diligent to countermine them; and preserve your people from infection of heresies and schisms; or if they be infected, be diligent to procure their recovery; not with passion and lordliness, but with patience and condescension: as Musculus did by the Anabaptists, visiting them in prison, where the magistrate had cast them, and there instructing and relieving them; and though they reviled him when he came, and called him a false prophet, and antichristian seducer that thirsted for their blood, yet he would not so leave them, till at last by his meekness and love he had overcome them, and recovered many to the truth, and to unity with the church.

Have a watchful eye upon each particular sheep in your flock: do not do as the lazy separatists, that gather a few of the best together, and take them only for their charge, leaving the rest to sink or swim, and giving them over to the devil and their lusts; and except it be by a sermon in the pulpit, scarce ever endeavouring their salvation, nor once looking what becomes of them. O let it not be so with you! If any be weak in the faith, receive him, but not to doubtful disputations. (Rom. 14:1.) If any be too careless of their duties, and too little savour the things of the Spirit, let them be pitied, and not neglected: if any walk scandalously and disorderly, deal with them for their recovery, with all diligence and patience, and set before them the heinousness and danger of their sin; if they prove obstinate after all, then avoid them, and cast them off: but do not so cruelly as

to un-church them by hundreds and by thousands, and separate from them as so many pagans, and that before any such means have been used for their recovery. If they be ignorant, it may be your fault as well as theirs; and however, they are fitter to be instructed than rejected, except they absolutely refuse to be taught. Christ will give you no thanks for keeping or putting out such from his school that are unlearned, when their desire or will is to be taught. I confess, it is easier to shut out the ignorant, than to bestow our pains night and day in teaching them; but woe to such slothful, unfaithful servants.

(Matt. 24:45, 46.) Who then is a faithful and a wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them their meat in due season, according to every one's age and capacity? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. O be not asleep while the wolf is waking! Let your eye be quick in observing the dangers and strayings of your people. If jealousies, heart-burnings, or contentions arise among them, quench them before they break out into raging, unresistible flames. As soon as you discern any to turn worldly, or proud, or factious, or self-conceited, or disobedient, or cold, and slothful in his duty; delay not, but presently make out for his recovery: remember how many are losers in the loss of a soul.

Sect. VIII. 3. Do not daub, or deal slightly with any; some will not tell their people plainly of their sins, because they are great men, and some because they are godly, as if none but the poor and the wicked should plainly be dealt with; do not you so, but reprove them sharply, though differently, and with wisdom, that they may be sound in the faith. When the Palsgrave chose Pitiseus for his household chaplain, he charged him, That without fear he should discharge his duty, and freely admonish him of his faults, as the Scriptures do require. Such encouragement from great ones, would embolden ministers, and free themselves from the unhappiness of sinning unreproved. If gentlemen would give no more thanks to Doegs, and accusers of the ministers, than Wigandus's prince did to that flattering lawyer who accused him for speaking to princes too plainly, they should learn quickly to be silent, when they had been

forced as Haman's themselves, to clothe Mordecai, and set him in honour. However, God doth sufficiently encourage us to deal plainly;

He hath bid us speak and fear not; He hath promised to stand by us, and He will be our security; He may suffer us to be anathema secundum dici (as Bucholeer said), but non secundum esse: He will keep us, as he did Huss's heart from the power of fire, though they did beat it, when they found it among the ashes; they may burn our bones, as Bucer's and Fagius's; or they may raise lies of us when we are dead, as of Luther, Calvin, and Œcolampadius; but the soul feeleth not this, that is rejoicing with his Lord; in the mean time let us be as well learned in the art of suffering (as Xenophon) as they are in the art of reproaching: I had rather hear from the mouth of Balak,

"God hath kept thee from honour;" or from Ahab, "Feed him with the bread and water of affliction;" or from Amaziah, "Art thou made of the king's council? forbear, why shouldst thou be smitten?" than to hear conscience say, 'Thou hast betrayed souls to damnation by thy cowardice and silence;' or to hear God say 'Their blood will I require at thy hands;' or to hear from Christ the judge, "Cast the unprofitable servant into utter darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth;" yea, or to hear these sinners cry out against me in eternal fire, and with implacable rage to charge me with their undoing. (Numb.

22:11; 1 Kings 22:27; 2 Chron. 25:16; Ezek. 3:18, 20, and 33:8; Matt.

25:30.) And as you must be plain and serious, so labour to be skilful and discreet, that the manner may somewhat answer the excellency of the matter. How oft have I heard a stammering tongue, with ridiculous expressions, vain repetitions, tedious circumlocutions, and unseemly pronunciation, to spoil most precious spiritual doctrine, and make the hearers either loathe it, or laugh at it! How common are these extremes in the ministers of England! That while one spoils the food of life by affectation, and new-fashioned mincing, and pedantic toys, either setting forth a little and mean matter with a great deal of froth, and gaudy dressing; so that there is more of the shell or paring than of the meat: or like children's babies, that when you have taken away the dressing, you have taken away all; or else

hiding excellent truths in a heap of vain rhetoric, and deforming its naked beauty with their paintings, so that no more seriousness can be perceived in their sermons, than in a schoolboy's declamations: and our people are brought to hear sermons, as they do stage-plays, because ministers behave themselves but as the actors: on the other side, how many by their slovenly dressing, and the uncleanness of the dish that it is served up in, do make men loathe and nauseate the food of life, and even despise and cast up that which should nourish them! Such novices are admitted into the sacred function, to the hardening of the wicked, the saddening of the godly, and the disgrace and wrong of the work of the Lord; and those that are not able to speak sense or reason, are made the ambassadors of the most high

God.

I know, our style must not be the same with different auditories: our language must not only be suited to our matter, but also to our hearers, or else the best sermon may be the worst; we must not read the highest books to the lowest form: therefore was Luther wont to say, that "Qui pueriliter, populariter, trivialiter, et simplicissime docent, optimi ad vulgus sunt concionatores:" but yet it is a poor sermon that hath nothing but words and noise. Every reasonable soul hath both judgment and affection; and every rational, spiritual sermon must have both. A discourse that hath judgment without affection is dead, and ineffectual; and that which hath affection without judgment is mad and transporting: remember the proverb,

"Non omnes qui habent citharam, sunt citharœdi," Every man is not a musician that hath an instrument, or that can jangle it, and make a noise on it: and that other proverb, "Multi sunt qui boves stimulant, pauci aratores," Many can prick the oxen, but few can plough; so, many preachers can talk loud and earnestly, but few can guide their flock aright, or open to them solidly the mysteries of the Gospel, and show the true mean between the extremes of contrary errors: I know both must be done; holding the plough without driving the oxen, doth nothing; and driving without holding, maketh mad work, and is worse than nothing: but yet remember, that every plough-boy can drive; but to guide is more difficult, and therefore belongeth to the

master-workman: the violence of the natural motion of the winds can drive on the ship; but there is necessary a rational motion to guide and govern it, or else it will quickly be on the rocks and shelves, either broke or sunk, and had better lie still in the harbour, at an anchor; the horses that have no reason, can set the coach or cart agoing, but if there be not some that have reason to guide them, it were better stand still. Oh, therefore, let me bespeak you, my brethren, in the name of the Lord, especially those that are more young and weak, that you tremble at the greatness of this holy employment, and run not up into a pulpit as boldly as into the marketplace; study and pray, pray and study, till you are become workmen that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, that your people may not be ashamed, or weary to hear you; but that besides your clear unfolding of the doctrine of the Gospel, you may also be masters of your people's affections, and may be as potent in your divine rhetoric, as Cicero in his human, who, as it is said, while he pleaded for Ligarius, "Arma de imperatoris quantumvis irati manu excusserit, et misero supplici veniam impetrarit;" or, as it is said of excellent Bucholcer, that he never went up into the pulpit, but he raised in men almost what affections he pleased: so raising the dejected, and comforting the afflicted, and strengthening the tempted, that though it were two hours before he had done, yet not any, even of the common people, were weary of hearing him. Set before your eyes such patterns as these,q and labour with unwearied diligence to be like them. To this end take

Demosthenes' counsel, "Plus olci quam vini absumere." It is a work that requireth your most serious, searching thoughts. Running, hasty, easy studies, bring forth blind births. When you are the most renowned doctors in the church of God, alas, how little is it that you know, in comparison of all that which you are ignorant of! Content not yourselves to know what is the judgment of others, as if that were to know the truth in its evidence; give not over your studies when you know what the orthodox hold, and what is the opinion of the most esteemed divines: though I think while you are novices,s and learners yourselves, you may do well to take much upon trust from the more judicious: yet stop not there; but know, that such faith is

more borrowed than your own: an implicit faith in matters, not fundamental, and of great difficulty, is ofttimes commendable, yea, and necessary in your people, who are but scholars; but in you that are masters and teachers, it is a reproach.

Sect. IX. 4. Be sure that your conversation be teaching as well as your doctrine. Do not contradict and confute your own doctrine by your practice. Be as forward in a holy and heavenly life, as you are in pressing on others to it. Let your discourse be as edifying and spiritual as you teach them that theirs must be. Go not to law with your people, nor quarrel with them, if you can possibly avoid it. If they wrong you, forgive them: for evil language give them good, and blessing for their cursing. Let go your right rather than let go your hopes and advantages for the winning of one soul. Suffer any thing rather than the Gospel and men's souls should suffer. Become all things lawful to all men, if by any means you may win some. Let men see that you use not the ministry only for a trade to live by, but that your very hearts are wholly set upon the welfare of their souls.

