(_DANGERS OF YOUTH--EARLY DECISION._)
DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I
long exceedingly to hear of the case of your soul, which hath a large
share both of my prayers and careful thoughts. Sir, remember that a
precious treasure and prize is upon this short play that ye are now
upon. Even the eternity of well or wo to your soul standeth upon the
little point of your well or ill-employed, short, and swift-posting
sand-glass. Seek the Lord while He may be found; the Lord waiteth upon
you. Your soul is of no little price. Gold or silver of as much bounds
as would cover the highest heaven round about, cannot buy it. To live
as others do, and to be free of open sins that the world crieth shame
upon, will not bring you to heaven. As much civility and country
discretion as would lie between you and heaven will not lead you one
foot, or one inch, above condemned nature. And therefore take pains
upon seeking of salvation, and give your will, wit, humour, the green
desires of youth's pleasures off your hand, to Christ. It is not
possible for you to know, till experience teach you, how dangerous a
time youth is. It is like green and wet timber. When Christ casteth
fire on it, it taketh not fire. There is need here of more than
ordinary pains, for corrupt nature hath a good back-friend of youth.
And sinning against light will put out your candle, and stupify your
conscience, and bring upon it more coverings and skin, and less
feeling and sense of guiltiness; and when that is done, the devil is
like a mad horse that hath broken his bridle, and runneth away with
his rider whither he listeth. Learn to know that which the apostle
knew, the deceitfulness of sin. Strive to make prayer, and reading,
and holy company, and holy conference your delight; and when delight
cometh in, ye shall by little and little smell the sweetness of
Christ, till at length your soul be over head and ears in Christ's
sweetness. Then shall ye be taken up to the top of the mountain with
the Lord, to know the ravishments of spiritual love, and the glory and
excellency of a seen, revealed, felt, and embraced Christ: and then ye
shall not be able to loose yourself off Christ, and to bind your soul
to old lovers. Then, and never till then, are all the paces, motions,
walkings, and wheels of your soul in a right tune, and in a spiritual
temper.
But if this world and the lusts thereof be your delight, I know not
what Christ can make of you; ye cannot be metal to be a vessel of
glory and mercy. As the Lord liveth, thousand thousands are beguiled
with security, because God, and wrath, and judgment are not terrible
to them. Stand in awe of God, and of the warnings of a checking and
rebuking conscience. Make others to see Christ in you, moving, doing,
speaking, and thinking. Your actions will smell of Him, if He be in
you. There is an instinct in the new-born babes of Christ, like the
instinct of nature that leads birds to build their nests, and bring
forth their young, and love such and such places, as woods, forests,
and wildernesses, better than other places. The instinct of nature
maketh a man love his mother-country above all countries; the instinct
of renewed nature, and supernatural grace, will lead you to such and
such works, as to love your country above, to sigh to be clothed with
your house not made with hands, and to call your borrowed prison here
below a borrowed prison, and to look upon it servant-like and
pilgrim-like. And the pilgrim's eye and look is a disdainful-like,
discontented cast of his eye, his heart crying after his eye, "Fy, fy,
this is not like my country."
I recommend to you the mending of a hole, and reforming of a failing,
one or other, every week; and put off a sin, or a piece of it, as
anger, wrath, lust, intemperance, every day, that ye may more easily
master the remnant of your corruption. God hath given you a wife; love
her, and let her breasts satisfy you; and, for the Lord's sake, drink
no waters but out of your own cistern. Strange wells are poison.
Strive to learn some new way against your corruption from the man of
God, Mr. W. D. [William Dalgleish], or other servants of God. Sleep
not sound, till ye find yourself in that case that ye dare look death
in the face, and durst hazard your soul upon eternity. I am sure that
many ells and inches of the short thread of your life are by-hand
since I saw you; and that thread hath an end; and ye have no hands to
cast a knot, and add one day, or a finger-breadth, to the end of it.
When hearing, and seeing, and the outer walls of the clay house shall
fall down, and life shall render the besieged castle of clay to death
and judgment, and ye find your time worn ebb, and run out, what
thoughts will you then have of idol-pleasures, that possibly are now
sweet? What bud or hire would you then give for the Lord's favour? and
what a price would you then give for pardon? It were not amiss to
think, "What if I were to receive a doom, and to enter into a furnace
of fire and brimstone? What if it come to this, that I shall have no
portion but utter darkness? And what if I be brought to this, to be
banished from the presence of God, and to be given over to God's
serjeants, the devil and the power of the second death?" Put your
soul, by supposition, in such a case, and consider what horror would
take hold of you, and what ye would then esteem of pleasing yourself
in the course of sin. Oh, dear Sir, for the Lord's sake awake to live
righteously, and love your poor soul! And after ye have seen this my
letter, say with yourself, "The Lord will seek an account of this
warning which I have received."
Lodge Christ in your family. Receive no stranger hireling as your
pastor. I bless your children. Grace be with you.
Your lawful and loving pastor,