Answ. The greater is their Sin who thus neglected you. But this is no sufficient Excuse for you. Heaven is not prepared for the Learned only; nor will Christ ask you at Judgment whether you are good Scholars or not, no nor so much as whether you could write or read. But consider well, Was not God's 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 ⟨p. 42⟩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 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 God's 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, I lost the beginning of my Life, and therefore I will lose all; they taught me not then, and therefore I will not learn now: Have you not seen some of your Neighbours who were as ill educated as your selves, attain to much Knowledge afterwards by their Industry? and why might not you have done so, if you had been as industrious as they? May not God and Conscience witness, that it was because you cared not for Knowledge, and would not be at pains to get it, that you knew no more? Speak truth, Man, in the Presence of thy Judg; was thy Heart and Mind set upon it? Didst thou pray daily for it to God? Didst thou use all the means thou couldst to get it?
Answ. The greater is their Sin who thus neglected you. But this is no sufficient Excuse for you. Heaven is not prepared for the Learned only; nor will Christ ask you at Judgment whether you are good Scholars or not, no nor so much as whether you could write or read. But consider well, Was not God's 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 ⟨p. 42⟩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 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 God's 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, I lost the beginning of my Life, and therefore I will lose all; they taught me not then, and therefore I will not learn now: Have you not seen some of your Neighbours who were as ill educated as your selves, attain to much Knowledg afterwards by their Industry? and why might not you have done so, if you had been as industrious as they? May not God and Conscience witness, that it was because you cared not for Knowledg, and would not be at pains to get it, that you knew no more? Speak truth, Man, in the Presence of thy Judg; was thy Heart and Mind set upon it? Didst thou pray daily for it to God? Didst thou use all the means thou couldst to get it?