Whatsoever meekness, humility, condescension, or self-denial, you teach them from the Gospel, oh! teach it them also by your undissembled, leading example. This is to be guides, and pilots, and governors of the church indeed. Be not like the orators that Diogenes blamed, that studied bene dicere, non bene facere; nor like the sign at the inn-door, that hangs out in the rain itself, while it shows others where they may have shelter and refreshing; nor like the fencer that can offend, but not defend; as Cicero said of Cælius, that he was a good right-hand man, but an ill left-hand man. See that you be as well able to defend yourselves when you are tempted by Satan, or accused by men to be proud, covetous, or negligent, as to tell others what they should be. Oh, how many heavenly doctrines are in some people's ears, that never were in the preacher's heart! Too true is that of Hilary, "Sanctiores sunt aures plebis, quam corda sacerdotum."

Alas, that ever pride, emulation, hypocrisy, or covetousness, should come into a pulpit! They are hateful in the shops and street, but more hateful in the church, but in the pulpit most of all. What an odious sight is it, to see pride and ambition stand up to preach humility; and

hypocrisy to preach up sincerity; and an earthly-minded man to preach for a heavenly conversation! Do I need to tell you that are teachers of others, that we have but a little while longer to preach; and but a few more breaths to breathe, and then we must come down, and be accountable for our work? Do I need to tell you that we must die, and be judged as well as our people; or that justice is most severe about the sanctuary; and judgment beginneth at the house of God; and revenge is most implacable about the altar; and jealousy is hottest about the ark? Have you not learned these lessons from Eli,

Corah, Nadab, and Abihu, Uzzah, and the Bethshemites, &c., though I had said nothing? Can you forget that even some of our tribe shall say at judgment, "Lord, we have taught in thy name," (Matt. 7,) who yet must depart with "I know you not?" Do you learn nothing by the afflictions that now lie upon you? You see what hath been done against the ministry of England: how some have been laid hold on by the hand of justice, and some by the hand of violence and injustice, and how all are lashed and reproached by the wanton tongues of ignorant, insolent sectaries; neither prelatical, presbyterian, nor mere independent, now spared, it being the very calling itself that now they set against; how they rob the church of her due maintenance, and make no more of it than Dionysius did of robbing

Æsculapius of his golden beard, "Quia barbatus erat filius, at pater Apollo non ita;" or than the same Dionysius did of robbing Jupiter

Olympius of the golden coat that Hieron. had given, saying, "that a coat of gold was too heavy for summer, and too cold for winter, but cloth would be suitable to both;" or than he did of robbing the images of the vessels of gold which they held in their hands, saying, "he did but take what they offered, and held forth to him;" or than the same

Dionysius did of robbing the temple of Proserpina, when afterwards his ships had a prosperous wind, "Videtis, inquit, quàm prospera navigatio à Diis immortalibus detur sacrilegis: ex hoc colligens aut non esse Deos, aut illis non esse molesta sacrilegia." Sirs, doth God lay all this on the church and ministry for nothing? Doth not the world know that an ignorant, lazy ministry formerly possessed many churches in the land? And how many such are there yet remaining?

And those that are better, alas! how far from what we should be,

either in knowledge or practice; and yet how unwilling are they to learn what they know not! Even as unwilling as their people are to learn of them, if not much more, Oh, see your errors by the glass of your afflictions, and if the words of God will not serve the turn, let the tongues of enemies and sectaries show you your transgressions.

Of whom may I say to you as Erasmus of Luther, "Deus dedit huic postremæ ætati propter morborum multitudinem acrem medicum;" and as the Emperor Charles of the same Luther, "Si sacrificuli frugi essent, nullo indigerent Luthero." Yet let not any papist catch at this, as if our ministry were unlearned and vicious, in comparison of theirs; the contrary of the common sort is well known: and though the Jesuits of late have been so industrious and learned, yet I could tell them, out of Erasmus, of some that proved heretics must be killed, from Paul's "hæreticum hominem devita," i.e. vita tolle; and of Hen. Stephanus' priest of Artois, that would prove that it belonged to his parishioners to pave the church, and not to him; From Jeremy's

"paveant illi," not "paveam ego." Or if these seem partial witnesses, I could tell them what Bellarmine saith of the ninth age: "Seculo hoc nullum extitit indoctius aut infelicius, quo qui mathematicæ aut philosophiæ operam dabat, magnus vulgo putabatur;" and as Espencæus saith, "Et Græce nosse suspectum fuerit, Hebraice prope hæreticum." I could tell them also what a clergy was found in Germany, and in England,x at the Reformation; what barbarous ignorance, beastly uncleanness, and murders of the children begotten in whoredom, was found among them. I could tell them who have been turned from their church by a mere journey to Rome; there seeing the wickedness of their chiefest clergy: and what

Petrarch, Mantuan, with multitudes more, say of it: and (if the most horrid murders were not become virtues with them; and did they not think they did God service by killing his servants) should mind them of all the burnings in England, and of all the unparalleled, bloody massacres in France, and the Inquisition of Spain, which their clergy yet manage and promote. If any say, that I speak this but upon reports, we have seen no such thing, I answer as Pausanias, when he was blamed for dispraising a physician that he had never made trial of, "Si periculum fecissem nequaquam viverem." If we had fallen into

their hands, it had been too late to complain: "Quia me vestigia terrent, omnia in adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum." And some taste of the fruits of their projects we have lately had in England, by which paw we may sufficiently conjecture of the lion. So that, as bad as we are, our adversaries have little cause to reproach us.

But yet, brethren, let us impartially judge ourselves; for God will shortly judge us impartially. What is it that hath occasioned so many novices to invade the ministry, who, being puffed up with pride, are fallen into the snare of the devil, (1 Tim. 3:6,) and bring the work of God into contempt by their ignorance? Hath not the ungodliness and ambition of those that are more learned, by bringing learning itself into contempt, been the cause of all this? Alas! who can be so blinded by his charity, as not to see the truth of this among us? How many of the greatest wits have the most graceless hearts! and relish Cicero,

Demosthenes, or Aristotle, better than David, or Paul, or Christ; and even loathe those holy ways which customarily they preach for; that have no higher ends in entering upon the ministry, than gain and preferment: and when the hopes of preferment are taken away, they think it but folly to choose such a toilsome and ungrateful work. And thus the ball of reproach is tossed between the well-meaning ignorant, and the ungodly learned; and between these two, how miserable is the church! The one cries out of unlearned schismatics; the other cries out of proud, ungodly persecutors; and say, 'These are your learned men, who study for nothing but for a benefice, or a bishoprick; that are as strange to the mysteries of regeneration, and a holy life, as any others!' and oh, that these reproaches were not too true of many! God hath lessened ministers of late, one would think sufficiently, to beware of ambition and secular avocations; but it is hard to hear God speak by the tongue of an enemy, or to see and acknowledge his hand where the instrument doth miscarry. If English examples have lost their force, as being so near your eyes that you cannot see them, remember the end of Funicius, that learned chronologer, who might have lived longer as a divine, but died as a prince's counsellor, and the distich pronounced at his death.

Disce meo exemplo, mandato munere fungi, Et fuge ceu pestem τὴν πολυπραγμοσύνην.

And the like fate of Justus Jonas, (J. C., son of that great divine of that name,) the next year, whose last verses were like the former.

Quid juvat innumeros scire atque evolvere casus, Si facienda fugis, si fugienda facis?

Study not, therefore, the way of rising, but the way of righteousness.

Honesty will hold out, when honours will deceive you. If your hearts be once infected with the fermentation of this swelling humour, it will quickly rise up to your brain, and corrupt your intellectuals, and then you will be of that opinion which your flesh thinks to be good, and not that which your judgment thought to be true; and you will fetch your religion from the statute-book, and not from the Bible, as the jest went of Agricola, who turned from a protestant to an antinomian; and being convinced of that error, turned papist, into the other extreme; and Pflugius and Sidonius, authors of the Interim;

"Chrisma ab eis et oleum pontificium inter alia defenduntur, ut ipsi discederent unctiores," because they obtained bishopricks by it. Oh, what a doleful case is it to see so many brave wits, and men of profound learning, to be made as useless and hurtful to the church of God by their pride and ungodliness, as others are by their pride and ignorance! Were a clear understanding conjoined with a holy heart and heavenly life, and were they as skilful in spiritual as human learning, what a glory and blessing would they be to the churches!

Sect. X. 5. Lastly, Be sure that you study and strive after unity and peace. If ever you would promote the kingdom of Christ, and your people's salvation, do it in a way of peace and love: public wars and private quarrels do usually pretend the reformation of the church, the vindicating of the truth, and the welfare of souls, but they as usually prove in the issue, the greatest means to the overthrow of all.

It is as natural for both wars and private contentions to produce errors, schisms, contempt of magistracy, ministry, and ordinances, as it is for a dead carrion to breed worms and vermin: believe it from one that hath too many years' experience of both in armies and garrisons: it is as hard a thing to maintain, even in your people, a sound understanding, a tender conscience, a lively, gracious, heavenly frame of spirit, and an upright life, in a way of war and contention, as to keep your candle lighted in the greatest storms, or under the waters.

The like I may say of perverse and fierce disputings about baptism, and the circumstantials of discipline, or other questions that are far from the foundation; they oftener lose the truth than find it.

A synod is as likely and lawful a means as any for such decisions; and yet Nazianzen saith, "Se hactenus non vidisse ullius synodi utilem finem, aut in qua res male se habentes, non magis exacerbatæ quam curatæ fuerint."

With the vulgar, he seems to be the conqueror that hath the last word, or at least he that hath the most plausible deportment, the most affecting tone, the most earnest and confident expressions, the most probable arguments, rather than he that hath the most naked demonstrations. He takes with them most, that speaks for the opinion which they like and are inclined to, though he speak nonsense: and he that is most familiar with them, hath the best opportunities and advantages to prevail, especially he that hath the greatest interest in their affections. So that a disputation before the vulgar, even of the godly, is as likely a means to corrupt them, as to cure them; usually the most erroneous seducers will carry out their cause with as good a face, as fluent a tongue, as great contempt and reproach of their opposers, and as much confidence, that the truth is on their side, as if it were so indeed.

