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

§ 2. It is certain then that the welfare of this world lieth on a good succession of the several Generations: And that all the endeavours of one Generation, with God's greatest blessing on them, will not serve for the Ages following: All must begin anew, and be done over again, or all will be as undone to the next Age: And it is not the least blessing on the faithful that their faith and godliness disposeth them to have a care of posterity, and to devote their Children wholly to God, as well as themselves, and to educate them in his fear. If Nature had not taught Birds and Beasts to feed their Young, as well as to generate them, their kind would be soon extinct. O what a blessed World were it, if the blessings of men famous for wisdom and godliness, were entailed on all that should spring from them! and if this were the common case!

§ 2. It is certain then that the welfare of this world lyeth on a good succession of the several Generations: And that all the endeavours of one Generation, with God's greatest blessing on them, will not serve for the Ages following: All must begin anew, and be done over again, or all will be as undone to the next Age: And it is not the least blessing on the faithful that their faith and godliness disposeth them to have a care of posterity, and to devote their Children wholly to God, as well as themselves, and to educate them in his fear. If Nature had not taught Birds and Beasts to feed their Young, as well as to generate them, their kind would be soon extinct. O what a blessed World were it, if the blessings of men famous for wisdom and godliness, were entailed on all that should spring from them! and if this were the common case!

§ 3. But the doleful miseries of the World have come from the degenerating of good mens posterity. Adam hath his Cain, and Noah his Ham, and David his Absalom; Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, left not their like behind them. The present State of the Eastern Churches is a dreadful instance. What places on Earth were more honourable for Faith and Piety, than ⟨p. 14⟩Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Ephesus, Philadelphia, and the rest of those great and noble Countries; and these also strengthened with the powerfullest Christian Empire that ever was on Earth: And now they are places of Barbarism, Tyranny, and foolish Mohammedanism, where the Name of Christ is made a scorn, and the few Christians that keep up that sacred Profession, by Tyranny kept in so great Ignorance, that, alas! the vices of most of them dishonour their Profession, as much as their Enemies Persecutions do. O what a doleful difference is there between that great part of the World now, and what it was 1400 or 1000 years ago?