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

1. Do you not know that you are not Beasts but Men? that have reason given them to know, and love, and serve their Maker? And how sad▪ is it to see a man forget all this, and wilfully brutify himself. Were the Poets fictions true of men turned into Trees, and Birds, and Beasts, ⟨p. 37⟩how small were the misery in comparison of yours. It is no sin in Brutes to lust, or to eat and drink too much. They have not reason to restrain and rule them; but lest they should kill themselves by excess, God hath made reasonable man their Governor, and moderateth their Appetite in the temper of their natures: But for a reasonable Creature to subject himself to fleshly Appetite, and wilfully degrade his Soul to the rank of Brutes, is worse than if he had been made with the Body and the unreasonableness of Bruits. Are you capable of no better things than these?

1. Do you not know that you are not Beasts but Men? that have reason given them to know, and love, and serve their Maker? And how sad▪ is it to see a man forget all this, and wilfully brutify himself. Were the Poets fictions true of men turned into Trees, and Birds, and Beasts, ⟨p. 37⟩how small were the misery in comparison of yours. It is no sin in Bruits to lust, or to eat and drink too much. They have not reason to restrain and rule them; but lest they should kill themselves by excess, God hath made reasonable man their Governor, and moderateth their Appetite in the temper of their natures: But for a reasonable Creature to subject himself to fleshly Appetite, and wilfully degrade his Soul to the rank of Bruits, is worse than if he had been made with the Body and the unreasonableness of Bruits. Are you capable of no better things than these?

§ 2. And what an odious thing is it, when God hath chosen you out of the World to be members of his visible Church, and given you the great privilege of early Entrance into his holy Covenant, and washed you in the laver of visible Regeneration, and you are vowed to Christ, renouncing the Lusts of the Flesh, the World and the Devil, that you might follow a Crucified Christ in the way of holiness to everlasting Life, that you should so soon prove false, perfidious Traitors and Rebels against him that is your only hope, and by wickedness and Covenant breaking, make your sin greater than that of Infidels, Turks and Heathens, that never were taken into