Paræus's master taught him that "certo certius in qualibet minutissima panis portione, vere et substantialiter integrum corpus

Christi esset: item in, apud, cum, sub minutissima vini guttula adesset integer sanguis dominicus." What confidence was here in a bad cause! And if you depend on the most reverend and bestesteemed teachers, and suffer the weight of their reputation to turn the scales, you may in many things be never the nearer to the truth.

How many learned able men have the name and authority of Luther misled in the point of con-substantiation? Ursin was carried away with it awhile, till he was turned from it by the reading of Luther's own arguments, they were such paralogisms. Yet was it Luther's charge to his followers, "that none should call themselves after his name, because he died not for them, nor was his doctrine his own."

The only way, therefore, to the prospering your labours, is, to quench all flames of contention, to your power. If you would have the waters of verity and piety to be clear, the way is not to stir in them, and trouble them, but to let them settle in peace, and run down into practice.

Woe to those ministers who make unnecessary divisions and parties among the people, that so they may get themselves a name, and be cried up by many followers! And as you should thus study the peace and unity of your congregations, so keep out all the occasions of division, especially the doctrine of separation, and popular church government, the apparent seminary of faction and perpetual contentions. If once your people be taught that it belongeth to them to govern themselves, and those that Scripture calleth their guides and rulers, you shall have mad work! When every one is a governor, who are the governed? When the multitude, how unable soever, must hear and judge of every cause, both their teachers and others, they need no other employment to follow: this will find them work enough, as it doth to parliament-men to sit, and hear, and speak, and vote.

Is it not strange that so learned a man as Pet. Ramus should be advocate for the multitude's authority in church-government? But that God must use so sharp a cure for those contentions, as that bloody French massacre, methinks should make England tremble to

consider it, lest the same disease here must have the like cure. If an army had tried this popular government but one year among themselves in their military affairs, and had attempted and managed all their designs by the vote of the whole army, I durst have valued their judgments the better ever after in this point.

Woe to the patient that must have a mistaken physician, till he be grown skilful by making experiments upon his diseases: and woe to the people that are in such hands, as must learn their skill in government from the common calamities only, and from their experience of the sufferings of the people! This kind of knowledge, I confess, is the thoroughest; but it is pity that so many others should pay so dear for it.

You, therefore, who are the guides of this chariot of Christ, take heed of losing the reins, lest all be overthrown. Alas! poor England, how are thy bowels torn out, because thy inhabitants, yea, and guides, run all into extremes, like a drunken man that reeleth from side to side, but cannot keep the middle way: nay, they hate a man of peace, who runs not out into their extremes. One party would pluck up the hedge of government, as if the vineyard could not be fruitful, except it lie waste to the pleasure of all the beasts of the forest. They are like the pond that should grudge at the banks and dam, and thinks it injurious to be thus restrained of its liberty, and therefore combine with the winds to raise a tempest, and so assault and break down the banks in their rage; and now where is that peaceable association of waters? Methinks the enemies of government are just in the case, as I remember, when I was a boy, our school was in, when we had barred out our master, we grudged at our yoke, we longed for liberty; because it was not given us, we resolved to take it. When we had got out our master, and shut fast the doors, we grew bold, and talked to him at our pleasure: then no one was master, and every one was our master. We spend our time in playing and quarrelling, we treat at last with our master about coming in; but our liberty was so sweet that we were loth to leave it, and we had run ourselves so deep in guilt, that we durst not trust him, and therefore we resolve to let him

in no more: but, in the end, when our playdays, which we called holidays, were over, we were fain to give an account of our boldness, and soundly to be whipped for it, and so to come under the yoke again. Lord, if this be the case of England, let us rather be whipped, and whipped again, than turned out of thy school, and from under thy government.

We feel now how those are mistaken that think the way for the church's unity, is to dig up the banks and let all loose, that every man in religion may do what he list.k On the other side, some men, to escape this Scylla, do fall into the Charybdis of violence and formality. They must have all men to walk in fetters, and they must be the makers of them; and ministers must be taught to preach by such jives as their horses are taught to pace.

No man must be suffered to come into a pulpit, that thinks not or speaks not as they would have him: or, if they cannot take away his liberty, they will do what they can to blast his reputation. Yet if he cannot have the repute of being orthodox, it were well if they would leave him the reputation of a Christian.

But having, also, a Christianity of their own making, and proper to themselves, they will presently unchristen him, and make him a heretic by proclamation; as if they had so far the power of the keys, as to lock up the doors of heaven against him, and wipe out his name from the book of life.

It striketh me sometimes into an amazement with admiration, that it should be possible for such mountains of pride to remain in the hearts of many godly, reverend ministers! That they should no more be conscious of the weakness of their own understandings, but that even in disputable, difficult things they must be the rule by which all others must be judged. So that every man's judgment must be cut meet to the standard of theirs; and whatsoever opinion is either shorter or longer, must be rejected with the scorn of a heresy or an error. Wonderful! That men who have ever studied divinity should

no more discern the profundities, and difficulties, and their own incapacities! More wonderful, that any disciple of Christ should be such an enemy to knowledge as to resolve they will know no more themselves than is commonly known, or suffer any other to know more. So that when a man hath read once what is the opinion of the divines that are in most credit, he dare search no further, for fear of being counted a novelist or heretic, or lest he bear their curse for adding to, or taking from, the common conceits! So that divinity is become an easier study than heretofore. We are already at a ne plus ultra. It seemeth vain, when we know the opinion is in credit, to search any further. We have then nothing to do but easily to study for popular sermons: nor is it safe so much as to make them our own, by looking into and examining their grounds, lest in so doing we should be forced to a dissent: so that scholars may easily be drawn to think that it is better to be at a venture of the common belief, which may be with ease, than to weary and spend themselves in tedious studies, when they are sure, beforehand, of no better reward from men than the reputation of heretics, which is the lot of all that go out of the common road. So that who will hereafter look after any more truth than is known and in credit, except it be some one that is so taken with admiration of it as to cast all his reputation overboard, rather than make shipwreck of his self-prized merchandise; yet most wonderful it is, that any Christian, especially so many godly ministers, should arrogate to themselves the high prerogatives of God, viz., to be the rule and standard of truth! I know they will say that Scripture is the rule; but when they must be the peremptory judges of the sense of that Scripture,n so that in the hardest controversies none must swerve from their sense, upon pain of being branded with heresy or error, what is this but to be the judges themselves, and Scripture but their servant? The final, full, decisive interpretation of laws, belongeth to none but the law-makers themselves; for who can know another man's meaning beyond his expressions, but himself?

And it yet increaseth my wonder that these divines have not forgotten how constantly our divines, that write against the papists,

do disclaim any such living, final, decisive judge of controversies, but make Scripture the only judge. Oh! what mischief hath the church of Christ suffered by the enlarging of her creed. While it contained but twelve articles, believers were plain, and peaceable, and honest: but a Christian now is not the same thing as then; our heads swell so big, like children that have the rickets, that all the body fares the worse for it. Every new article that was added to the creed, was a new engine to stretch the brains of believers, and in the issue to rend out the bowels of the church.

It never went so well with the church, since it begun, as Erasmus saith of the times of the Nicene council, "rem ingeniosam fore

Christianum esse," to be a matter of so much wit and cunning to be a Christian. Not but all our wit should be here employed, and controversies of difficulty may be debated; but when the decision of these must be put into our creed, and a man must be of the faith that the church is of, it goes hard. Methinks I could read Aquinas, or Scotus, or Bellarmine, with profit, ut philosophiam et theologiam liberam; but when I must make them all parts of my creed, and subscribe to all they say, or else be no Catholic, this is hard dealing. I know now we have no Spanish Inquisition to fire us from the truth; but, as Grynæus was wont to say, "Pontifici Romano Erasmum plus nocuisse jocando, quam Lutherum stomachando;" so some men's reproaches may do more than other men's persecutions.

And it is not the least aggravation of these men's arrogancy, that they are most violent in the points that they have least studied, or which they are most ignorant in: yea, and that their cruel reproaches are usually so incessant, that where they once fasten, they scarce ever loose again; having learned the old lesson, "To be sure to accuse boldly, for the scar will remain when the wound is healed." Yea, some will not spare the fame of the dead, but when their souls have the happiness of saints with God, their names must have the stain of heresy with men. More ingenuity had Charles the emperor, when the Spanish soldiers would have dug up the bones of Luther: "Sinite ipsum, inquit, quiescere ad diem resurrectionis et judicium

omnium," &c. "Let him rest," saith he, "till the resurrection and the final judgment; if he were a heretic, he shall have as severe a judge as you can desire."

These are the extremes which poor England groaneth under; and is there no remedy? Besides the God of peace, there is no remedy.

Peace is fled from men's principles and judgments, and therefore it is a stranger to their affections and practices; no wonder then if it be a stranger in the land, both in church and state.

If either of the forementioned extremes be the way to peace, we may have it, or else where is the man that seeketh after it? But I remember Luther's oracle, and fear it now to be verified; "Hæc perdent religionem Christianam: 1. Oblivio beneficiorum ab evangelio acceptorum. 2. Securitas, quæ jam passim et nbique regnat. 3. Sapientia mundi, quæ vult omnia redigcre in ordinem, et impiis mediis ecclesiæ paci consulere." Three things will destroy the Christian religion: First, Forgetfulness of the benefit we received by the Gospel. Secondly, Security. Thirdly, The wisdom of the world, which will needs reduce all into order, and look to the church's peace by ungodly means.

