Use Second. A word of counsel to you whom God hath planted in religious families.
- Bless God for casting thy lot in so pleasant a seat and fruitful a soil for thy soul, where thou mayest suck in the sweet air of God’s Spirit that breathes from thy godly parents or other governors at the throne of grace from day to day; that thou art not wedged into some blind atheistical family, there to live with a godless crew, among whom thou mightest have passed thy days without any knowledge of thy Maker, and with them have been involved in that curse of God which is in the house of the wicked, and hangs like a black cloud in the threatening, ready to pour down upon the families that call not upon his name. Look round thy neighbourhood and see how many families there are who live like brutes, as in so many dark caves and dens, where none of that heavenly light is seen, from one end of the year to the other, which shines on thy face every day. What nurture and breeding should thy soul have had under the tutoring of such parents and masters, who themselves live ‘without God in the world?’ The queen of Sheba counted them happy that stood before Solomon, not so much that they might see his pomp, but hear his wisdom. O happy thou—if grace to know thy privilege—that thou ministerest unto a godly master, art under gracious parents, or yoked to a holy husband, from whose devout prayers, pious counsels, and Christian examples, thou mayest gain more than if they had the wealth, delicacies, and preferments of Solomon’s court to confer upon thee.
2. Look you make improvement of this spiritual advantage, or else it will go worse with you than others. Rebellious Israel is told, ‘They shall know that they had a prophet among them.’ The meaning is, they shall know it to their cost; and so shall those that have lived in families, under such governors who went before them, and, as it were, chalked out a way to heaven by their godly example, lamenting over their precious souls so oft with their prayers and tears. If such miscarry, they shall know to their terror what families they once live in but had not a heart to prize or improve the mercy. God forbid that any of you should find the way to hell out of such doors, and force your way to damnation through such means afforded to prevent it. What will Cain answer when his father that begat him shall bear witness against him, and say, ‘Lord, this wicked child of mine never learned his atheism of me. I brought him to thy worship and taught him thy fear, but he liked it not, and first proved a murderer and then an apostate. First, he behaved himself wickedly in thy service, and then ran out of thy doors and cast it quite off.’ What will then the flouting wife of David—who, though of a wicked stock, was privileged with so gracious a husband—say when she shall be accused for making him her laughing‑stock for his zeal in the worship of God? Or how will the wicked children of the same holy man who walked with such uprightness in his house look their godly father on the face at the great day? You, my children, said dying Mr. Bolton, dare not, I believe, meet me at the day of judgment in an unregenerate state. The weight of such holy men’s prayers and admonitions will then sink their ungodly relations deeper into hell than others who drop thither out of dark and blind families.
