Since I have been settled in the work of the ministry in this place I have
ever had a peculiar concern for the souls of the young people, and a
desire that religion might flourish among them: and have especially
exerted myself in order to it; because I knew the special opportunity they
had beyond others, and that ordinarily those whom God intended mercy for,
were brought to fear and love him in their youth. And it has ever appeared
to me a peculiarly amiable thing, to see young people walking in the ways
of virtue and Christian piety, having their hearts purified and sweetened
with a principle of divine love. And it has appeared a thing exceeding
beautiful, and what would be much to the adorning and happiness of the
town, if the young people could be persuaded when they meet together, to
converse as Christians, and as the children of God; avoiding impurity,
levity and extravagance; keeping strictly to the rules of virtue, and
conversing together of the things of God and Christ and heaven. This is
what I have longed for: and it has been exceeding grievous to me when I
have heard of vice, vanity and disorder among our youth. And so far as I
know my own heart, it was from hence that I formerly led this church to
some measures for the suppressing of vice among our young people, which
gave so great offence, and by which I became so obnoxious. deg. I have sought
the good, and not the hurt of our young people. I have desired their
truest honor and happiness, and not their reproach; knowing that true
virtue and religion tended not only to the glory and felicity of young
people in another world, but their greatest peace and prosperity, and
highest dignity and honor, in this world; and above all things to sweeten
and render pleasant and delightful even the days of youth.
But whether I have loved you and sought your good more or less, yet God in
his providence now calling me to part with you, committing your souls to
him who once committed the pastoral care of them to me, nothing remains
but only (as I am now taking my leave of you) earnestly to beseech you,
from love to yourselves, if you have none to me, not to despise and forget
the warnings and counsels I have so often given you; remembering the day
when you and I must meet again before the great Judge of quick and dead;
when it will appear whether the things I have taught you were true,
whether the counsels I have given you were good, and whether I truly
sought your good, and whether you have well improved my endeavors.
I have, from time to time, earnestly warned you against frolicking (as it
is called), and some other liberties commonly taken by young people in the
land. And whatever some may say in justification of such liberties and
customs, and may laugh at warnings against them, I now leave you my
parting testimony against such things; not doubting but God will approve
and confirm it in that day when we shall meet before him. deg.
V. I would apply myself to the children of the congregation, the lambs of
this flock, who have been so long under my care.
I have just now said that I have had a peculiar concern for the young
people; and in so saying I did not intend to exclude you. You are in
youth, and in the most early youth: and therefore I have been sensible
that if those that were young had a precious opportunity for their souls'
good, you who are very young had, in many respects, a peculiarly precious
opportunity. And accordingly I have not neglected you: I have endeavored
to do the part of a faithful shepherd, in feeding the lambs as well as the
sheep. Christ did once commit the care of your souls to me as your
minister; and you know, dear children, how I have instructed you, and
warned you from time to time; you know how I have often called you
together for that end; and some of you, sometimes, have seemed to be
affected with what I have said to you. But I am afraid it has had no
saving effects as to many of you; but that you remain still in an
unconverted condition, without any real saving work wrought in your souls,
convincing you thoroughly of your sin and misery, causing you to see the
great evil of sin, and to mourn for it, and hate it above all things, and
giving you a sense of the excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ, bringing
you with all your hearts to cleave to him as your Saviour, weaning your
hearts from the world, and causing you to love God above all, and to
delight in holiness more than in all the pleasant things of this earth;
and so that I now leave you in a miserable condition, having no interest
in Christ, and so under the awful displeasure and anger of God, and in
danger of going down to the pit of eternal misery.
But now I must bid you farewell: I must leave you in the hands of God; I
can do no more for you than to pray for you. Only I desire you not to
forget, but often think of the counsels and warnings I have given you,
and the endeavors I have used, that your souls might be saved from
everlasting destruction.
Dear children, I leave you in an evil world, that is full of snares and
temptations. God only knows what will become of you. This the Scripture
hath told us, that there are but few saved; and we have abundant
confirmation of it from what we see. This we see, that children die as
well as others: multitudes die before they grow up; and of those that grow
up, comparatively few ever give good evidence of saving conversion to God.
I pray God to pity you, and take care of you, and provide for you the best
means for the good of your souls; and that God himself would undertake for
you to be your heavenly Father and the mighty Redeemer of your immortal
souls. Do not neglect to pray for yourselves: take heed you ben't of the
number of those who cast off fear and restrain prayer before God.
