A26903:88
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
Chapter 6: The joyful State and Blessing of good Children, to themselves and others.
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.
§ 7. And O what a mercy will you find it, when you come to age and business in the World! 1. That you come with a clear Conscience, not clogged, terrified, and shamed with the sins of your Youth. 2. And that you come not utterly unfurnished with the knowledge, Righteousness and Virtue, which you must make use of in every condition all your lives: when others are like Lads, that will go to the Universities before they can so much as read or write. To live in a Family of your own, and to trade and converse in the World▪ and specially to go to Church, to hear, to pray, to communicate, in private to pray, to meditate, in a word, to live or die like a Christian, like a man, without the furniture of Wisdom, Faith, and serious Godliness, is more impossible and unwise, than to go to Sea without Provision, or to War without Arms, or to become a Priest without Book or understanding.
§ 8. II. And you that are young men can scarce conceive, what a joy a wise and godly Child is to his wise and godly Parents! Read but Pro. 10.1 & 13.1. & 17.2, 25. & 19.13, 26. & 27.11. & 23.15, 19, 24, &c. The Prayers and Instructions of your Parents are comfortable to ⟨p. 60⟩them, when they see the happy fruit and answer. They fear not Gods Judgments upon their houses, as they would do if you were Cains, or Chams, or Absaloms: They labour comfortably, and comfortably leave you their Estates at death, when they see that they do not get and leave it for those that will serve the Devil with it, and consume it on their Lusts; but will use it for God, for the Gospel, and their Salvation: If you fall sick and die before them, they can rejoice that you are gone to Christ, and need not mourn as David, for Absalom, that you go to Hell. If you overlive them, they leave the world the easier, when they leave as it were part of themselves here behind them, who will carry on the work of God which they lived for, and be blessings to the world when they are gone.