The zeal of my spirit after peace, hath made me digress here further than I intended; but the sum and scope of all my speech is this: Let every conscionable minister study equally for peace and truth, as knowing that they dwell both together in the golden mean, and not at such a distance as most hotspurs do imagine; and let them believe that they are likely to see no more success of their labours, than they are so studious of peace; and that all wounds will let out both blood and spirits; and both truth and godliness is ready to run out at every breach that shall be made among the people or themselves, and that the time for the pastures of profession to be green, and for the field of true godliness to grow ripe for the harvest, and for the rose of devotion and heavenliness to be fragrant and flourish, is not in the blustering stormy tempestuous winter, but in the calm delightful summer of peace.

Oh, what abundance of excellent, hopeful fruits of godliness have I seen blown down before they were ripe, by the impetuous winds of wars, and other contentions, and so have lain trodden under foot by libertinism and sensuality, as meat for swine, who else might have been their master's delight! In a word, I never yet saw the work of the Gospel go on well in wars, nor the business of men's salvation succeed among dissensions; but if one have in such times proved a gainer, multitudes have been losers: the same God is the God both of truth and peace; the same Christ is the Prince of Peace, and author of salvation; the same word is the Gospel of peace and salvation: both have the same causes; both are wrought and carried on by the same

Spirit; the same persons are the sons of peace and salvation, so inseparably do they go hand in hand together: O therefore let us be the ministers and helpers of our people's peace, as ever we desire to be helpers of their salvation.

And how impossible is it for ministers to maintain peace among their people, if they maintain not peace among themselves! Oh, what a staggering is it to the faith of the weak, when they see their teachers and leaders at such odds! It makes them ready to throw away all religion, when they see scarcely two or three of the most learned and godly divines of one mind, but like the bitterest enemies, disgracing and vilifying one another, and all because the articles of our faith must be so unlimited, voluminous, and almost infinite; so that no man well knows when he may call himself an orthodox Christian.

When our creed is swelled to the bigness of a national confession, one would think that he that subscribeth to that confession should be orthodox;t and yet if he jump not just with the times in expounding every article of that confession, and run not with the stream in every other point that is in question among them, though he had subscribed to the whole harmony of confessions, he is never the nearer the estimation of orthodox. Were we all bound together by a confession or subscription of the true fundamentals, and those other points that are next to fundamentals only, and there took up our

Christianity and unity, yielding each other a freedom of differing in smaller or more difficult points, or in expressing ourselves in

different terms, and so did live peaceably and lovingly together notwithstanding such differences, as men that all know the mysteriousness of divinity, and the imperfection of their own understandings, and that here we know but in part, and therefore shall most certainly err and differ in part; what a world of mischief might this course prevent!

I oft think on the examples of Luther and Melancthon: it was not a few things that they differed in, nor such as would now be accounted small, besides the imperious harshness of Luther's disposition, as Carolostadius could witness; and yet how sweetly, and peaceably, and lovingly did they live together, without any considerable breach or disagreement! As Mel. Adamus saith of them, "Et si tempora fuerunt ad distractiones proclivia, hominumque levitas dissidiorum cupida, tamen cum alter alterius vitia nosset, nunquam inter eos simultas extitit, ex qua animorum alienatio subsecuta sit;" so that their agreement arose not hence, that either was free from faults or error, but knowing each other's faults, they did more easily bear them. Certainly if every difference in judgment in matters of religion should seem intolerable, or make a breach in affection, then no two men on earth must live together, or tolerate each other, but every man must resolve to live by himself; for no two on earth but differ in one thing or other, except such as take all their faith upon trust, and explicitly believe nothing at all. God hath not made our judgments all of a complexion, any more than our faces; nor our knowledge all of a size, any more than our bodies; and methinks men, that be not resolved to be any thing in religion, should be afraid of making the articles of their faith so numerous, lest they should shortly become heretics themselves, by disagreeing from themselves; and they should be afraid of making too strict laws for those that differ in judgment in controvertible points, lest they should shortly change their judgments, and so make a rod for their own backs; for how know they, in difficult disputable cases, but within these twelve months themselves may be of another mind, except they are resolved never to change, for fear of incurring the reproach of novelty and mutability; and then they were best resolve to study no more, nor

ever to be wiser. I would we knew just at what age a man must receive this principle against changing his judgment; I am afraid lest at last they should teach it their children, and lest many divines do learn it too young; and if any, besides Christ and his apostles, must be the standard and foundation of our faith, I would we could certainly tell who they are; for I have heard yet none but the pope, or his general council, expressly lay claim to the prerogative of infallibility; and I think there are few that have appeared more fallible: for my own part, I admire the gifts of God in our first reformers, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, &c. And I know no man, since the apostles' days, whom I value and honour more than Calvin, and whose judgment, in all things, one with another, I more esteem and come nearer to; though I may speed as Amyraldus, to be thought to defend him but for a defence to his own errors; but yet if I thought we must needs be in all things of his mind, and know no more in any one point than he did, I should heartily wish that he had lived one fifty years longer, that he might have increased and multiplied his knowledge before he died, and then succeeding ages might have had leave to have grown wiser, till they had attained to know as much as he. Some men can tell what to say in point of ceremonies, commonprayer, &c. when they are pressed with the examples and judgments of our first reformers; but in matters of doctrine, they forget their own answers, as if they had been perfect here, and not in the other; or as if doctrinals were not much fuller of mysteries and difficulties than worship. So far am I from speaking all this for the security of myself in my differing from others, that if God would dispense with me for my ministerial services, without any loss to his people, I should leap as lightly as Bishop Ridley, when he was stripped of his pontificalia, and say as Pædaretus the Laconian, when he was not chosen in numerum trecentorum, "Gratias habeo tibi, O Deus, quod tot homines me meliores huic civitati dedisti."

But I must stop, and again apologise for this tediousness; though it be true, as Zeno saith, "verbis multis non eget veritas;" yet "respiciendum etiam quibus egent lectores," I conclude not with a laconism, but a christianism, as hoping my brethren will at least hear

their Master, "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another:" (Mark 9:50:) and Calvin's exposition, which is the sum of all I have said, q. d. "Danda est vobis opera, non tantum ut salsi intus sitis, sed etiam ut saliatis alios: quia tamen sal acrimonia sua mordet, ideo statim admonet, sic temperandum esse condituram, ut pax interim salva maneat." And with R. Meldenius Paræn. fol. f. 2.

"Verbo dicam: si nos servaremus in necessariis unitatem, in non necessariis libertatem, in utrisque charitatem; optimo certe loco essent res nostræ: ita fiat. Amen." Inquit Conr. Bergius hæc recitans.

Sect. XI. 6. The last whom I would persuade to this great work of helping others to the heavenly rest, is, parents, and masters of families: All you that God hath instrusted with children or servants,

O consider what duty lieth on you for the furthering of their salvation. That this exhortation may be the more effectual with you, I will lay down these several considerations for you seriously to think on:

1. What plain and pressing commands of God are there that require this great duty at your hand! "And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." (Deut. 6:6–8.) So Deut. 11. And how well is

God pleased with this in Abraham! "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? For I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord," &c. (Gen. 18:19.) And it is Joshua's resolution, "that he and his household will serve the Lord." "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." (Prov.

22:6.) "Bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (Eph. 6:4.) Many the like precepts, especially in the book of Proverbs, you may find: so that you see it is a work that the Lord of heaven and earth hath laid upon you, and how then dare you neglect it, and cast it off?

2. It is a duty that you owe your children in point of justice; from you they received the defilement and misery of their natures, and therefore you owe them all possible help for their recovery. If you had but hurt a stranger, yea, though against your will, you would think it your duty to help to cure him.

3. Consider, How near your children are to you, and then you will perceive that from this natural relation also they have interest in your utmost help. Your children are, as it were, parts of yourselves, if they prosper when you are dead, you take it almost as if you lived and prospered in them. If you labour ever so much, you think it not ill bestowed, nor your buildings or purchases too dear, so that they may enjoy them when you are dead; and should you not be of the same mind for their everlasting rest?

4. You will else be witnesses against your own selves; your great care, and pains, and cost for their bodies, will condemn you for your neglect of their precious souls. You can spend yourselves in toiling and caring for their bodies, and even neglect your own souls, and venture them sometimes upon unwarrantable courses, and all to provide for your posterity; and have you not as much reason to provide for their souls? Do you not believe that your children must be everlastingly happy or miserable when this life is ended? and should not that be forethought in the first place?

5. Yea, all the very brute creatures may condemn you; which of them is not tender of their young? How long will the hen sit to hatch her chickens; and how busily scrape for them; and how carefully shelter and defend them! and so will even the most vile and venomous serpent, and will you be more unnatural and hard-hearted than all these? Will you suffer your children to be ungodly and profane, and run on in the undoubted way to damnation, and let them alone to destroy themselves without control?

6. Consider, God hath made your children to be your charge; yea, and your servants too. Every one will confess they are the minister's

charge, and what a dreadful thing it is for them to neglect them, when God hath told them, that if they tell not the wicked of their sin and danger, their blood shall be required at that minister's hands; and is not your charge as great and as dreadful as theirs? Have not you a greater charge of your own families than any minister hath?

Yea, doubtless, and your duty it is to teach, and admonish, and reprove them, and watch over them, and at your hands else God will require the blood of their souls. The greatest it is that ever you were intrusted with, and woe to you if you prove unfaithful, and betray your trust, and suffer them to be ignorant for want of your teaching, or wicked for want of your admonition or correction. Oh, sad account, that many parents will make!

7. Look into the dispositions and lives of your children, and see what a work there is for you to do. First, It is not one sin that you must help them against, but thousands; their name is Legion, for they are many. It is not one weed that must be pulled up, but the field is overspread with them. Secondly, And how hard is it to prevail against any one of them! They are hereditary diseases, bred in their natures: "Naturam expellas furca," &c. They are as near them as the very heart; and how tenacious are all things of that which is natural!

