A sermon of judgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Major and aldermen…A sermon of iudgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Maior and aldermen…

The fourth Excuse. I was never brought up to learning, I cannot so much as read: Nor did my Parents ever teach me any of these things, but only set me about my worldly business, and provide food and raiment for me: but never once told me that I had a soul to save or lose, and an everlasting life to provide and prepare for. And therefore I could not come to the knowledge of them.

The fourth Excuse. I was never brought up to learning, I cannot so much as read: Nor did my Parents ever teach me any of these things, but only set me about my worldly business, and provide food and rayment for me: but never once told me that I had a soul to save or lose, and an everlasting life to provide and prepare for. And therefore I could not come to the knowledge of them.

Answ. The greater is their sin, who thus neglected you▪ But this is no sufficient Excuse for you. ⟨p. 103⟩Heaven is not prepared for the Learned only: nor will Christ ask you at Judgement, whether you were good Scholars, or not, no nor so much as whether you could write or read. But consider well! was not Gods word so plainly written, that the unlearned might understand it? Did he not put it into the most familiar stile, though he knew it would be offensive to the proud Scholars of the world of purpose that he might fit it to the capacities of the ignorant? And if you could not read, yet tell me, Could not you have learned to read at 20, or 30 years of age, if you had been but willing to bestow now and then an hour to that end? Or at least, did you not live near some that could Read? and could you not have procured them to read to you, or to help you? And did you not hear these things ⟨p. 104⟩read to you in the Congregation by the Minister? or might have done if you would? And if your Parents did neglect you in your youth, yet when you came to a fuller use of Reason, and heard of the matters of salvation from Gods Word, did it not concern you to have looked to your selves; and to have redeemed that time which you lost in your youth by doubling your diligence when you came to riper years? The Apostles gathered Churches among Heathens that never heard of Christ before; and converted many thousand souls that were never once told of a Saviour, or the way to salvation, till they had past a great part of their lives. If you loitered till the latter part of the day, it behoved you then to have bestirred your selves the more: and not to say, Through the fault of my Parents,