I have read of one who boasted and gloried in this, that he had spent thirty years in corrupting and poisoning of youth. Doubtless, many wretches, many monsters there be among us, who make it their business, their glory, their all, to delude and draw young persons to those dan- gerous errors and blasphemies that lead to destruction. Error and folly, saith one very well, be the knots of Satan wherewith he ties children to the stake to be burned in hell.
There is a truth in what the tragedian [Terence?] said long since, ' Venerium in auro bibitur,' poison is commonly drunk out of a cup of gold. So is an error or by-notion soonest taken into the judgment and conscience from persons of the fairest carriage and smoothest conversations.
1 Valerius Maximus, lib. 3. c. de Fiducia. * Hist, of France, p. 196.
* Augustine, de tempore, serm. 266.
4 A blind eye is worse than a lame foot. lie that bad the leprosy in his head, was to be pronounced utterly unclean.
EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 171
Error is so foul an hag, that if it should come in its own shape, a man would loathe it, and fly from it as from hell.1
If Jezebel had not painted her face, she had not gotten so many young doating adulterers to have followed her to their own ruin.
Ah ! young men, young men, the blessing of the Lord upon your serious and diligent perusal of this treatise may be a happy means to preserve you from being ensnared and deluded by those monsters ' who compass sea and land to make proselytes for hell/ Mat. xxiii. 1 5.
And thus I have given you the reasons of my dedicating this treatise to the service of your souls. I would willingly presume that it will be as kindly taken as it is cordially tendered. I hope none of you into whose hands it may fall, will say as one Antipater, king of Macedonia, did ; when one presented him with a book treating of happiness, his answer was, On ff^oXa^w,2 I have no leisure.
Ah ! Young men and women, young men and virgins, as you tender3 the everlasting welfare of your souls ; as you would escape hell and come to heaven ; as you would have an interest in Christ, a pardon in your bosoms ; as you would be blessed here and glorious hereafter ; find time, find leisure, to read over and over the following treatise, which is pur- posely calculated for your eternal good.
But before I go further, I think it needful, in some respects, to give the world some further account of other reasons or motives that hath prevailed with me to appear once more in print ; and they are these :
First, Having preached a sermon occasionally4 upon these words, on which this following discourse is built, I was earnestly importuned to print the sermon by some worthy friends. I did as long as in modesty I could, withstand their desires, judging it not worthy of them ; but being at last overcome, and setting about the work, the breathings and comings in of God were such as hath occasioned that one sermon to mul- tiply into many. Luther tells us, that when he first began to turn his back upon popery, he intended no more but to withstand popish par- dons and selling indulgences ; yet neither would God or his enemies let him alone till he resolved with Moses not to leave a hoof of popery unopposed, Exod. x. 26, &c. God many times in the things of the gospel carries forth his servants beyond their intentions, beyond their resolu- tions. But,
Secondly, The kind acceptance and good quarter that my other pieces have found in the world, and those signal and multiplied blessings that have followed them, to the winning of many over to Christ, and to the building up of others in Christ, hath encouraged me to present this treatise to the world, hoping that the Lord hath a blessing in store for this also. Gracious experiences are beyond notions and impres- sions ; they are very quickening and encouraging.
1 This anticipates by nearly a century Pope's famous couplet : — ' Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen.' It may be well to add what follows : —
• Yet seen too oft familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.'
Epistle ii. lines 217-220.— G. 8 Cf. Sibbes's Works, vol. ii. p. 440.— G. 8 ' Care for.'— G.
4 ' On a particular occasion.' — G.
172 EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
Thirdly, That I might in some measure make up other neglects, whose age, whose parts, whose experiences, whose graces hath long called upon them to do something considerable in this way, and that they may be provoked by my weak assay1 to do better, and to make up what is wanting through my invincible infirmities and spiritual wants and weaknesses, which are so many as may well make a suffi- cient apology for all the defects and weaknesses that in this treatise shall appear to a serious judicious eye. But,
Fov/rbhly, The love of Christ and souls hath constrained me to it. As there is an attractive, so there is a compulsive, virtue in divine love. Love to Christ and souls will make a man willing to spend and be spent.2 He that prays himself to death, that preaches himself to death, that studies himself to death, that sweats himself to death, for the honour of Christ and good of souls, shall be no loser in the end. Divine love is like a rod of myrtle, which, as Pliny reports, makes the traveller that carries it in his hand that he shall never be faint or weary.3 Divine love is very operative ; si non operatur, non est, if it do not work, it is an argument it is not at all. Divine love, like fire, is not idle, but active. He that loves cannot be barren. Love will make the soul constant and abundant in well-doing. God admits none to heaven, saith Justin Martyr, but such as can persuade him by their works that they love him. The very heathen Seneca hath observed, that God doth not love his children with a weak, womanish affection, but with a strong, masculine love ; and certainly, they that love the Lord strongly, that love him with a masculine love, they cannot but lay out their little all for him and his glory. But,
Fifthly, I observe that Satan and his instruments are exceeding busy and unwearied in their designs, attempts, and endeavours in these days to corrupt and poison, to defile and destroy the young, the tender, the most hopeful, and most flourishing plants among us.
Latimer told the clergy in his time, that if they would not learn dili- gence and vigilance of the prophets and apostles, they should learn it of the devil,4 who goes up and down his dioceses, and acts by an untired power, seeking whom he may destroy. When the wolves are abroad, the shepherd should not sleep, but watch ; yea, double his watch, remem- bering that he were better have all the blood of all the men in the world upon him than the blood of one soul upon him by his negligence, or otherwise.