How hard to teach a hare not to be fearful; or a lion or a tiger not to be fierce! Besides, the things you must teach them are quite above them; yea, and clean contrary to the interest and desires of their flesh: how hard is it to teach a man to be willing to be poor, and despised, and destroyed here for Christ; to deny themselves, and displease the flesh; to forgive an enemy; to love those that hate us; to watch against temptations; to avoid occasions and appearance of evil; to believe in a crucified Saviour; to rejoice in tribulation; to trust upon a bare word of promise, and let go all in hand, if called to it, for something in hope that they never saw, nor ever spake with man that did see; to make God their chief delight and love, and to have their hearts in heaven, while they live on earth: I think none of this is easy; they that think otherwise, let them try and judge: yet all this must be learned, or they are undone for ever. If you help them not to some trade, they cannot live in the world; but if they be destitute of these

things, they shall not live in heaven. If the mariner be not skilful, he may be drowned; and if the soldier be not skilful, he may be slain; but they that cannot do the things above mentioned, will perish for ever, "for without holiness none shall see God." (Heb. 12:14.) Oh, that the Lord would make all you that are parents sensible what a work and charge doth lie upon you! You that neglect this important work, and talk to your families of nothing but the world, I tell you the blood of souls lies on you; make as light of it as you will, if you repent not, and amend, the Lord will shortly call you to an account for your guiltiness of your children's everlasting undoing; and then you that could find in your hearts to neglect the souls of your own children, will be judged more barbarous than the Irish or Turks, that kill the children of others.

8. Consider also, What a world of sorrows do you prepare for yourselves, by the neglect of your children.

First, You can expect no other but that they should be thorns in your very eyes, and you may thank yourselves if they prove so, seeing they are thorns of your own planting.

Secondly, If you should repent of this your negligence, and be saved yourselves, yet is it nothing to you to think of the damnation of your children? You know God hath said, "that except they be born again, they shall not enter into the kingdom of God." Methinks, then, it should be a heart-breaking to all you that have unregenerate children; methinks you should weep over them every time you look them in the face, to remember that they are in the way to eternal fire.

Some people would lament the fate of their children, if but a wizard should foretell them some ill fortune to befall them, and do you not regard it when the living God shall tell you, "that the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all they that forget God." (Psal. 9:17.)

Thirdly, Yet all this were not so doleful to you, if it were a thing that you had no hand in, or could do nothing to help; but to think that all this is much long of you! that ever your negligence should bring your

child to these everlasting torments, which the very damned man (Luke 16) would have had his brethren been warned to escape. If this seem light to thee, thou hast the heart of a hellish fiend in thee, and not of a man.

Fourthly, But yet worse than all this will it prove to you if you die in this sin, for then you shall be miserable as well as they: and, oh, what a greeting will there be then between ungodly parents and children!

What a hearing will it be to your tormented souls, to hear your children cry out against you: 'All this that we suffer was long of you; you should have taught us better, and did not; you should have restrained us from sin, and corrected us, but you did not; and what an addition will such outcries be to your misery!

9. On the other side, do but think with yourselves, what a world of comfort you may have if you be faithful in this duty. First, If you should not succeed, yet you have freed your own souls; and though it be sad, yet not so sad, for you may have peace in your own consciences. Secondly, But if you do succeed, the comfort is inexpressible. For First, Godly children will be truly loving to yourselves that are their parents; when a little riches, or matters of this world, will oft make ungodly children to east off their very natural affection. 2. Godly children will be most obedient to you; they dare not disobey and provoke you, because of the command of God, except you should command them that which is unlawful, and then they must obey God rather than men. 3. And if you should fall into want, they would be most faithful in relieving you, as knowing they are tied by a double bond, of nature and of grace. 4. And they will also be helpers to your souls, and to your spiritual comforts; they will be delighting you with the mention of heaven, and with holy conference and actions; when wicked children will be grieving you with cursing, and swearing, or drunkenness, or disobedience. 5. Yea, when you are in trouble, or sickness, and at death, your godly children will be at hand to advise and to support you; they will strive with God in prayers for you; oh, what a comfort is it to a parent to have a child that hath the spirit of prayer and interest in God! How

much good may they do you by their importunity with God! and what a sadness is it to have children, that when you lie sick, can do no more but ask you how you do; and look on you in your misery! 6.

Yea, all your family may fare the better for one child or servant that feareth God; yea, perhaps all the town where he liveth: as Joseph's case proveth, and Jacob's, and many the like, when one wicked child may bring a judgment on your house. 7. And if God make you instruments of your children's conversion, you will have a share in all the good that they do through their lives; all the good they do to their brethren, or to the church of God, and all the honour they bring to God, will redound to your happiness as having been instruments of it. 8. And what a comfort may it be to you all your lives, to think that you shall live with them for ever with God! 9. But the greatest joy will be when you come to the possession of this, and you shall say, 'Here am I, and the children thou hast given me.' And are not all these comforts enough to persuade you to this duty?

10. Consider further, that the very welfare of church and state lieth mainly on this duty of well educating children; and without this, all other means are like to be far less successful. I seriously profess to you that I verily think all the sins and miseries of the land may acknowledge this sin for their great nurse and propagator. Oh, what happy churches might we have, if parents did their duties to their children! Then we need not exclude so many for ignorance or scandal, nor have our churches composed of members so rude. Then might we spare most of the quarrels about discipline, reformation, toleration, and separation: any reasonable government would do better with a well-taught people, than the best will do with the ungodly. It is not good laws and orders that will reform us, if the men be not good, and reformation begin not at home; when children go wicked from the hands of their parents; thence some come such to the universities, and so we come to have an ungodly ministry; and in every profession they bring this fruit of their education with them.

When gentlemen teach their children only to hunt, and hawk, and game, and deride the godly, what magistrates, and what parliaments, and so what government, and what a commonwealth, are we likely to

have, when all must be guided by such as these! Some perverse, inconsiderate persons lay the blame of all this on the ministers; that people of all sorts are so ignorant and profane; as if one man can do the work of many hundreds. I beseech you that are masters and parents, do your own duties, and free ministers from these unjust aspersions, and the church from her reproach and confusion. Have not ministers work enough of their own to do? Oh, that you knew what it is that lieth on them! And if, besides this, you will cast upon them the work of every master and parent in the parish, it is likely, indeed, to be well done. How many sorts of workmen must there be to the building of a house! And if all of them should cast it upon one, and themselves do nothing, you may judge how much were likely to be done. If there be three or four schoolmasters in a school, amongst three or four hundred scholars, and all the lower that should fit them for the higher schools, should do nothing at all but send all these scholars to the highest shoolmaster as ignorant as they received them, would not his life be a burden to him, and all the work be frustrated and spoiled? Why, so it is here. The first work towards the reforming and making happy of church and commonwealth, lies in the good education of your children; the most of this is your work; and if this be left undone, and then they come to ministers raw and ignorant, and hardened in their sins, alas! what can a minister do?

Whereas, if they came trained up in the principles of religion, and the practice of godliness, and were taught the fear of God in their youth,

O what an encouragement would it be to ministers! And how would the work go on in our hands! I tell you seriously, this is the cause of all our miseries and unreformedness in church and state, even the want of a holy education of children. Many lay the blame on this neglect and that, but there is none hath so great a hand in it as this.

What a school must there needs be where all are brought raw, as I said, to the highest form! What a house must there needs be built, when clay is brought to the mason's hands instead of bricks! What a commonwealth may be expected if all the constables and justices should do nothing, but cast all upon king and parliament! And so, what a church may we expect, when all the parents and masters in the parish shall cast all their duty on their ministers! Alas! how long

may we catechise them, and preach to them, before we can get them to understand the very principles of the faith! This, this is the cause of our church's deformities, and this is the cause of the present difficulty of reformation. It is in vain to contend about orders and discipline if the persons that live under it be not prepared. Perhaps you will say, 'The apostles had not their hearers thus prepared to their hands. Is not the word the first means of conversion?'

Answ. 1. The apostles preached to none at first but infidels and pagans. And are you no better? Will you do no more for your children than they?

2. All the success of their labours was to gather here and there a church from among the world of unbelievers. But now, the kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ.

3. And yet the apostles were extraordinarily qualified for the work, and seconded it by miracles for the convincing of their hearers.

4. I do verily believe that if parents did their duty as they ought, the word publicly preached would not be the ordinary means of regeneration in the church, but only without the church, among infidels. Not that I believe Doctor Burgess and Mr. Bedford's doctrine of baptismal regeneration. But God would pour out his grace upon the children of his people, and hear prayers for them, and bless such endeavours for their holy education, that we should see the promises made good to our seed, and the unthankful

Anabaptists, that will not confess that the children of the saints are any nearer God, or more beholden to him than pagans, so much as for the favour to be visible church members, should, by sweet experience, be convinced of their error, and be taught better how to understand that our children are holy.

11. I entreat you that are parents, also to consider what excellent advantages you have above all others for the saving of your children.

1. They are under your hands while they are young and tender, and flexible; but they come to ministers when they are grown elder, and stiffer, and settled in their ways, and think themselves too good to be catechised, and too old to be taught. You have a twig to bend, and we an oak. You have the young plants of sin to pluck up, and we the deep-rooted vices. The consciences of children are not so seared with a custom of sinning and long-resisting grace, as others. You have the soft and tender earth to plough in, and we have the hard and stony ways, that have been trodden on by many years' practice of evil.

