A26903:271
Compassionate counsel to all young men especially I. London apprentices, II. students of divinity,…
Compassionate counsel to all young men especially I. London apprentices, II. students of divinity, physic, and law, III. the sons of magistrates and rich men / by Richard Baxter.Compassionate counsel to all young men especially I. London apprentices, II. students of divinity, physick, and law, III. the sons of magistrates and rich men / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by T.S., 1681
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 23. IV. Be sure to make a prudent choice of your Companions, especially of your bosom Friends.
It is supposed that a man loveth the Company which he chooseth, (though not which he constrainedly is cast upon.) And love and familiarity will give them great advantage over you. If they be wise they will teach you wisdom, if they be Holy & Spiritual, they will be drawing you towards God, and settling you in the resolved hatred of sin, and love of Holiness. But if they be Worldly and Ambitious, they will be filling your heads with ambitious worldly projects; and if they be ungodly Hypocrites that have but the dead image and name of Christians, they will be opposing or deriding serious Godliness, and pleading for the carcass and formalities of piety as better than serious spiritual devotion: and if they be hardened malignants, they will be trying to make you such as they by lies, revilings or plausible cavils, against ⟨p. 151⟩the things and persons that are spiritually contrary to their fleshly minds and interests. And while you hear not what can be said on the other side, it will possess your minds (if God preserve you not) with false thoughts of Gods Servants, and with scorn or contempt of such as you hear described falsely; as Papists think of Protestants as Heretics, you will take serious Godliness, for Fanatical self-conceit, and think of the best Christians as you do of Quakers or others, that are mad with fear or pride.
It is supposed that a man loveth the Company which he chooseth, (though not which he constrainedly is cast upon.) And love and familiarity will give them great advantage over you. If they be wise they will teach you wisdom, if they be Holy & Spiritual, they will be drawing you towards God, and setling you in the resolved hatred of sin, and love of Holiness. But if they be Worldly and Ambitious, they will be filling your heads with ambitious worldly projects; and if they be ungodly Hypocrites that have but the dead image and name of Christians, they will be opposing or deriding serious Godliness, and pleading for the carkass and formalities of piety as better than serious spiritual devotion: and if they be hardned malignants, they will be trying to make you such as they by lies, revilings or plausible cavils, against