Constantly pray to God in secret; and often remember that great day when
you must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and meet your minister
there, who has so often counselled and warned you.
I conclude with a few words of advice to all in general, in some
particulars, which are of great importance in order to the welfare and
prosperity of this church and congregation.
1. One thing that greatly concerns you, as you would be a happy people, is
the maintaining of family order.
We have had great disputes how the church ought to be regulated; and
indeed the subject of these disputes was of great importance: but the due
regulation of your families is of no less, and, in some respects, of much
greater importance. Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little
church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his
rules. And family education and order are some of the chief of the means
of grace. If these fail, all other means are like to prove ineffectual. If
these are duly maintained, all the means of grace will be like to prosper
and be successful.
Let me now, therefore, once more, before I finally cease to speak to this
congregation, repeat and earnestly press the counsel which I have often
urged on heads of families here, while I was their pastor, to great
painfulness in teaching, warning and directing their children; bringing
them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; beginning early, where
there is yet opportunity, and maintaining a constant diligence in labors
of this kind; remembering that, as you would not have all your
instructions and counsels ineffectual, there must be government as well as
instructions, which must be maintained with an even hand and steady
resolution, as a guard to the religion and morals of the family and the
support of its good order. Take heed that it be not with any of you as
with Eli of old, who reproved his children but restrained them not; and
that, by this means, you don't bring the like curse on your families as he
did on his.
And let children obey their parents, and yield to their instructions, and
submit to their orders, as they would inherit a blessing and not a curse.
For we have reason to think, from many things in the word of God, that
nothing has a greater tendency to bring a curse on persons in this world,
and on all their temporal concerns, than an undutiful, unsubmissive,
disorderly behavior in children towards their parents.
2. As you would seek the future prosperity of this society, it is of vast
importance that you should avoid contention.
A contentious people will be a miserable people. The contentions which
have been among you, since I first became your pastor, have been one of
the greatest burdens I have labored under in the course of my ministry:
not only the contentions you have had with me, but those which you have
had one with another about your lands and other concerns: because I knew
that contention, heat of spirit, evil speaking, and things of the like
nature, were directly contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and did, in
a peculiar manner, tend to drive away God's Spirit from a people and to
render all means of grace ineffectual, as well as to destroy a people's
outward comfort and welfare.
Let me therefore earnestly exhort you, as you would seek your own future
good hereafter, to watch against a contentious spirit. deg. If you would see
good days, seek peace, and ensue it, 1 Pet. iii. 10, 11. Let the
contention which has lately been about the terms of Christian communion,
as it has been the greatest of your contentions, so be the last of them. I
would, now I am preaching my farewell sermon, say to you, as the Apostle
to the Corinthians, 2 Cor. xiii. 11, 12: "Finally, brethren, farewell. Be
perfect, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace
shall be with you."
And here I would particularly advise those that have adhered to me in the
late controversy, to watch over their spirits and avoid all bitterness
towards others. Your temptations are, in some respects, the greatest;
because what has been lately done is grievous to you. But however wrong
you may think others have done, maintain, with great diligence and
watchfulness, a Christian meekness and sedateness of spirit; and labor, in
this respect, to excel others who are of the contrary part. And this will
be the best victory: for "he that rules his spirit, is better than he that
takes a city." Therefore let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.
Indulge no revengeful spirit in any wise; but watch and pray against it;
and, by all means in your power, seek the prosperity of the town: and
never think you behave yourselves as becomes Christians, but when you
sincerely, sensibly and fervently love all men, of whatever party or
opinion, and whether friendly or unkind, just or injurious, to you or your
friends, or to the cause and kingdom of Christ.
3. Another thing that vastly concerns the future prosperity of this town,
is, that you should watch against the encroachments of error; and
particularly Arminianism and doctrines of like tendency.
You were, many of you, as I well remember, much alarmed with the
apprehension of the danger of the prevailing of these corrupt principles
near sixteen years ago. But the danger then was small in comparison of
what appears now. These doctrines at this day are much more prevalent than
they were then: the progress they have made in the land, within this seven
years, seems to have been vastly greater than at any time in the like
space before: and they are still prevailing and creeping into almost all
parts of the land, threatening the utter ruin of the credit of those
doctrines which are the peculiar glory of the gospel, and the interests of
vital piety. And I have of late perceived some things among yourselves
that show that you are far from being out of danger, but on the contrary
remarkably exposed. The older people may perhaps think themselves
sufficiently fortified against infection; but it is fit that all should
beware of self-confidence and carnal security, and should remember those
needful warnings of sacred writ, "Be not high-minded, but fear;" and "let
him that stands, take heed lest he fall." But let the case of the older
people be as it will, the rising generation are doubtless greatly exposed.