When they are young, their understandings are like a sheet of white paper, that hath nothing written on, and so you have opportunity to write what you will. But when they are grown up in sin, they are like the same paper written over with falsehoods, which must all be blotted out again, and truth written in the place. And how hard is that! We have a double task; first to unteach them, and then to teach them better, but you have but one. We must unteach them all that the world, and flesh, and wicked company, and the devil, have been diligently teaching them in many years' time. We have hardened hearts to beat on like a smith's anvil, that will not feel us; we may tell them of death and judgment, heaven and hell, and they hear us as if they were asleep or dead; you have the soft clay to mould, and we have the hardened burned bricks. You have them before they are possessed with prejudice and false conceits against the truth, but we have them to teach when they have many years lived among those that have scorned at godliness, and taught them to think God's ways to be foolish preciseness. Custom hath not ensnared and engaged our little ones to contrary ways, but of old sinners, the Lord himself hath said, "that if the Ethiopian can change his skin, and the leopard his spots, then may those that are accustomed to do evil, learn to do well." (Jer. 13:23.) Doth not the experience of all the world show you the power of education? What else makes all the children of the Jews to be Jews; and all the children of the Turks to be Mahometans; and of Christians to be in profession Christians; and of each sect or party in religion to follow their parents, and the custom of the place? Why now, what an advantage have you to use all this for the furtherance of their happiness, and possess them as strongly beforehand against

sin, as else Satan would do for it; and so Satan should come to them upon some of those disadvantages that now Christ comes on.

2. Consider, also, That you have the affections of your children more than any others. None in the world hath that interest in their hearts as you. You will receive that counsel from an undoubted friend, that you would not do from an enemy, or a stranger. Why now, your children cannot choose but know that you are their friends, and advise them in love; and they cannot choose but love you again.

Their love is loose and arbitrary to others, but to you it is determinate and fast. Nature hath almost necessitated them to love you. Oh, therefore, improve this your interest in them for their good.

3. You have also the greatest authority over them. You may command them, and they dare not disobey you; or else it is your own fault, for the most part, for you can make them obey you in your business in the world; yea, you may correct them to enforce obedience. Your authority also is the most unquestioned authority in the world. The authority of kings and parliament has been disputed, but yours is past dispute. And therefore, if you use it not to constrain them to the works of God, you are without excuse.

4. Besides, their whole dependence is on you for their maintenance and livelihood. They know you can either give them or deny them what you have, and so punish and reward them at your pleasure. But on ministers or neighbours they have no such dependence.

5. Moreover, you that are parents know the temper and inclinations of your children, what vices they are most inclined to, and what instruction or reproof they most need, but ministers that live more strange to them, cannot know this.

6. Above all, you are ever with them, and so have opportunity as to know their faults, so to apply the remedy. You may be still talking to them of the word of God, and minding them of their state and duty, and may follow and set home every word of advice, as they are in the

house with you, or in the shop, or in the field at work. Oh, what an excellent advantage is this, if God do but give you hearts to use it.

Especially you, mothers, remember this; you are more with your children while they are little ones than their fathers, be you therefore still teaching them as soon as ever they are capable of learning. You cannot do God such eminent service yourselves as men, but you may train up children that may do it, and then you will have part of the comfort and honour. Bathsheba had part of the honour of Solomon's wisdom; (Prov. 31:1;) for she taught him; and Timothy's mother and grandmother, of his piety. Plutarch speaks of a Spartan woman, that when her neighbours were showing their apparel and jewels, she brought out her children virtuous and well taught, and said, "These are my ornaments and jewels." Oh, how much more will this adorn you than your bravery! What a deal of pains you are at with the bodies of your children more than the fathers, and what do you suffer to bring them into the world; and will not you be at as much pains for the saving their souls? You are naturally of more tender affections than men; and will it not move you to think that your children should perish for ever? Oh, therefore, I beseech you, for the sake of the children of your bowels, teach them, admonish them, watch over them, and give them no rest till you have brought them over to Christ.

And thus I have showed you reason enough to make you diligent in teaching your children, if reason will serve, as methinks among reasonable creatures it should do.

Sect. XII. Let us next hear what is usually objected against this by negligent men.

Object. 1. We do not see but those children prove as bad as others that are taught the Scriptures, and brought up so holily; and those prove as honest men and good neighbours, that have none of this ado with them.

Answ. Oh, who art thou, man, that disputest against God? Hath God charged you to teach your children diligently his word, speaking of it as you sit at home, and as you walk abroad, as you lie down, and as you rise up; (Deut. 6:6–8;) and dare you reply that it is as good to let it alone? Why, this is to set God at defiance, and, as it were, to spit in his face, and give him the lie. Will you take it well at your servants, if, when you command them to do a thing, they should return you such an answer that they do not see but it were as good to let it alone?

Wretched worm! Darest thou thus lift up thy head against the Lord that made thee, and must judge thee? Is it not he that commandeth thee? If thou dost not believe that this Scripture is the word of God, thou dost not believe in Jesus Christ: for thou hast nothing else to tell thee that there is a Christ. And if thou do believe that this is his word, how darest thou say, 'It is as good disobey it?' This is devilish pride indeed when such sottish, sinful dust shall think themselves wiser than the living God, and take upon them to reprove and cancel his word.

2. But, alas! you know not what honesty is when you say that the ignorant are as honest as others. You think those are the honestest men that best please you, but I know those are the most honest that best please God. Christ saith, in Luke 8:15, that an honest heart is that which keepeth the word of God; and you say, they are as honest that reject it. God made men to please himself, and not to please you; and you may know by his laws who please him best. The commandments have two tables, and the first is, "Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart;" and the second, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." First seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness. (Matt. 6:33.) 3. And what if some prove naught that are well brought up? it is not the generality of them. Will you say that Noah's family was no better than the drowned world, because there was one Cham in it; nor David's, because there was one Absalom; nor Christ's, because there was one Judas?

4. But what if it were so: have men need of the less teaching, or the more? You have more wit in the matters of this world. You will not say, 'I see many labour hard, and yet are poor, and therefore it is as good never to labour at all;' you will not say, 'Many that go to school learn nothing, and therefore they may learn as much though they never go: or many that are great tradesmen break, and therefore it is as good never trade at all: or many great eaters are as lean as others, and many sick men recover no strength though they eat, and therefore it is as good for men never to eat more: or many plough and sow, and have nothing come up, and therefore it is as good never to plough more.' What a fool were he that should reason thus! And is he not a thousand times worse that shall reason thus for men's souls?

Peter reasons the clean contrary way, "If the righteous be scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Pet. 4:18.)

And so doth Christ, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for many shall seek to enter, and not be able." (Luke 13:24.) Other men's miscarriages should quicken our diligence, and not make us cast away all. What would you think of that man that should look over into his neighbour's garden, and because he sees here and there a nettle or weed among much better stuff, should say, 'Why, you may see these men that bestow so much pains in digging and weeding, have weeds in their garden as well as I that do nothing, and therefore who would be at so much pains?' Just thus doth the mad world talk; you may see now that those that pray, and read, and follow sermons, have their faults as well as we, and have wicked persons among them as well as we. Yea, but that is not the whole garden, as yours is; it is but here and there a weed, and as soon as they spy it, they pluck it up, and cast it away.

But, however, if such men be as wicked as you imagine, can you for shame lay the fault upon the Scripture, or ordinances of God? Do they find any thing in the Scriptures to encourage them to sin? You may far better say 'It is wrong of the judge and the law which hangs them, that there are so many thieves.' Did you ever read a word for sin in the Scripture; or ever hear a minister or godly man persuade people to sin, or from it rather? I speak not of sectaries, who usually

grow to be enemies to Scripture. Lord, what horrible impudence is in the faces of ungodly men! When a minister hath spent himself in studying and persuading his people from sin, or when parents have done all they can to reform their children, yet people will say, 'It is long of this that they are so bad.' What! will reproving and correcting for sin bring them soonest to it? I dare challenge any man breathing, to name any one ruler that ever was in the world, that was so severe against sin as Jesus Christ; or to show me any law that ever was made in the world so severe against sin as the laws of God? And yet it must be long of Christ and Scripture that men are evil! When he threateneth damnation against impenitent sinners, it is yet long of him. Yea, see how these wicked men contradict themselves! What is it that they hate the Scripture for, but that it is so strict and precise, and forbids them their pleasures and fleshly liberties, that is their sins? And yet if any fall into sin, they will blame the Scripture, that forbids it. I know in these late years of licentiousness and apostacy, many that talk much of religion, prove guilty of grievous crimes, but then they turn away so far from Christ and Scripture. As bad as the godly are, I dare yet challenge you to show me any society under heaven like them that most study and delight in the Scriptures: or any school, like the scholars of Christ. Because parents cannot, by all their diligence, get their children to be as good as they should be, shall they therefore leave them to be as bad as they will? Because they cannot get them to be perfect saints, shall they therefore leave them to be as incarnate devils? Certainly, your children untaught will be little better.

Sect. XIII. 2. Some will further object, and say, It is the work of ministers to teach both us and our children, and therefore we may be excused.

Answ. 1. It is first your duty, and then the ministers'; It will be no excuse for you, because it is their work, except you could prove it were only theirs: magistrates must govern both you and your children: doth it therefore follow that you must not govern them? It belongs to the schoolmaster to correct them, and doth it not belong

also to you? There must go many hands to this great work, as to the building of a house there must be many workmen, one to one part, and another to another; and as your corn must go through many hands before it be bread: the reaper's, the thresher's, the miller's, the baker's; and one must not leave their part, and say, It belongs to the other: so it is here in the instructing of your children: first, you must do your work, and then the minister do his: you must be doing it privately night and day; the minister must do it publicly, and privately as oft as he can.

