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

And you cannot but perceive that such as live in Sensuality, and Lust, and Wickedness, are the great troublers of Church, and State: God himself hath said it, There is no peace to the wicked, Isa. 48.52. and 57 21. For the wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt▪ There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. v. 22. Isa. 59.8. The way of peace they know not; there is no judgment in their goings: They have made them crooked paths; whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. They give no peace to others, and God will deny peace to themselves: Yea, the nature of their own sin denieth it them, as broken Bones, and griping sickness deny ease to the Body. And can you think you shall become the shame of the Church, and the troublers of the Land, and that God will not trouble you for it? If you will be enemies of God and your Country, you will prove the sorest Enemies to your selves.

And who is the gainer by all this? No one in the World; unless you will call it the Devil's gain, to have his malicious, cruel Will fulfilled: And sure the pleasing the Devil and a fleshly Lust, Fancy, or Appetite, can never compensate all your losses, nor comfort you under the sufferings, ⟨p. 83⟩which you wilfully bring upon your selves.

Young Men, the reason I thus deal with you by way of question is, that I may, if possible, engage your own thoughts in answering them: For I find most are aptest to learn of themselves: And indeed without your selves, and your own serious thoughts, we cannot help you to true understanding. He that readeth the wisest Lecture to Boys or Men, that take no heed to what is said, yea, or that will not make it their own study to understand and remember, doth but cast away his labour. It's hard saving any man from himself; but there is no saving any man without himself, and his own consent and labour. If you will but now take these twenty questions in secret into your serious thoughts, and consider of them, till you can give them such an answer as reason should allow, and as you will stand to before God, when the mouth of all iniquity shall be stopped, I should not doubt but you will reap the benefit.