Compassionate counsel to all young men especially I. London apprentices, II. students of divinity,…

Qu. 20. Have you no natural love to your Parents or your Country? O what inhumane cruelty is it, to break the hearts of those from whom you had your Being, and who were tender of you, when you could not help your selves? Doubtless one reason why God hath put so strong a love in Parents to their Children, and made your Birth and Breeding so costly to your Mothers, and made the Milk which is formed in her own Body to be the first nourishment of your lives, is to oblige you to answerable Love and Obedience: And if after all this you prove worse than Brutes, and become the grief of their Souls, that thus bred, and loved, and nourished you, do you think God will not at last make this far sadder to you, than ever it was to them? If cruelty to an enemy, much more to a stranger, to a neighbour, to a friend, be so hateful to the God of Love, that it goeth not unrevenged, O what will unnatural cruelty to Parents bring upon you? Yea, even in this Life, as honouring Father and Mother hath a special promise of prosperity and long life, so dishonouring and grieving Parents is usually punished with some notable calamity, as a forerunner of the great revenge hereafter.

Qu. 20. Have you no natural love to your Parents or your Country? O what inhumane cruelty is it, to break the hearts of those from whom you had your Being, and who were tender of you, when you could not help your selves? Doubtless one reason why God hath put so strong a love in Parents to their Children, and made your Birth and Breeding so costly to your Mothers, and made the Milk which is formed in her own Body to be the first nourishment of your lives, is to oblige you to answerable Love and Obedience: And if after all this you prove worse than Bruits, and become the grief of their Souls, that thus bred, and loved, and nourished you, do you think God will not at last make this far sadder to you, than ever it was to them? If cruelty to an enemy, much more to a stranger, to a neighbour, to a friend, be so hateful to the God of Love, that it goeth not unrevenged, O what will unnatural cruelty to Parents bring upon you? Yea, even in this Life, as honouring Father and Mother hath a special promise of prosperity and long life, so dishonouring and grieving Parents is usually punished with some notable calamity, as a forerunner of the great revenge hereafter.