2. But as the case now stands with the ministers of England, they are disabled from doing that which belongs to their office, and therefore you cannot now cast your work on them. I will instance but in two things. First, It belongs to their office to govern the church, and to teach with authority; and great and small are commanded to obey them. (Heb. 3:7, 17, &c.) But now this is unknown, and hearers look on themselves as freemen, that may obey or not, at their own pleasure: a parent's teaching which is with authority, will take more than one's that is taken to have none: people think we have authority to speak to them when they please to hear, and no more. Nay, few of the godly themselves do understand the authority that their teachers have over them from Christ: they know how to value a minister's gifts, but not how they are bound to learn of him, and obey him because of his office. Not that they should obey him in evil, nor that he should be a final decider of all controversies, nor should exercise his authority in things of no moment; but as a schoolmaster may command his scholars when to come to school, and what book to read, and what form to be of; and as they ought to obey him, and to learn of him, and not to set their wits against his, but to take his word, and believe him as their teacher, till they understand as well as he, and are ready to leave his school; just so are people bound to obey and learn of their teachers, and to take their words while they are learners, in that which is beyond their present capacity, till they are able to see things in their proper evidence. Now this ministerial authority is unknown, and so ministers are the less capable of doing their work, which comes to pass, First, From the pride of man's

nature, especially novices, which makes men impatient of the reins of guidance and command; Secondly, From the popish error of implicit faith; to avoid which we are driven as far into the contrary extreme;

Thirdly, And from the modesty of ministers that are loth to show their commission, and make known their authority, lest they should be thought proud. As if a schoolmaster should let his scholars do what they list; or a pilot let the seamen run the ship whither they will, for fear of being thought proud in exercising their authority.

Secondly, But a far greater clog than this yet doth lie upon the ministers, which few take notice of; and that is, the fewness of ministers, and the greatness of congregations. In the apostles' time every church had a multitude of ministers, and so it must be again, or we shall never come near that primitive pattern; and then they could preach publicly, and from house to house. But now, when there is but one or two ministers to many thousand souls, we cannot so much as know them, much less teach them one by one: it is as much as we can do to discharge the public work. So that you see, you have little reason to cast your work on the ministers, but should the more help them by your diligence, in your several families, because they are already so over burdened.

Sect. XIV. 3. But some will say, 'We are poor men, and must labour for our living, and so must our children, and cannot have while to teach them the Scriptures, we have somewhat else for them to do.'

Answ. And are not poor men subject to God, as well as rich; and are they not Christians: and must they not give account of their ways; and have not your children souls to save or lose, as well as the rich?

Cannot you have while to speak to them as they are at their work?

Have you not time to instruct them on the Lord's-day? You can find time to talk idly, as poor as you are, and can you find no time to talk of the way to life? You can find time on the Lord's-day for your children to play, or walk or talk in the streets, but no time to mind the life to come. Methinks you should rather say to your children, 'I have no lands or lordships to leave you, nothing but hard labour and poverty in the world; you have no hope of great matters here, be sure

therefore to make the Lord your portion, and to get interest in Christ, that you may be happy hereafter: if you could get riches, they would shortly leave you, but the riches of grace and glory will be everlasting.' Methinks you should say as Peter, "Silver and gold I have none, but such as I have I give you." The kingdoms of the world cannot be had by beggars, but the kingdom of heaven may. O what a terrible reckoning will many poor men have, when Christ shall plead his cause, and judge them! May not he say, 'I made the way to worldly honours inaccessible to you, that you might not look after it for yourselves, or your children; but heaven I set open, that you might have nothing to discourage you; I confined riches and honour to a few, but my blood and salvation I offered to all, that none may say, I was not invited; I tendered heaven to the poor, as well as the rich; I made no exception against the meanest beggar, that did not wilfully shut out themselves: why then did you not come yourselves, and bring your children, and teach them the way to the eternal inheritance? Do you say, you were poor? Why, I did not set heaven to sale for money, but I called those that had nothing, to take it freely; only on condition they would take me for their Saviour and Lord, and give up themselves unfeignedly to me in obedience and love.' What can you answer Christ, when he shall thus convince you? It is not enough, that your children are poor and miserable here, but you would have them be worse for everlasting too! If your children were beggars, yet if they were such beggars as Lazarus, they may be conveyed by angels into the presence of God. But believe it, as God will save no man because he is a gentleman, so will he save no man because he is a beggar. God hath so ordered it in his providence, that riches are exceeding occasions of men's damnation, and will you think poverty a sufficient excuse? The hardest point in all our work is to be weaned from the world, and in love with heaven; and if you will not be weaned from it, who have nothing in it but labour and sorrow, you have no excuse. The poor cannot have while, and the rich will not have while, or they are ashamed to be so forward: the young think it too soon, and the old too late: and thus most men, instead of being saved, have somewhat to say against their salvation: and when Christ sendeth to invite them, they say, 'I pray thee have me excused;' O

unworthy guests of such a blessed feast, and most worthy to be turned into the everlasting burnings!

Sect. XV. 4. But some will object, We have been brought up in ignorance ourselves, and therefore we are unable to teach our children.

Answ. Indeed this is the very sore of the land: but is it not pity that men should so receive their destruction by tradition? Would you have this course to go on thus still? Your parents did not teach you, and therefore you cannot teach your children, and therefore they cannot teach theirs: by this course the knowledge of God should be banished out of the world, and never be recovered. But if your parents did not teach you, why did not you learn when you came to age? The truth is, you had no hearts to it; for he that hath not knowledge, cannot value it, or love it. But yet, though you have greatly sinned, it is not too late, if you will but follow my faithful advice in these four points:

1. Get your hearts deeply sensible of your own sin and misery, because of this long time which you have spent in ignorance and neglect. Bethink yourselves sometimes when you are alone; did not God make you, and sustain you for his service? Should not he have had the youth and strength of your spirits? Did you live all this while at the door of eternity? What, if you had died in ignorance, where had you been then? What a deal of time have you spent to little purpose! Your life is near done, and your work all undone. You are ready to die, before you have learned to live. Should not God have had a better share of your lives, and your souls been more duly regarded and provided for? In the midst of these thoughts, cast down yourselves in sorrow, as at the feet of Christ; bewail your folly, and beg pardon, and recovering grace.

2. Then think as seriously how you have wronged your children: if an unthrift, that hath sold all his lands, will lament it for his children's sake, as well as his own, much more should you.

3. Next set presently to work, and learn yourselves. If you can read, do; if you cannot, get some that can; and be much among those that will instruct and help you: be not ashamed to be seen among learners, though it be to be catechised, but be ashamed that you had not learned sooner. God forbid you should be so mad, as to say, I am now too old to learn: except you be too old to serve God, and be saved, how can you be too old to learn to be saved? Why not rather, I am too old to serve the devil and the world, I have tried them too long to trust them any more. What if your parents had not taught you any trade to live by; or what if they had never taught you to speak; would not you have set yourselves to learn, when you had come to age? Remember, that you have souls to care for, as well as your children, and therefore first begin with yourselves.

4. In the mean time while you are learning yourselves, teach your children what you do know: and what you cannot teach them yourselves, put them on to learn it of others that can: persuade them into the company of the godly, who will be glad to instruct them. If Frenchmen or Welshmen lived in the town among us, that could not understand our language, would they not converse with those that do understand it? and would they not daily send their children to learn it, by being in the company of those that speak it? So do you, that you may learn the heavenly language: get among those that use it, and encourage your children to do so: have you no godly neighbours that will be helpful to you herein? O do not keep yourselves strange to them, but go among them, and desire their help; and be thankful to them, that they will entertain you into their company. God forbid you should be like those that Christ speaks of, (Luke 11:52,) that would neither enter into the kingdom of God themselves, nor suffer those that would to enter. God forbid you should be such cruel, barbarous wretches, as to hinder your children from being godly, and to teach them to be wicked! And yet, alas! how many such are there swarming every where among us? If God do but touch the heart of their children or servants, and cause them to hear and read the word, and call upon him, and accompany with the godly, who will sooner scorn them, and revile them, and discourage them, than an ungodly

parent? What, say they, 'You will now be one of the holy brethren!

You will be wiser than your parents!' Just such as Pharaoh was to the Israelites, such are these wicked wretches to their own children,

(Exod. 5:3, 8, 9,) when Moses said, "Let us go sacrifice to the Lord, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or sword," &c. Pharaoh answers,

"They are idle, therefore they say, Let us go sacrifice: lay more work upon them," &c. Just so do these people say to their children. You know Pharaoh was the representer of the devil, and yet let me tell you, these ungodly parents are far worse that Pharaoh: for the children of Israel were many thousands, and were to go three days' journey out of the land, but these men hinder their children from serving God at home: Pharaoh was not their father, but their king; but these men are enemies to the children of their bodies: nay, more, let me tell you, I know none on earth that play the part of the devil himself more truly than these men. And if any thing that walks in flesh may be called a devil, I think it is a parent that thus hindereth his children from salvation. I solemnly profess I do not speak one jot worse of these men, than I do think and verily believe in my soul: nay, take it how you will, I will say thus much more, I verily think that in this they are far worse than the devil. God is a righteous judge, and will not make the devil himself worse than he is: I pray you be patient while you consider it, and then judge yourselves. They are the parents of their children, and so is not the devil. Do you think then that it is as great a fault in him to seek their destruction, as in them? Is it as great a fault for the wolf to kill the lambs, as for their own dams to do it? Is it so horrid a fault for an enemy in war to kill a child; or for a bear or a mad dog to kill it, as for the mother to dash its brains against the wall? You know it is not: do not you think then that it is so hateful a thing in Satan to entice your children to sin and hell, and to discourage and dissuade them from holiness and from heaven, as it is in you. You are bound to love them by nature, more than Satan is. O then what people are those that will teach their children, instead of holiness, to curse, and swear, and rail, and backbite, to be proud and revengeful, to break the Lord's-day, and to despise his ways, to speak wantonly, and filthily, to scorn at holiness, and glory in sin! O when God shall ask these children, 'Where

learned you this language and practice?' and they shall say, 'I learned it of my father or mother;' I would not be in the case of those parents for all the world! Alas, is it a work that is worth the teaching, to undo themselves for ever? Or can they not without teaching learn it too easily of themselves? Do you need to teach a serpent to sting, or a lion to be fierce? Do you need to sow weeds in your garden? Will they not grow of themselves? To build a house, requires skill and teaching; but a little may serve to set a town on fire. To heal the wounded or the sick, requireth skill; but to make a man sick, or to kill him, requireth but little. You may sooner teach your children to swear, than to pray; and to mock at godliness, than to be truly godly.

