To think often of hell, is the way to be preserved from falling into hell.1 Ah ! young men, young men, that you would often consider of the bitterness of the damned's torments, and of the pitilessness of their torments, and of the diversity of their torments, and of the easelessness of their torments, and of the remedilessness of their torments. Mom, uta- newm est quod ,1,1,1 l,i t yaitemum quod cruciat, The sinner's delight here is momentary, that which torments hereafter is perpetual. When a shi- ner is in hell, dost thou think, 0 young man ! that another Christ shall be found to die for him, or that the same Christ will be crucified again for him, or that another gospel should be preached to him ? Surely no.
Ah ! why then wilt thou not betimes return and seek out after the tilings that belong to thy everlasting peace ? I have read of Pope Cle- ment the Fifth, that when a young nephew of his died, he sent his chaplain to a necromancer, to know of him how it fared with him in the other world ; the conjuror shewed him to the chaplain, lying in a fiery bed in hell, which, when the pope understood, he never joyed more, &c.a
Ah ! young man, that these occasional hints of hell may be a means to preserve thee from lying in those everlasting flames.
Bellarmine tells us of a certain advocate of the court of Rome, that being at the point of death, was stirred up by them that stood by, to repent and call upon God for mercy ; he, with a constant countenance, and without sign of fear, turned his speech to God, and said, Lord! I have a desire to speak unto thee, not for myself, but for my wife and children, for I am hastening to hell, neither is there anything that thou shouldst do for me ; and this he spake, saith Bellarmine, who was pre- sent, and heard it, as if he had spoken of a journey to some village or town, and Avas no more affrighted.3
Sir Francis Bacon also, in his History of Henry the Seventh, relates how it was a common byword of the Lord Cordes, that he would be content to live seven years in hell, so he might win Calice [Calais] from the English ;4 but if thou, 0 young man, art given up to such despe- rate atheism, and carnal apprehensions of hell, I am afraid God will confute thee one day by fire and brimstone ; but I would willingly hope better things of all those young persons, into whose hands this treatise shall fall ; and thus you see what things must be declined and avoided, if ever you would be good betimes, if ever you would seek and serve the Lord in the spring and morning of your days. .
But in the second place, as those things must be declined, so other
things huisf c,i ,;j',i/l a a ml ii 'ilige nfl ij be practised, if ever you wo ah I be ijonil betimes. 1 shall instance only in those that are most consider- able and weighty ; as,
First, If ever you would be good betimes, &c, then you must labour to be acquainted with four tilings betimes.
1 Chrysostom. Horn. 44. in Mat. 2 Jac. Rev. Hist Pont. Rom., 199.
liar. De arte Moriemti, lib. ii. cap. 10. 4 Works, by Speckling, Ellis, and lleath, vol. vi. p. 100. — G.
1 Kings XIV. 13.] apples of gold. 235
Duty (1). First, You must labour to acquaint yourselves with the Scripture betimes. You must study the word betimes. David studied the word in the morning of his days, in the primrose of his youth ; and this made him wiser than his enemies, yea, than his teachers ; this made him as much excel the ancients, as the sun excels the moon, or as the moon excels the twinkling stars, Ps. cxix. 97—103. Timothy was good betimes ; and no wonder, for in the primrose of his days he was acquainted with the Scripture ; he was inured to the word from his childhood, yea, from his infancy, as the word properly signifies.1 So in that 119th Psalm, the 9th verse, 'Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way ? By taking heed according to thy word.' There is no way to a holy heart and a clean life but by acquainting yourselves with the word betimes. One hath long since observed, that God hath bowed down the Scriptures to the capacity even of babes and sucklings, that all excuse may be taken away, and that young men may be encouraged to study the Scripture betimes.2 Ah, young men ! no histories are com- parable to the histories of the Scriptures : 1, for antiquity ; 2, rarity ; 3, variety; 4, brevity; 5, perspicuity; G, harmony; 7, verity. All other books cannot equal God's, either in age or authority, in dignity or excel- lency, in sufficiency or glory.3
Moses is found more ancient and more honourable than all those whom the Grecians make most ancient and honourable ; as Homer, Hesiod, and Jupiter himself, whom the Greeks have seated in the top of their divinity.
The whole Scripture is but one entire love-letter, despatched from the Lord Christ to his beloved spouse ; and who then but would still be a reading in this love-letter 1 Like Cascilia, a Roman maiden of noble parentage, who carried always about her the New Testament, that she might still be a-reading in Christ's love-letter, and behold the sweet workings of his love and heart towards his dear and precious ones.4
Luther found so much sweetness in the word, in Christ's love-letter, that made him say he would not live in paradise, if he might, without the word ; at cum verbo etiam in inferno facile est vivere, but with the word he could live in hell itself.
The word is like the stone garamantides, that hath drops of gold in itself, enriching of the believing soul. This the martyrs found, which made them willing- to give a load of hav for a few leaves of the Bible in English.
Augustine professeth that the sacred Scriptures were his whole delight.
And Jerome tells us of one Nepotianus, who, by long and assiduous meditation on the holy Scriptures, had made his breasts the library of Jesus Christ.5
And Rabbi Chiia, in the Jerusalem Talmud, saith that in his ac- count all the world is not of equal value with one word out of the law. That which a papist reports lyingly of their sacrament of the mass, viz.
1 2 Tim. iii. 15, anl B^'apois, from a suckling. s Augustine. — G.
3 Adoro pltnitudinem Scripturarum. — Tertullian. Gregory calls the Scripture cor et animam Dei, the heart and soul of God.
4 Cf. Clarke's ' Martyrologie,' 3d edition, 1677, p. 35.— G.
5 Hier. Epistola ad Heliod. in Epitaphium Nepotiani.
236 APPLES OF GOLD. [1 KlNGS XIV. 13.
that there are as ninny mysteries in it as there be drops in the sea, dust on the earth, angels in heaven, stars in the sky, atoms in the sunbeams, or sands on the sea-shore, &c., may be truly asserted of the Holy Scrip- tures.