These principles are exceeding taking with corrupt nature, and are what
young people, at least such as have not their hearts established with
grace, are easily led away with.
And if these principles should greatly prevail in this town, as they very
lately have done in another large town I could name, formerly greatly
noted for religion, and so for a long time, it will threaten the spiritual
and eternal ruin of this people in the present and future generations.
Therefore you have need of the greatest and most diligent care and
watchfulness with respect to this matter.
4. Another thing which I would advise to, that you may hereafter be a
prosperous people, is, that you would give yourselves much to prayer.
God is the fountain of all blessing and prosperity, and he will be sought
to for his blessing. I would therefore advise you not only to be constant
in secret and family prayer, and in the public worship of God in his
house, but also often to assemble yourselves in private praying societies.
I would advise all such as are grieved for the afflictions of Joseph, and
sensibly affected with the calamities of this town, of whatever opinion
they be with relation to the subject of our late controversy, often to
meet together for prayer, and to cry to God for his mercy to themselves,
and mercy to this town, and mercy to Zion and the people of God in general
through the world.
5. The last article of advice I would give (which doubtless does greatly
concern your prosperity), is, that you would take great care with regard
to the settlement of a minister, to see to it who, or what manner of
person he is that you settle; and particularly in these two respects:
(1) That he be a man of thoroughly sound principles in the scheme of
doctrine which he maintains.
This you will stand in the greatest need of, especially at such a day of
corruption as this is. And in order to obtain such a one, you had need to
exercise extraordinary care and prudence. I know the danger. I know the
manner of many young gentlemen of corrupt principles, their ways of
concealing themselves, the fair, specious disguises they are wont to put
on, by which they deceive others, to maintain their own credit, and get
themselves into others' confidence and improvement, and secure and
establish their own interest, until they see a convenient opportunity to
begin more openly to broach and propagate their corrupt tenets.
(2) Labor to obtain a man who has an established character, as a person of
serious religion and fervent piety.
It is of vast importance that those who are settled in this work should be
men of true piety, at all times, and in all places; but more especially at
some times, and in some towns and churches. And this present time, which
is a time wherein religion is in danger, by so many corruptions in
doctrine and practice, is in a peculiar manner a day wherein such
ministers are necessary. Nothing else but sincere piety of heart is at all
to be depended on, at such a time as this, as a security to a young man,
just coming into the world, from the prevailing infection, or thoroughly
to engage him in proper and successful endeavors to withstand and oppose
the torrent of error and prejudice against the high, mysterious,
evangelical doctrines of the religion of Jesus Christ, and their genuine
effects in true experimental religion. And this place is a place that does
peculiarly need such a minister, for reasons obvious to all.
If you should happen to settle a minister who knows nothing truly of
Christ and the way of salvation by him, nothing experimentally of the
nature of vital religion; alas, how will you be exposed as sheep without a
shepherd! Here is need of one in this place, who shall be eminently fit to
stand in the gap and make up the hedge, and who shall be as the chariots
of Israel and the horsemen thereof. You need one that shall stand as a
champion in the cause of truth and the power of godliness.
Having briefly mentioned these important articles of advice, nothing
remains but that I now take my leave of you, and bid you all _farewell_;
wishing and praying for your best prosperity. I would now commend your
immortal souls to him, who formerly committed them to me, expecting the
day, when I must meet you again before him, who is the Judge of quick and
dead. I desire that I may never forget this people, who have been so long
my special charge, and that I may never cease fervently to pray for your
prosperity. May God bless you with a faithful pastor, one that is well
acquainted with his mind and will, thoroughly warning sinners, wisely and
skilfully searching professors, and conducting you in the way to eternal
blessedness. May you have truly a burning and shining light set up in this
candlestick; and may you, not only for a season, but during his whole
life, and that a long life, be willing to rejoice in his light.
And let me be remembered in the prayers of all God's people that are of a
calm spirit, and are peaceable and faithful in Israel, of whatever opinion
they may be with respect to terms of church communion.
And let us all remember and never forget our future solemn meeting on that
great day of the Lord; the day of infallible decision and of the
everlasting and unalterable sentence. AMEN.