If these parents were sworn enemies to their children, and should study seven years how to do them the greatest mischief, they could not possibly find out a surer way, than by drawing them to sin, and withdrawing them from God.

Sect. XVI. I shall therefore conclude with this earnest request to all Christian parents that read these lines, that they would have compassion on the souls of their poor children, and be faithful to the great trust that God hath put in them. O sirs, if you cannot do what you would do for them, yet do what you can; both church and state, city and country, do groan under the neglect of this weighty duty; your children know not God, nor his laws, but take his name in vain, and slight his worship, and you do neither instruct them nor correct them; and therefore doth God correct both them and you. You are so tender of them that God is the less tender both of them and you.

Wonder not if God make you smart for your children's sins; for you are guilty of all they commit, by your neglect of doing your duty to reform them; even as he that maketh a man drunk, is guilty of all the sin that he committeth in his drunkenness. Will you resolve therefore to set upon this duty, and neglect it no longer? Remember Eli. Your children are like Moses in the basket in the water, ready to perish if they have not help. As ever you would not be charged before God for murderers of their souls, and as ever you would not have them cry out against you in everlasting fire, see that you teach them how to escape it, and bring them up in holiness, and the fear of God. You

have heard that the God of heaven doth flatly command it you; I charge every one of you, therefore, upon your allegiance to him, as you will very shortly answer the contrary at your peril, that you neither refuse nor neglect this most necessary work.r If you are not willing, now you know it to be so plain and so great a duty, you are flat rebels, and no true subjects of Christ. If you are willing to do it, but know not how, I will add a few words of direction to help you. 1.

Teach them by your own example, as well as by your words. Be yourselves such as you would have them be: practice is the most effectual teaching of children, who are addicted to imitation, especially of their parents. Lead them the way to prayer, and reading, and other duties: be not like base commanders, that will put on their soldiers, but not go on themselves. Can you expect your children should be wiser or better than you? Let them not hear those words out of your mouths, nor see those practices in your lives, which you reprove in them. No man shall be saved because his children are godly, if he be ungodly himself. Who should lead the way in holiness, but the father and master of the family? It is a sad time when he must be accounted a good master or father that will not hinder his family from serving God, but will give them leave to go to heaven without him.

I will but name the rest of your direct duty for your family. You must help to inform their understandings. 2. To store their memories. 3.

To rectify their wills. 4. To quicken their affections. 5. To keep tender their consciences. 6. To restrain their tongues, and help them to skill in gracious speech; and to reform and watch over their outward conversation.

To these ends, 1. Be sure to keep them, at least, so long at school till they can read English. It is a thousand pities that a reasonable creature should look upon a Bible as upon a stone, or a piece of wood. 2. Get them Bibles and good books, and see that they read them. 3. Examine them often what they learn. 4. Especially bestow the Lord's-day in this work, and see that they spend it not in sports or idleness. 5. Show them the meaning of what they read and learn.

(Josh. 4:6, 21, 22; Psal. 78:4–6, and 34:11.) 6. Acquaint them with the godly, and keep them in good company, where they may learn good, and keep them out of that company that would teach them evil.

7. Be sure to cause them to learn some catechism containing the chief heads of divinity.

Sect. XVII. These heads of divinity, which you must teach them first, are these:

1. That there is one only God, who is a Spirit invisible, infinite, eternal, almighty, good, merciful, true, just, holy, &c. 2. That this

God is one in three, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 3. That he is the Maker, Maintainer, and Lord of all. 4. That man's happiness consisteth in the enjoying of this God, and not in fleshly pleasure, profits, or honours. 5. That God made the first man upright and happy, and gave him a law to keep, with condition, that if he kept it perfectly, he should live happy for ever, but if he broke it he should die. 6. That man broke this law, and so forfeited his welfare, and became guilty of death as to himself and all his posterity. 7. That Christ the Son of God did here interpose, and prevent the full execution, undertaking to die instead of man, and so to redeem him; whereupon all things were delivered into his hands as the Redeemer, and he is under that relation the Lord of all. 8. That Christ hereupon did make with man a better covenant or law, which proclaimed pardon of sin to all that did but repent, and believe, and obey sincerely. 9. That he revealed this covenant and mercy to the world by degrees; first, in darker promises, prophecies, and sacrifices; then, in many ceremonious types; and then, by more plain foretelling by the prophets. 10. That in the fulness of time Christ came and took our nature unto union with his godhead, being conceived by the Holy

Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary. 11. That while he was on earth he lived a life of sorrows, was crowned with thorns, and bore the pains that our sins deserved; at last, being crucified to death, and buried, so satisfied the justice of God. 12. That he also preached himself to the Jews, and by constant miracles did prove the truth of his doctrine and mediatorship before thousands of witnesses; that he revealed

more fully his new law or covenant; that whosoever will believe in him, and accept him for Saviour and Lord, shall be pardoned and saved, and have a far greater glory than they lost; and they that will not, shall lie under the curse and guilt, and be condemed to the everlasting fire of hell. 13. That he rose again from the dead, having conquered death, and took fuller possession of his dominion over all, and so ascended up into heaven, and there reigneth in glory. 14. That before his ascension he gave charge to his apostles to preach the foresaid Gospel to all nations and persons, and to offer Christ, and mercy, and life, to every one without exception, and to entreat and persuade them to receive him; and that he gave them authority to send forth others on the same message, and to baptize, and to gather churches, and confirm and order them, and settle a course for a succession of ministers and ordinances to the end of the world. 15.

That he also gave them power to work frequent and evident miracles for the confirmation of their doctrine, and the convincing of the world; and to annex their writings to the rest of the Scriptures, and to finish and seal them up, and deliver them to the world as his infallible word and laws, which none must dare to alter, and which all must observe. 16. That though his free grace is offered to the world, yet the heart is by nature so desperately wicked, that no man will believe and entertain Christ sincerely, except by an almighty power he be changed and born again; and therefore doth Christ send forth his Spirit with his word, which secretly and effectually worketh holiness in the hearts of the elect, drawing them to God and the Redeemer. 17. That the means by which Christ worketh and preserveth this grace, is the word read and preached, together with frequent fervent prayer, meditation, sacraments, gracious conference; and it is much furthered also by special providences keeping us from temptation, fitting occurrences to our advantage, drawing us by mercies, and driving us by afflictions; and therefore it must be the great and daily care of every Christian to use faithfully all the said ordinances, and improve the said providences. 18. That though the new law or covenant be an easy yoke, and there is nothing grievous in Christ's commands, yet so bad are our hearts, and so strong our temptations, and so diligent our enemies, that whosoever

will be saved, he must strive, and watch, and bestow his utmost care and pains, and deny his flesh, and forsake all that would draw him from Christ, and herein continue to the end, and overcome. And because this cannot be done without continual supplies of grace, whereof Christ is the only fountain, therefore we must live in continual dependence on him by faith, and know that our life is hid with God in him. 19. That Christ will thus by his word and Spirit gather him a church of all the elect out of the world, which is his body, and spouse, and he their head and husband, and will be tender of them as the apple of his eyes, and preserve them from danger, and continue among them his presence and ordinances; and that the members of this church must live together in most entire love and peace, delighting themselves in God and his worship, and the forethoughts and mention of their everlasting happiness; forbearing and forgiving one another, and relieving each other in need, as if that which they have were their brother's. And all men ought to strive to be of this society. Yet will the visible churches be mixed of good and bad. 20. That when the full number of these elect are called home,

Christ will come down from heaven again, and raise all the dead, and set them before him to be judged; and all that have loved God above all, and believed in Christ, and been willing that he should reign over them, and have improved their mereies in the day of grace, them he will justify, and sentence them to inherit the everlasting kingdom of glory; and those that were not such, he will condemn to everlasting fire: both which sentences shall be then executed accordingly.

This is the creed, or brief sum, of the doctrine which you must teach your children. Though our ordinary creed, called the apostles' creed, contains all the absolute fundamentals; yet in some it is so generally and darkly expressed, that an explication is necessary.

Sect. XVIII. Then, for matter of practice, teach them the meaning of the commandments, especially of the great commands of the Gospel; show them what is commanded and forbidden, in the first table and in the second, towards God and men, in regard of the inward and the outward man; and here show them, 1. The authority commanding;

that is, the Almighty God, by Christ the Redeemer. They are not now to look at the command as coming from God immediately, merely as God, or the Creator, but as coming from God by Christ the Mediator, who is now the Lord of all, and only lawgiver; seeing the Father now judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son. (John

5:21–24.) 2. Show them the terms on which duty is required, and the ends of it. 3. And the nature of duties, and the way to perform them aright. 4. And the right order; that they first love God above all, and then their neighbour: first seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness. 5. Show them the excellences and delights of God's service. 6. And the flat necessity. 7. Especially labour to get all to their hearts, and teach them not only to speak the words.

And for sin, show them its evil and danger, and watch over them against it. Especially, 1. The sins that youth is commonly addicted to.

2. And which their nature and constitution most lead them to. 3. And which the time and place do most strongly tempt to. 4. But especially be sure to kill their killing sins; those that all are prone to, and are of all most deadly: as, pride, worldliness, ignorance, profaneness, and flesh-pleasing.

And for the manner, you must do all this: 1. Betimes, before sin get rooting. 2. Frequently. 3. Seasonably. 4. Seriously and diligently. 5.

Affectionately and tenderly. 6. And with authority; compelling where commanding will not serve, and adding correction where instruction is frustrate.

And thus I have done with the use of exhortation to do our utmost for the salvation of others. The Lord give men compassionate hearts that it may be practised: and then, I doubt not, but he will succeed it to the increase of his church.

↑ Back to top